Risks of More Terrorist Acts, Preparations, and Useless Bomb Shelters
"Could there be other terrorist attacks? Of course. There have been two in the last 10 years, I suppose there could be more. On the scale of 9/11, probably not. On a smaller scale, probably yes. "
Hard to say what the odds are of events where we know so little and where "personalities" play such a major role (e.g., where a freedom fighter decides personally to strap on explosives and walk into a shopping mall).
My own guestimate is that the worst is yet to come. Could be a light plane crashed into a baseball or football stadium, spewing burning avgas over several thousand in the stands. Could be a van loaded with fuel oil and dynamite driven through the flimsy glass doors of a suburban shopping mall in Sherman Oaks or Skokie. Could be deliberate infection of the nation's beef supply with BSE (*).
(Bovine Spongiform Encephalopoly, or BSE, is "Mad Cow Disease." Someone acting as a vet, for example, could deliberately infect enough herds before detection so that large scale destruction of most of the nation's cattle would be needed. People would be frightened away from eating beef, as happened in Britain, and McDonald's, etc. places would likely fail. A lot of bang for the terrorist buck.)
"We've got 250 million folks spread over a large land mass. What's the chance of an individual American being hurt in a terroist attack? Is this fear realistic?"
The chances are not high, but risk assessment doesn't work in a straightforward way.
And the security measures put in place after an attack deter people even if they don't particularly fear being hurt directly. For example, many people are skipping air travel when they can. (I haven't flown since 911, and I don't plan to anytime soon. Why put up with jackbooted teenagers waving M-16s and demanding to inspect my choice of reading materials?)
By the way, these "knock-on" effects of terrorism are highly cost-effective for terrorists. The 911 events may have cost 3000 lives, but the economic effects were in the many tens of billions dollars range (I've heard estimates as high as $100 B, but this sounds too high...still, a lot of bang for the buck.)
"Where is the "second wave" of attacks. Where are the "100's of terrorist sleeper cells". Remember when millions of Americans built useless bomb shelters in their backyards? "
First, there were never "millions" of bomb shelters. The corporations selling such shelters at shopping malls (I saw them being sold at Seven Corners, northern Virginia, circa 1962) had poor sales for the short period when the scare was greatest. My hunch is that no more than several thousand backyard shelters were ever installed. (Note: I'm not counting tornado shelters.)
Second, the same point about "attacks that never came" can be made about tornadoes that never came (and thus made the storm shelters "unnecessary"), the hurricanes that hit elswhere (same point), the earthquake preps that were never needed, and, of course, most forms of insurance.
Third, preparations are a matter for individuals and companies to decide about. Within reason, better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Within reason, of course.
There are a lot of what strategists call "soft targets" in the U.S. And a lot of people angry at Uncle Sam for butting-in around the world. Some fraction of those angry people are going to hit some fraction of those soft targets.
(Oh, and a postscript about backyard bomb shelters. Most were worthless, of course. During the citybuster era, with large nukes, the flimsy shelters and limited supplies of air and water would have been useless. But avoiding living in soft target areas is what many people choose to do, for various reasons. Security being one of them. Fewer inner city mutant gang bangers, fewer targets for Russians or Libyans or Hamas to hit. Lastly, my father was in the Navy, stationed in Washington, for the Cuban Missile Crisis. He confirmed, years later, that the alert had gone to DEFCON 2, the state immediately prior to going to war. Had the Russian ships not turned back at the blockade, had the U.S. decided (as it almost did) to hit the Russian base where the missile that knocked down the U.S. jet had come from, a shooting war likely would have resulted. Most in their backyard bomb shelters would not have survived, had their nearby cities been hit, but surely some would have survived in shelters while their carefree neighbors watched their hair fall out and then their skin slough off...)
--Tim May |
