SIX PROPOSITIONS

ABOUT

SIX RATHER

UNUSUAL PROPOSITIONS

“Critical threats” to the United States

0

25

50

75

100

1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006

International terrorism

Unfriendly countries becoming nuclear

Chemical and biological weapons

AIDS and epidemics

Development of China as world power

Large numbers of immigrants and refugees

Economic power of (competition from) Japan

Islamic fundmentalism

Military power of Russia (Soviet Union)

Economic competion from Europe

Foreign policy goals% saying “very important”

0

25

50

75

100

1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006

Combating internationalterrorismProtect US jobs

Prevent nuclear spread

Defend allies' security

Protect US businessabroadStrengthen UN

Protect weak againstaggressionBring democracy

1. Terrorism generally has only limited direct effects

--60 Minutes (CBS), 16 February 2003

Michael Moore: The chances of any of us dying in a terrorist incident is very, very, very small.

Bob Simon: No one sees the world like that.

-100

100

300

500

700

900

1100

1300

1500

1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002

Total number of international terrorist incidents

U.S. deaths from international terrorism

U.S. deaths from lightning

International Terrorism and Lightning

Previous high: 329 in 1985 when Air India plane blown up by Sikhs

NUCLEAR WEAPONS

BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

CHEMICAL WEAPONS

MISSILES

RADIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

WMD

Nuclear weapons:

The mass production and widespread distribution of increasingly sophisticated and

increasingly powerful man‑portable weapons will greatly add to the terrorist's

arsenal and the world's increasing dependence on nuclear power may provide terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

--Brian Jenkins, 1975

Biological weapons:rarely, if ever, used

Aum Shinrikyo experience

spread as aerosol

explosion can destroy

storage difficult

Chemical weapons:World War I experience

Aum Shinrikyo in 1995: kill 12

Iraq in Halabja in 1988: 5000 dead?

Gas made war uncomfortable--to no purpose

A ton of nerve gas or five tons of mustard gas could produce heavy casualties among unprotected people in an open area of one kilometer square. Even for nerve gas this would take the concentrated delivery into a rather small area of about 300 heavy artillery shells or seven 500-pound bombs

A ton of Sarin nerve gas perfectly delivered under absolutely ideal conditions over a heavily populated area against unprotected people could cause between 3000 and 8000 deaths. Under slightly less ideal circumstances--if there was a moderate wind or if the sun was out, for example--the death rate would be only one-tenth as great

Missiles:cost

accuracy

Radiological weapons:panic only

9/11: aberration or harbinger?

al-Qaeda capacity?

Lockerbie 1988

Oklahoma City 1995

Aum Shinrikyo 1995

But WWI, WTC 1993

I think, therefore they are, 2003

--Robert Mueller February 11, 2003 testimony

The greatest threat is from al-Qaeda cells in the US that we have not yet identified.

al-Qaeda maintains the ability and the intent to inflict significant casualties in the US with little warning.

That threat is increasing partly because of the publicity surrounding the DC sniper shootings and the anthrax letter attacks.

I think, therefore they are, 2005

--Robert Mueller February 16, 2005 testimony

I remain very concerned about what we are not seeing. (bolded)

FBI's counter-terrorist accomplishments in 2004

1. They picked up evidence in that year that bad guys had conducted surveillance of financial targets and called an expensive orange alert.

2. The Brits picked up some bad guys, and the FBI dutifully set up a "task force" to see if there was a "U.S. nexus" to these guys.

3. After receiving information "suggesting" an attack was being planned "possibly timed to coincide with the presidential election," they set up another "task force" consisting of "thousands of FBI personnel." Over the course of six months, these thousands of spooks found no evidence not only of a plot but even of whether "an operation was indeed being planned." On the positive side, however, he is "certain that the FBI's tremendous response to the threat [not "suggested threat" or "imagined threat"] played an integral role in disrupting any operational plans that may have been underway."

4. They made three (3) arrests. One was of a "spiritual leader" in Virginia who may actually have been worth arresting. Another was of a guy in Minneapolis who admitted to doing some sniping in Afghanistan and Chechnya in the 1990s. And the third was arrested on money laundering charges "connected" to a "possible" plot to kill a Pakistani diplomat.

