Why have there been no terrorist attacks in the United States since
9/11? It is ridiculously easy for a single person with a
bomb-filled backpack, or a single explosives-laden automobile, to
launch an attack. So why hasn't it happened? The answer is surely
not the Department of Homeland Security, which cannot stop
terrorists from entering the country, legally or otherwise. It is
surely not the Iraq war, which has stoked the hatred of Muslim
extremists around the world and wasted many thousands of lives.
Terrorist attacks have been regular events for many years --
usually killing handfuls of people, occasionally more than that.
Is it possible that there is a simple explanation for the
peaceful American homefront? Is it possible that "there are no
al-Qaeda terrorists here"? Is it possible that the war on terror
has been a radical overreaction to a rare event? Consider: 80,000
Arab and Muslim immigrants have been subjected to fingerprinting
and registration, and more than 5,000 foreign nationals have been
imprisoned -- yet there has not been a single conviction for a
terrorist crime in America. A handful of plots -- some deadly, some
intercepted -- have plagued Europe and elsewhere, and even so, the
death toll has been modest.
We have gone to war in two countries and killed tens of
thousands of people. We have launched a massive domestic
wiretapping program and created vast databases of information once
considered private. Politicians and pundits have berated us about
national security and patriotic duty, while encroaching our
freedoms and sending thousands of young men off to die.
It is time to consider the hypothesis that dare not speak its
name: we have wildly overreacted. Terrorism has been used by
murderous groups for many decades, yet even including 9/11, the
odds of an American being killed by international terrorism are
microscopic. In general, international terrorism doesn't do much
damage when considered in almost any reasonable context.
The capacity of al-Qaeda or of any similar group to do damage in
the United States pales in comparison to the capacity other
dedicated enemies, particularly international Communism, have
possessed in the past. Lashing out at the terrorist threat is
frequently an exercise in self-flagellation because it is usually
more expensive than the terrorist attack itself and because it
gives the terrorists exactly what they are looking for. Much,
probably most, of the money and effort expended on counterterrorism
since 2001 (and before, for that matter) has been wasted.
The terrorism industry and its allies in the White House and
Congress have preyed on our fears and caused enormous damage. It is
time to rethink the entire enterprise and spend much smaller
amounts on only those things that do matter: intelligence, law
enforcement, and disruption of radical groups overseas. Above all,
it is time to stop playing into the terrorists' hands, by
fear-mongering and helping spread terror itself.
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