I just don’t think it’s possible to solve it from that angle of attack; people fear terrorism for the same reason they would fear an escaped tiger at the zoo; it’s only going to kill and eat one person, maybe two or three, out of the ten thousand people present, so why worry? It probably won’t be you.
Do you really think “al-Qaeda”, to the extent that organization even exists, actually has hundreds of people ready to become suicide bombers and the problem is infiltrating them into the USA?
Then I’m confused as to your intent. Several people have attempted to engage the debate so far but you have said thats not what you are looking for. However, I’ll see what I can do.
A couple of things here. First off, yes…the WTC was an important building. So was the Pentagon. So is the White House. So is the Capital. So are any number of OTHER buildings. New York city itself is rather important come to that. So is Chicago. I don’t see your point here. Do you suppose that the WTC was the only building/city/structure the terrorists would ever attack?
Secondly, how are you definining your statement that ‘the economic fallout was actually not that great’? The economic fallout was billions of dollars after all…and a definite downturn in the economy. Are these minor things to you? After all, you stated above that we could have one of these events a year with no real sweat on our part. “IF EVERY YEAR HAD A SEPTEMBER 11th, murder would still be our bigger concern by far”.
Lastly, you seem to be taking it as granted that you can somehow change human nature. Sure, its psychological. Kind of a no brainer there, since thats what terrorism is all about after all.
You seem to be saying that if people will just realize that its no big deal they can just get back to their little lives with no fuss, no muss. Unfortunately, unless you have figured out some way of fundamentally changing human nature and haven’t mentioned it so far, perception is reality in this case. Thats why terror tactics work…and have worked for pretty much human history. Oh, we can intellectually say that its no big deal…but psychologically its a different ball of wax (or can of worms). And you can’t simply wave this away as if it has no consequence. People are very bad at risk management and risk assessment. YOu telling them this however isn’t going to suddenly cause a light to go off across the board among the masses as they realize how brilliant you are. And you waving it aside as if its nothing has the effect of YOUR arguements being unrealistic…because they don’t take into account human nature.
I disagree. I think that essentially its all about risk assessment and how people calculate risks. Terrorism is something that is a gut level fear…like air plane flight to some folks. It has to do with control or the lack of it…or I should say PERCEIVED control. The classic example I was taught was car travel vs air line travel. People don’t even give a second thought to the risks associated with driving their car every day to work, to the store, ect. Thats because there is a perception of control. People will even drive their cars while intoxicated. And yet, they fear travel by air and consistently rate it as a higher danger than driving their car…despite the fact that driving your car is several times more risky than flying in an air plane. Another example would be smoking/drinking risks vs death by some obscure but horrible disease.
Silly of people to think the way they do. They SHOULD worry about what is the actual highest risk, and be able to come to terms with things like plane accidents…or terrorist attacks. But human beings don’t work the way they should in the ideal…they work the way they work.
Excellent point! Now all you have to do is tell us how you propose to change humanity at a fundamental level! I suppose mass re-education camps may work. What are your thoughts?
No, I was saying you appearently wanted to leave these things out of the discussion, as you were blowing them off as unimportant. I said I don’t believe one can calculate the impact of terrorism solely by the body count…since the purpose of terrorism is not to (necessarily) rack up huge body counts wrt an entire population, but to cause fear and panic…both psychological responses.
-XT
I don’t believe thats an accurate characterization of AQ’s dream to be honest. They don’t usually go in for that small stuff. I’d say that AQ’s dream is to get ahold of a pocket nuke and plant it in a major western city as its next big event…or in keeping with their M.O. several of the things detonated simultaneously in several different western nations cities or capitals. I’m sure that this too would be a minor inconvinence, if we look solely at body count. Say AQ manages to put such a bomb in London, Paris, Berlin and DC. Lets say that the bombs kill no more than 100k citizens in each city. We still come out ahead body count wise, as there are more deaths from smoking than from the bomb in each individual country! And I’m sure the economic impact, once people realize this, will be minor as well.
