The US Department of State (Hilary's stomping ground) makes public information for American (though the information is accessible to anyone) about countries worldwide. They recently released an update on their profile of Sweden, a known-to-be-relatively-safe Scandinavian country. The best/least useful part of the recent release relates to the potential for encountering terrorist activities in Sweden. They state that
Sweden remains largely free of terrorist incidents. However, like other countries in the Schengen area, Sweden's open borders with its Western European neighbors allow the possibility of terrorist groups entering/exiting the country with anonymity. You should remain vigilant and exercise caution.
Thanks guys, that information is really useful. Why couldn't you have just said something like "As safe or safer than the rest of Western Europe." By suggesting, even if only obliquely, that Sweden may be at risk of a terrorist attack the State Department undermines not only the usefulness of this report, but all other instances in which they pass on information about terrorist threat levels.
Making such a statement is akin to including safe handling instructions with shipments of NaCl (salt), they just encourage people to discount all such warnings as baseless. Given that there are situations in which such warnings (whether they be about terrorism or the dangers posed by chemicals) are important it is important that they not be de-valued and made a mockery of.
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