C,
re: Odds like that are calculated by past events. The odds would change significantly if a nuclear bomb were detonated in downtown New York and killed a million people.
It seems almost all odds are calculated by past events. True the odds would change if a million people were killed in New York; are you predicting that will happen? How?
The odds of cancer are 1 in 509. The odds of gunshot wound are 1 in 9450. Pedestrian accident, 1 in 45,200. A fall, 1 in 20,700. The world is a dangerous place, the odds are 1 in 1 that you will die of something.
So let's look at what we are doing to defend ourselves against that 1 in 9,270,000 chance of dying from terrorism. We are risking many American lives (more than 1 in 9,270,000?) in a war to conquer and occupy another country. We are limiting our personal freedom, giving the government powers they haven't had in our history. We are alienating most of the free world, perhaps threatening NATO. We are managing to turn a significant budget surplus into a huge budget deficit. We are slowing the world economy. And, the funny thing is, that many analysts suspect that our action will actually increase the threat of terrorism (I personally can't imagine how it won't).
Now the stated threat is terrorism. Many suspect it may be a personal vendetta, a family matter. India, Pakistan, China, Russia have far more powerful weapons. Iran and North Korea. Where do we draw the line, and why, in particular, are we drawing it in Iraq? Because Iraq might have some primative "weapons of mass destruction", because they "may" give those weapons to terrorists, and those terrorist "may" be able to sneak them into New York, "may" make them work, and somehow kill one million people? 1 in 9,270,000 sounds conservative.
I wonder what the odds are for those American soldiers that are going to fight this war. I wonder about the odds for the innocent shopkeeper in Iraq, or the shopkeeper's kids.
I wonder about Bush, about his motivation, if he really gives a damn about any of those folks.
John
PS Human nature... fear of the unknown danger is always more intense (and irrational) than fear of the common danger. The fact that you are 30,000 times more likely to die from a heart attack than a terrorist attack doesn't make a terrorist attack produce less anxiety than a heart attack. I understand that. |