-XT
Here’s the thing- you can take reasonable steps to greatly reduce your chance of being murdered: live in a city with a low murder rate, don’t belong to a gang, don’t be a drug dealer and so on. You can take reasonable steps to greatly reduce your chances of dying in an auto accident: drive a car with a high safety rating, don’t drive drunk, don’t speed excessively, drive defensively, etc etc. You can take reasonable steps to not get cancer: don’t smoke, eat right, get regular check-ups, don’t get burnt out in the sun, and so forth. All these dangers have a very strong element of risk that you can control.
But other than living out in the wild, you can’t do much about the chance of being blown up by terrorists. Thus, dudes are scared/concerned about terrorism because they are powerless to do anything about it.
Face it, as an American, the chance of you dying from smoking is much higher than dying from a terrorist bomb- and dudes know that smoking can kill them. yet they still do it, as it is a danger they (think) they can control.
Thus, terrorism is a very real threat, and more scary than murder, or cancer or car accidents.
My answer is along these lines, but a bit more cynical. Terrorism is very minor for the country as a whole, but for our rulers and media moguls terrorism vastly increases their threat of dying. The suits don’t wander around the ghetto, and so are not likely to be the victim of gang violence, but they do wander on airplanes or in skyscrapers.
I’m not diminishing the threat, because if they get their hands on a nuclear warhead the death rate would be significant. A president who really cares about the WoT would spend a lot more money securing nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union and a lot less on invading non-terrorist states.
Since only a few hundred people died at Pearl Harbor, should we really have responded to the threat by going to a full war with Japan? I mean, really, we could have survived plenty of Pearl Harbors each year as compared to the murder rate, and it wasn’t like Japan was going to bomb anyone who wasn’t on the West Coast. Why should New England worry about what Japan bombs?
I’ll echo what DrDeth said, but push it further: it’s not just a matter of “there’s nothing I can do to stop myself from getting killed by terrorists.” In fact, there is stuff I can do: I can stop getting on airplanes, and I can stop going to cities that have important buildings in them. These are not things that would help an economy; in fact, they can sabotage them (much like what actually happened post 9/11).
**Alex_Dubinsky **, I think you are missing the big picture. 9/11 demonstrated that terrorists have the ability to cause MASSIVE destruction as opposed to the mild temporary inconvience caused by car bombs killing a dozen random people. Two of the tallest buildings in the world and the surrounding blocks were completely destroyed. The headquarters of the most powerful military in the world was directly attacked. Four airliners were destroyed. Not to mention thousands of people killed and billions of dollars lost.
For years we did treat terrorism as if it wasn’t a threat. A random suicide bombing here. A smalish warship damaged there. It was treated much in the same way you might treat a bad car accident or a building fire.
5 years later the terrorists are still out there and we haven’t really been doing much that would make them LESS pissed off at us. To me it seems irresponsibily naive to assume terrorism is not a threat.
That said, just because terrorism is something that needs fighting does not mean I feel this administration is fighting it correctly, nor do I think the level of fearmongering generated by the media and bought into by middle America is warented.
You said it better than I did.
I’ll also point out that most of the reasonable steps we can do to reduce our risk for Murder, Cancer or auto accidents are things which are good for us and/or the economy. As you said- not so with terrorism.
I think terrorism IS a real threat. Imagine if Flt 93 had crashed into the Capitol. It would have paralyzed the govt. If the latest plans had been succesful and 10 planes had gone down their would have been economic chaos. Air cargo, business travel, professional sports, vacations, kids going off to college all would have been affected.
Things have fundamentally changed. This is not a few nuts trying to hijack planes to Cuba, it’s people willing to die for their cause and who have absolutely no moral qualms about killing innocent people. In my mind it is inevitable that there will be more attacks on air travel. Think how easy it would be to pack a laptop full of plastic explosives or ship bombs by air freight.
