To: tcmay who wrote (165622 ) 6/2/2002 1:58:56 PM From: Road Walker Respond to Tim,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. so few international terrorist acts committed on US soil, when we seem to be the number 1 international target. You and many, many others were predicting a second wave of terrorist attacks after 9/11, and it would have been a great time for a terrorist group to get the "bang for the buck". Yet, it didn't happen. Why is there so little terrorism in the US? Is it the quality of our law enforcement community, or something cultural (we are more nosey about the folks next door?), do we protect our dangerous materials better? I have no idea. But the fact remains that the US is one of the least dangerous places on earth to live, looking only at terrorism. The chances are not high, but risk assessment doesn't work in a straightforward way. 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.) First, there were never "millions" of bomb shelters. were millions that put canned foods in their basements (my family included), an even more useless reaction to the threat of nuclear war. The plan was to survive the nuclear holocaust in our basement eating canned string beans and tomato paste."Where is the "second wave" of attacks. Where are the "100's of terrorist sleeper cells". Oh, and a postscript about backyard bomb shelters. Most were worthless, of course.