2. The costs of terrorism very often come mostly from the fear and consequent reaction (or overreaction) it characteristically inspires

9/11: economic costs human costs opportunity costs

Clinton and embassy bombings,1998

9/11: economic costs human costs opportunity costs

If terrorists force us to redirect resources away from sensible programs and future growth, in order to pursue unachievable but politically popular levels of domestic security, then they have won an important victory that mortgages our future.

3. The terrorism industry is a major part of the terrorism problem

An incentive to pass along vague and unconfirmed threats of future violence, in order to protect

themselves from criticism in the event of another attack.

Politicians

Bureaucracy

Media

Risk entrepreneurs

Juval Aviv, Staying Safe New York: HarperResource, 2004Hardcover: The Complete Terrorism Survival Guide, Juris Publishing, 2003

Stay away from crowdsTreat official reassurances circumspectlyAsk yourself where you stand in the hierarchy of terrorist targetsDetermine whether someone is paying too much attention to one

particular thingKeep in mind that a terrorist may be one of your customersBe wary of odd-looking neighborsTry yoga-type breathing exercises to relaxSeparate small pets from large onesKnow the five primary means of assassinationNever take the first taxicab in lineIn a department store or other crowded public place, be careful

not to get trampledForgo eating food from salad bars or restaurant smorgasbordsWash your hands after returning from an outing, especially if you

used mass transit or a taxicab

Juval Aviv, Staying Safe New York: HarperResource, 2004Hardcover: The Complete Terrorism Survival Guide, Juris Publishing, 2003

Don’t eat, drink, or smoke around mailIn a multipurpose household, designate one person as the

primary mail openerMake it a standard practice to wash with antibacterial soap

immediately after touching mailNever shake a suspect piece of mailAvoid long waits at U.S. border crossingsDon’t exchange currency at the airportNever park in underground garagesAvoid aisle seats on airplanesSpend as little time at the airport as possibleStay away from heavily glassed areas in airportsAt an airport baggage carousel, position yourself near the

luggage chuteTry to fly wide-body planes, because terrorists often avoid

hijacking them

The Islamists in al Qaeda, in other similar groups, and ordinary Muslims worldwide have been infected by hatred for U.S. policies toward the Muslim world. America’s support for Israel, Russia, China, India,

Algeria, Uzbekistan, and others against Islamists; its protection of multiple Muslim tyrannies; its efforts to

control oil policy and pricing; and its military activities in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula, and elsewhere—these are the sources of the infection of

hatred spreading in the Islamic world….

--Anonymous, Imperial Hubris (2004), cheery last pages

Until those policies change, the United States has no option but an increasingly fierce military response to the

forces marshaled by bin Laden, an option that will prolong America’s survival but at as yet undreamed of

costs in blood, money, and civil liberties.

To secure as much of our way of life as possible, we will have to use military force in the way Americans used it on the fields of Virginia and Georgia, in France and on the Pacific islands, and from skies

over Tokyo and Dresden. Progress will be measured by the pace of killing and, yes, by body counts. Not the fatuous body counts of

Vietnam, but precise counts that will run to extremely large numbers. The piles of dead will include as many or more civilians as combatants because our enemies wear no uniforms. Killing in large number is not enough to defeat our Muslim foes. With killing must come a Sherman‑like razing of infrastructure. Roads and irrigation

systems; bridges, power plants, and crops in the field; fertilizer plants and grain mills‑‑all these and more will need to be destroyed to deny the enemy its support base. Land mines, moreover, will be massively reintroduced to seal borders and mountain passes too

long, high, or numerous to close with U.S. soldiers. As noted, such actions will yield large civilian casualties, displaced populations, and

refugee flows.

I would like to thank Ms. Christina Davidson who labored mightily to delete from the text excess vitriol.

--Anonymous, Imperial Hubris (2004), pp. 241-42

Fragile, vulnerable, existential, survival

Myers: do away with our way of life

Y2K effect

Athens OlympicsDemocratic conventionRepublican convention

Election campaignPresidential vote

--Bernard Brodie

As serious and potentially catastrophic as a domestic CBRN attack might prove, it is highly

unlikely that it could ever completely undermine the national security, much less

threaten the survival, of the United States as a nation....To take any other position risks

surrendering to the fear and intimidation that is precisely the terrorist's stock in trade.