I think soon we will see a world where every single piece of luggage on passenger flights will be searched by hand. No electronics of any kind will be permitted and all air cargo will be on dedicated flights. Passenger train travel will come to a halt because the tracks can not be made safe. Major bridges and tunnels will have armed checkpoints and all trucks permitted through will be sealed like they are by customs.
Given all this, I still don’t think we have to violate the constitution with warrantless searches.
I think are highest priority needs to be the resolution of the Israel/Palestine issue. We could give every Palestinian and Israeli a million dollars and still come out ahead.
The threat of terrorism is a tiny fraction of what we make it out to be.
9-11 was splashy but the number of actual deaths was a mere blip compared to deaths by other preventable causes in the United States. I’m more likely to get killed driving to Disneyland on the 405 than in a terrorist attack. And I live in a major city that might actually be a target. The danger to folks in the heartland is essentially ZERO.
And, realistically, the capacity of ANY external enemy to cause significant death and destruction within the United States by non-nuclear means is very. very limited. It’s quite difficult logistically to maintain a terrorist cell in a foreign country, particularly now that Americans are aware of the possibility of a 9-11 style attack.
(One of the best thing we could do, actually, to protect ourselves from a future 9-11 is to give as much support as possible to Arab-American groups and American Muslims in general. The only place for Arab terrorists to hide is within Arab & Islamic communities in the United States. The patrotism of Arab-Americans and American Muslims is our first line of defense.)
The only form of terrorism that DOES worry me is nuclear. A nuclear attack on New York or L.A. could be carried out without creating a terrorist cell inside the country. It could be accomplished by detonating a bomb in a shipping container in a merchant ship arriving from a foreign port. I would be far, far happier if the money wasted in Iraq had been spent on securing nuclear materials in Kazakhstan and beefing up port security.
If Japan’s only goal had been to kill Americans, this would be a reasonable comparason. But Japan’s attack at Pearl Harbor had a strategic purpose as well: the crippling of the American Pacific fleet to allow Japan continue its on-going war of conquest in the Far East without American interference.
We didn’t go to war with Japan because they attacked us at Pearl Harbor. We went to war with Japan because Japan’s imperial ambitions in the Pacific were damaging to the United States. We probably would have wound up at war with them eventually even if Pearl Harbor had never been attacked. The Japanese certainly thought so. They attacked Pearl Harbor on the theory that if war was inevitable, it was better to start it with the enemy crippled.
So, what greater global threat does Al Qaeda represent?
Were you under the impression that AQ wanted to kill American’s for the hell of it? For fun? Do you think they have no strategic goals???
We didn’t go to war because of Pearl Harbor? Do you have any evidence we were planning on attacking Japan prior to Pearl Harbor??
AQ’s plan (from memory) is the creation of an Islamic superstate that would be a superpower able to compete with the west…and basically tell them where they can go. They happen to want to create said superstate where there is a vital natural resource, important to every modern industrial nation. So…I suppose it would depend on if you think that the potential of cutting off said resource is a ‘greater global threat’. To use the Japan example above…THEY certainly saw the cutting off of oil by the US as a threat.
Of course, if you don’t really believe AQ is serious about it (maybe they are kidding or deluded), or if you think they can’t possibly pull it off then I suppose they are really no threat at all.
-XT
That’s kind of odd to say if you think about it. Aren’t there no fly zones over the Pentagon? The Pentagon was on high alert before the hit. Why couldn’t the most powerful military in the world defend their headquarters?
We were already fighting a war by proxy with Japan through our assistance to China. We had embargoed vital raw materials, including, most importantly petroleum. We put the Japanese in the position where their only choices were going to war or giving up their empire.
No, I don’t believe the United States would have attacked Japan directly if we hadn’t been attacked first. We didn’t need to.
But we didn’t go to war to prevent more Pearl Harbors. We went to war to prevent the Japanese from taking control of most of Asia.
I think they’re quite serious and quite deluded. The idea that a rag-tag bunch of religious cranks in a cave in Afghanistan could get the Pakistanis, the Iranians, the Iraqis, the Palestinians, the Saudis, the Egyptians, and Lord knows who else to join up into some sort of Islamic superstate is, not to put too fine a point on it, laughable. Hell, the Iraqis can’t even form themselves into a unified country!
