[IP] more on "War on Terra" saves few lives, expert says

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: h_bray@globe.com
Date: September 13, 2005 8:36:20 AM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Subject: Re: [IP] more on "War on Terra" saves few lives, expert says


One more brief comment:

A discussion of a rather dubious  "scientific" paper has shifted into a
discussion of whether or not 9/11 was foreseen by anybody other than Tom
Clancy.  Lots of people have piled onto a comment I tossed off merely  
as a
casual aside.  And a good thing too, for their comments only  
reinforce my
point.

Yes, I know some other experts had thought of the idea of terrorists
crashing planes into buildings.  So what?  It's obvious that it still  
took
virtually the entire planet by surprise.  Merely noting that other  
experts
had considered the idea doesn't alter the central point--that until  
9/11,
it was considered a low-probability event and very little effort was  
made
to fend off such an attack.

The Emory paper was produced by someone who's still acting as if we  
still
inhabited that innocent pre-9/11 world.  The entire argument assumes  
that
while diseases are clear and present dangers to human life, terrorist
attacks are not.   Because mass-casualty attacks happen rarely, it's a
waste of money to try and prevent them.

But the people who've howled at me for my comment on 9/11 should  
themselves
see the folly of this argument.  Terrorist attacks aren't zero- 
probability
events; they can and do happen. As my critics have noted, you  
actually can
predict that these guys will keep getting more and more violent.  In
addition, we know that there are global networks of these guys always
looking for even more deadly methods for killing more and more and more
people.  And if they had nuclear weapons, they'd use them without  
batting
an eye.

Faced with such an enemy, it's silly to say that we should instead spend
all our money on curing bird flu.  Thanks for coming round to my  
point of
view, guys.



Hiawatha Bray



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