[IP] Cato Paper on Terrorism: A False Sense of Insecurity?

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger@ibd.com>
Date: August 8, 2006 4:17:14 PM EDT
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@warpspeed.com>, David Farber  
<dave@farber.net>
Subject: Cato Paper on Terrorism: A False Sense of Insecurity?

Paper originally pointed to by Bruce Schneier as an "Interesting  
Paper": (http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/08/ 
cato_on_the_ris.html)

Actual Paper PDF: http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv27n3/ 
v27n3-5.pdf

Boing Boing article:

Only traitors try to make us afraid of terrorists
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/08/07/only_traitors_try_to.html

In this mind-blowing, exhaustively researched Cato institute paper by  
Ohio State University's John Mueller, the case against being afraid  
of terrorism is laid out in irrefutable logic, backed with credible,  
documented statistics about terrorism's risks. From the number of  
fatalities produced by terrorism to the trends in terrorism death to  
the fact that almost no one has ever died from a military biological  
agent to the fact that poison gas and dirty bombs in the field do  
only minor damage -- this paper is the most reassuring and  
infuriating piece of analysis I've read since September 11th, 2001.

The bottom line is, terrorism doesn't kill many people. Even in  
Israel, you're four times more likely to die in a car wreck than as a  
result of a terrorist attack. In the USA, you need to be more worried  
about lightning strikes than terrorism. The point of terrorism is to  
create terror, and by cynically convincing us that our very countries  
are at risk from terrorism, our politicians have delivered utter  
victory to the terrorists: we are terrified.

	Much of the current alarm is generated from the knowledge that
	many of today's terrorists simply want to kill, and kill more
	or less randomly, for revenge or as an act of what they take
	to be The shock and tragedy of September 11 does demand a
	focused and dedicated program to confront international
	terrorism and to attempt to prevent a repeat.

	But it seems sensible to suggest that part of this reaction
	should include an effort by politicians, officials, and the
	media to inform the public reasonably and realistically about
	the terrorist context instead of playing into the hands of
	terrorists by frightening the public.

	What is needed, as one statistician suggests, is some sort of
	convincing, coherent, informed, and nuanced answer to a
	central question: "How worried should I be?" Instead, the
	message the nation has received so far is, as a Homeland
	Security official put (or caricatured) it, "Be scared; be
	very, very scared -- but go on with your lives."  Such
	messages have led many people to develop what Leif Wenar of
	the University of Sheffield has aptly labeled "a false sense
	of insecurity."

Author of the paper:
John Muellerholds the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies
at the Mershon Center at Ohio State University. His most recent book,
The Remnants of War, has just been published by Cornell University
Press. He may be contacted by e-mail at bbbb@osu.edu.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
Voice: 408-882-4755 eFax: +1-408-490-2868
http://www.ibd.com





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