That’s what you’re worried about? Why not worry about something plausable, like the Communists returning to power in Russia and invading Eastern Europe?
You actually think there’s a danger of Al Qaeda forming an Islamic superstate … wow. That explains a lot.
Because the Pentagon isn’t defended by anti-aircraft rockets and artillary, there aren’t entrenched fortifications around the building, and fighter jets don’t patrol constantly overhead.
I also don’t believe they had a lot of warning that the Pentagon itself was under attack, or they would have been able to evacuate some of the building at least (though a LOT of folks work there).
-XT
We went to war because we were viciously attacked and directly threatened. That was the primary reason. We didn’t do so to prevent the Japanese from taking control of most of Asia…that was just a happy outcome.
Um…I don’t believe the idea is quite to get them to join up. Certainly your strawman is laughable though. Religious factionalism itself would preclude such a stupid idea as ‘getting them to join up’, no?
I think you are also under estimating the perception of AQ on certain religious factions, and also I believe you don’t really understand who their target market is. Not to put too fine a point on it, they aren’t appealing to the ruling class, the kings and such…and they aren’t appealing to every Islamic sect either.
Because there isn’t as much oil in Eastern Europe? You see, they don’t have to SUCCEED in order to disrupt things. Again, I think you are blowing this off without either thinking it through deeply, or perhaps without really understanding the underlieing forces at play in the region. But sure…laugh it off. I’m sure oil isn’t all THAT necessary after all, right? 
And you don’t see them as a threat but as comic relief appearently. That explains a lot too…
-XT
Then why were we supporting the Chinese in the first place? If we hadn’t cared about what the Japanese did in Asia, we could have avoided war entirely.
We put pressure on them to achieve our political goals. We assumed they would cave. They attacked instead. We fought back. It’s disingenuous to pretend that Pearl Harbor didn’t occur as part of an escalating confrontation between the United States and Japan over who controlled large chunks of Asia.
Please describe specifically the scenario we are trying to prevent here. First you raise the spectre of a pan-Islamismic revolution, but when I say that’s ridiculous you say, well, yes it is, but they don’t actually have to take control of a bunch of countries, they just have to DISRUPT things.
Disrupt what things? How? What exactly are we stopping Al Qaeda from doing?
The worst thing I can see in realpolitik terms is if they were able to lead a popular revolt in Saudi Arabia and depose the House of Saud. But, then what? Even then they would probably keep the oil flowing so they could continue to fund their pan-Islamic pipedream. And if they did cut off the oil (slitting their own throats in the process) it would take about three weeks for the U.S. Army to seize control of the oil fields and open the taps again.
Seriously, paint me a scenario that spells out exactly what we’re supposed to be scared of happening.
No, I see Al Qaeda as about the same level of threat as the militia movement in the United States in the 1990’s: Capable of committing heinous acts, but politically a dead end.
Didn’t we just have this discussion already? Compared to car accidents (and apparently murders) nearly every other threat shrinks to insignificance. This is nothing new, driving a car is about the most dangerous thing most modern men ever do. But why stop at terrorism? Compared to road accidents and murder rates, the little more than 1,000 killed in Lebanon is trivial? Not really something to worry about. The 50,000+ killed in Iraq? A trifle pittance, hardly worth mentioning, when we could focus on more worthy subjects, like highway protection in Ohio. Earthquake in Pakistan? No, remember more people killed in traffic. Tsunami in Asia? Nope, let’s focus on the real problems, like murder rates in New York. AIDS in the US? Yeah, right. Cut funding immediately. More people are killed in road accidents every day, than has ever been killed by AIDS in the US. etc. etc.
You cannot compare 3,000 deaths that might happen over the course of a year with 3,000 that are killed in one event, especially when it was not the first attempt and we know people would like to make it happen again.
So, no. The threat is very real and, sadly—amaziingly—not fully appreciated yet.