Atheism and happiness

A False Sense of Insecurity July 24, 2008

Ever since 9/11, the top priority for the United States, and much of the world, has been putting an end to terrorism – an idea. Ignoring the obvious fact that you can never eradicate terrorism – an idea – completely, a worldwide war has been launched against it. This war has costed the United States alone over 700 billion dollars between Iraq and Afganistan, and has claimed the lives of 4,124 American soldiers at this point in time. Further, our estimated wounded is between 20,000 and 100,000, with the official number being 30, 435.

In the historical view, that isn’t a terrying number of casualties. However, 1,245,000 estimated iraqi deaths is, and that’s just the number we know of. I doubt we have made a huge effort to go and count them all, personally. This number is higher than that in the Rwandan genocide and doesn’t even include the numbers from the Afganistan war.

The perceived threat of terrorism has been the underlying justification for both the Afganistan and Iraq wars, and was a crucial factor for rallying support for George W. Bush’s ’04 campaign. But just how overplayed was this threat?

In WWII, Hitler’s regime and allies were considered a direct threat to the stability of the entire globe. Millions died from the outset, and even then the United States was reluctant to commit itself militarily. In the Cold War, the Soviets and the United States both held the power to destroy eachother, and much of the world, with the push of a few buttons. In comparison, a few bearded guys in a backwards land don’t seem as much of a threat.

While a terrorist attack in America might kill a few people, it wouldn’t directly damage the country as a whole in any significant way. Infact, the number of people worldwide who die yearly due to terrorism is only a few hundred. Lightning strikes, accidents caused by deer, allergic reactions to peanuts, and the number of U.S. citizens that drown each year in bathtubs claim more lives than global terrorism does. Or how about the pollution in California, which kills an estimated (and ever increasing) 24,000 a year.

Then there’s the worry over a chemical or biological attack. However, to this point deaths from terrorist biological attacks have been almost nonexistant. The well funded chemical attack in Tokyo in 1995 only managed to kill 12 people. And if it is so easy to pull off one of these attacks, how come the more-vulnerable Israel has never been the target of one?

No, the real damage from terrorism comes from the measures taken to prevent it. New airline security measures cost the economy billions every year. Law enforcement agencies spend large sums on learning new techniques for dealing with unlikely situations and on buying surveillance equipment. The war itself, launched as a preventative measure, has already costed the country a pre-stated amount rising all the time. And yet by drawing all of this attention to the problem, it isn’t certain whether we have had any affect. Infact, some fear that we have aided the recruiting of groups such as Al Quaeda by angering and displacing so many people, making them stronger than ever as a movement. But the largest costs may be unquantifiable: The invasion of personal rights by the U.S. government in the name of homeland security (PATRIOT Act, for example), the overplayed fear instilled in Americans mostly by their own government and media, and even racism towards those of arab descent.

The point is, the chances of a terrorist attack occuring are extremely small. However, they are there, and there is very little you can do to change them. How much are you willing to give up in terms of quality of life, money, and American and coalition lives for actions that may be reassuring initially but in reality do almost nothing?

Or possibly an even more important question, how many lives could have been saved by spending this money on services like a stronger public health system or on fighting malaria, which claims between 1.5 and 2.7 million deaths per year?