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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GST who wrote (155700)	1/9/2005 2:31:09 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Here's another good one :-) Some people could really use this one.... ......... healthyplace.com "FLYING Irrational fear thought: "I think I'm likely to die from an attack by terrorists if I fly on an airline. I am going to cancel my ski trip" (this thought causes fear). Braver and calmer, rational alternative thought: "I refuse to scare myself by allowing myself to predict catastrophes that are going to happen to me. The truth is that I don't have a crystal ball. The truth is that I don't know the future. Something bad might happen to me but that is unlikely. There were about 5000 planes aloft in the United States air space at the moment the Word Trade Center was attacked. In that two-hour period that the World Trade Center was attacked, there were only 4 planes out of about 5000 that were attacked; therefore, about 4,996 planes were not affected. Even on September 11, 2001 at 9:00AM my risk of my plane being hijacked was only 4 chances out of about 5000. So there were 4996 chances out of about 5000 that my plane would have arrived safely even on that morning of 9/11/2001. With the increased security, safeguards and watchfulness, it is probably even much safer to fly today than it was that day. Flying never was guaranteed to be completely safe. Several planes crash every year around the world, but that risk didn't keep me from flying in the past. This terrorism risk adds only a very tiny risk to the overall risk that I previously accepted without giving it much thought" (this sensible thought alleviates fear by leading to a braver and calmer emotion)."

To: GST who wrote (155700)	1/9/2005 1:27:34 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Your logic is incredible. The logical conclusion to your notion that because no one single identifiable individual faces a specific threat from AQ is that nothing should be done since the threat is so small. Absolutely amazing. I went ad nauseum [my nauseum] on this point with ionesco. Never really got a decent response to the question of why, if this threat is so small, we suffered so many billions in economic damage and, why, if the threat is so small as related to the cost of defending against it, it hasn't been until recently that the stock market came up to pre-9/11 levels [I know, I know, it's impossible to prove to a mathematical certainty that the stock market decline is due only to the effects of 9/11, but if you don't think that a significant if not predominant reason for its decline post-9/11 is terror, then you are being purposefully obtuse.] AQ would like nothing better than for us to say "Uncle!, Come and get us, we're so big it doesn't matter." I can't think of a better way to promote terrorism than to lay down for it, as was done in the past,and as you aparently suggest.