--Gilmore Commission, 1999

4. Policies designed to deal with terrorism should focus more on reducing fear and anxiety as inexpensively as possible than on objectively reducing the rather limited dangers terrorism is likely actually to pose

Bin Laden goal: overreaction

It is easy for us to provoke and bait....All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin...to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al‑Qaeda in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses. Our policy is one of bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. The terrorist attacks cost al‑Qaeda $500,000 while the attack and its aftermath inflicted a cost of more than $500 billion on the United States.

--John McCain, Why Courage Matters (2004)

Get on the damn elevator! Fly on the damn plane! Calculate the odds of

being har med by a terrorist! It’s still about as likely as being swept out to sea by a tidal wave….Suck it up, for

crying out loud. You’re almost certainly going to be okay. And in the unlikely

event you’re not, do you really want to spend your last days cowering behind

plastic sheets and duct tape? That’s not a life worth living, is it?

Watch the

terrorist alert and go outside

again when it

falls below yellow.

--John McCain, Why Courage Matters (2004)

Watch the

terrorist alert and go outside

again when it

falls below yellow. ?

--Michael Sivak and Michael J. Flannagan in American Scientist, Jan-Feb 2003

An American's chance of being killed in one non-stop airline flight:

one in 13 millionAn American’s chance of being killed while

driving 11.2 miles on America's safest roads, rural interstate highways:

one in 13 millionNumber of 9/11-type airline crashes required to

make flying as dangerous as driving the same distance on America's safest roads:

one a month

Risk of death for an American over a 50-year period

Botulism 1 in 2,000,000

Fireworks 1 in 1,000,000

Tornado 1 in 50,000

Airplane crash 1 in 20,000

Electrocution 1 in 5,000

Firearms accident 1 in 2,000

Automobile accident 1 in 100

Asteroid impactAsteroid impact 1 in 6,0001 in 6,000

Airplane hijacking?Cheap reassurance

Cry wolfKeep track of predictions

Reduce costsCheck literature on witches

Absorb?

Risk communicationpeople tend greatly to overestimate the chances of dramatic or sensational

causes of deathrealistically informing people about risks sometimes only makes them

more frightenedstrong beliefs are very difficult to modifya new sort of calamity tends to be taken as harbinger of future mishapsa disaster tends to increase fears not only about that kind of danger but of

all kindspeople, even professionals, are susceptible to the way risks are

expressed‑‑far less likely, for example, to choose radiation therapy if told the chances of death are 32% rather than that the chances of survival are 68%

when presented with two estimations of risk from reasonably authoritative sources, people choose to embrace the high risk opinion regardless of its source; that is, there is a predilection toward alarmist responses and excessive weighting of the worst case scenario

Average background radiation in US 360 mrem per year

High end of low level radiation range 10,000 total mrem

Well-known cause of cancer 30,000 total mrem

Blood cell changes, infections, temporary sterility 200,000 short-term mrem

Death with days or weeks 400,000 short-term mrem

Dirty bomb?

LNT

To live at 245 mrem per year:Don’t have a pacemakerDon’t have porcelain crowns or false teethDon’t use a gas camping lanternDon’t have X-rays or a CAT ScanDon’t live in a stone, adobe brick, or concrete buildingDon’t wear a luminous wristwatchDon’t watch TVDon’t use a computer terminalDon’t have a smoke detector in your homeDon’t live within 50 miles of a nuclear or coal-fired power

plantDon’t consume food or waterLive in BiloxiDon’t fly or go to airports

100 1

7

1

40

Columbus 16Denver 68Leadville 117 1 mrem per two hours in the air

Airline crews: 100 mrem per year

Source: National Safety Council

5. Doing nothing (or at least refraining from overreacting) after a terrorist attack is not necessarily unacceptable

Lebanon 1983Somalia 1993World Trade Center 1993Oklahoma City 1995Khobar Towers 1996U.S.S. Cole 2000Anthrax 2001Madrid 2003

6. Despite U.S. overreaction, the campaign against terror is generally going rather well

The United States is living on borrowed time‑‑and squandering it.

How much security is enough: when the American people can conclude that a future

attack on U.S. soil will be an exceptional event that does not require wholesale changes

in how they go about their lives.

The entire nation...must be organized for the long, deadly struggle against terrorism.

--Stephen Flynn

THE END