A skeptical look at September 11th: How we can defeat terrorism by reacting to it more rationally

At the one-year anniversary, we examine reactions to the September 11, 2001, attacks in the context of other causes of premature deaths. An objective of terrorism is to multiply damage by inducing irrational fears in the broad pop population. One defense is to learn to evaluate such situations more objectively.

Human beings might be expected to value each life, and each death, equally. We each face numerous hazards--war, disease, homicide, accidents, natural disasters--before succumbing to "natural" death. Some premature deaths shock us far more than others. Contrasting with the 2,800 fatalities in the World Trade Center (WTC) on September 11, 2001 (9/11), we barely remember the 20,000 Indian earthquake victims earlier in 2001. Here, we argue that the disproportionate reaction to 9/11 was as damaging as the direct destruction of lives and property. Americans can mitigate future terrorism by learning to respond more objectively to future malicious acts. We do not question the visceral fears and responsible precautions taken during the hours and days following 9/11, when there might have been even worse attacks. But, as the first anniversary of 9/11 approaches, our nation's priorities remain radically torqued toward homeland defense and fighting terrorism at the expense of objectively greater societal needs. As we ob sessively and excessively beef up internal security and try to dismantle terrorist groups worldwide, Americans actually feed the terrorists' purposes.

Every month, including September 2001, the U.S. highway death toll exceeds fatalities in the WTC, Pentagon, and four downed airliners combined. Just like the New York City firefighters and restaurant workers, last September's auto crash victims each had families, friends, critical job responsibilities, and valued positions in their churches and communities. Their surviving children, also, were left without one parent, with shattered lives, and much poorer than the 9/11 victims' families, who were showered with 1.5 million dollars, per fatality, from the federal government alone. The 9/11 victims died from malicious terrorism, arguably compounded by poor intelligence, sloppy airport security, and other failed procedures we imagined were protecting us. While few of September's auto deaths resulted from malice, neither were they "natural" deaths: most also resulted from individual, corporate, and societal choices about road safety engineering, enforcement of driving-while-drunk laws, safe car design, and so on.

A Lack of Balance

Why does 9/11 remain our focus rather than the equally vast carnage on the nation's highways or Indian earthquake victims? Some say, "Oh, it was a natural disaster and nothing could be done, while 9/11 was a malicious attack." Yet better housing in India could have saved thousands. As for malice, where is our concern for the 15,000 Americans who die annually by homicide? Apparently, the death toll doesn't matter, not if people die all at once, not even if they die by malicious intent. We focus on 9/11, of course, because these attacks were terroristic and were indelibly imprinted on our consciousness by round-the-clock news coverage. Our apprehension was then amplified when just a half dozen people died by anthrax. Citizens apparently support the nation's sudden, massive shift in priorities since 9/11. Here, we ask "Why?"

Suppose we had reacted to 9/11 as we did to last September's auto deaths. That wouldn't have lessened the destroyed property, lost lives and livelihoods, and personal bereavement of family and associates of the WTC victims. But no billions would have been needed to prop up airlines. Local charities wouldn't have suffered as donations were redirected to New York City. Congress might have enacted prescription drug benefits, as it was poised to do before 9/11. Battalions of National Guardsmen needn't have left their jobs to provide a visible "presence" in airports. The nation might not have slipped into recession, with resulting losses to businesses, workers, and consumers alike. And the FBI might still be focusing on rampant white-collar crime (think Enron) rather than on terrorism. While some modest measures (e.g., strengthening cockpit doors) were easy to implement, may have inhibited some "copycat" crimes, and may even lessen future terrorism, we believe that much of the expensive effort is ineffective, too costly to sustain, or wholly irrelevant.

Some leaders got it right when they implored Americans after 9/11 to return to their daily routines, for otherwise "the terrorists will win." Unfortunately, such exhortations seemed aimed at rescuing the travel industry rather than articulating a broad vision of how to respond to terrorism. We advocate that most of us more fully "return to normal life." We suggest that the economic and emotional damage unleashed by 9/11, which touched the lives of all Americans, resulted mostly from our own reactions to 9/11 and the anthrax scare, rather than from the objective damage. We recognize that our assertion may seem inappropriate to some readers, and we are under no illusion that natural human reactions to the televised terrorism could have been wholly averted and redirected. We, too, gaped in horror at images of crashing airplanes and we contributed to WTC victims. But from within the skeptical community there could emerge a more objective, rational alternative to post-9/1 1. Citizens could learn to react more con structively to future terrorism and to balance the terrorist threat against other national priorities. It could be as important to combat our emotional vulnerability to terrorism as to attack Al Qaeda.