A useful reminder that terrorism isn't new or even worse now that in the past. In the 70s and 80s, palestinian movements were regularly blowing bombs and taking hostages, along with far left extremists. A lot of state sponsored terrorism in the 80s and 90s, from our new "friends" Iran and Syria. And a lot of that terrorism was home grown (IRA, ETA, left wing).
What has changed is our sensitivity to terrorism which has become absurdly high. There are violent crimes happening every day which kill an order of magnitude more people. Gang violence alone in the US kills several 9/11 every year. There are thousands of knife attacks just in London every year. None of that even make it to the news anymore.
And the number of deaths linked to terrorism (1,100 in Europe since the 50s according to that wiki article) is dwarfed by things like death due to accidental drowning (35,000 every year according to eurostat).
It is useful to remember this when we see politicians in pretty much every western countries throwing out of the window basic civil liberties in the name of the war on terror. The budget spent on anti-terrorism should be better spent teaching people to swim.
What terrifies people about terrorism is that it could affect anyone at any time, and there's no semblance of control over that.
You can reduce your odds of gang violence by not being affiliated with gangs or living in/near a ghetto. You can reduce your odds of a knife attack by not walking alone when it's dark. You can reduce accidental drowning by learning how to swim. There's not much you can do about terrorism other than not go in public or live in a remote area.
What terrifies people about terrorism is that it could affect anyone at any time, and there's no semblance of control over that
So could being struck by lightning, or someone falling asleep at the wheel and running you over, or [insert unlikely phenomenon here]. The reality is people are terrified because they are told to be.
All of those things are accidents. Whereas terrorism is an intentional act by an enemy.
We evolved in a world where most causes of death, you couldn't do anything about. If you got an infection, you either recover or die. Really all medical issues were untreatable. If you got struck by lightening, thats just bad luck. If a big predator attacks you, you probably can't outrun it or fight it. If a natural disaster happens, you can't do anything about it.
But an enemy plotting to kill you, that is something you can do something about. You can fight them. You can be prepared for them. You can strike first. Etc. Violence has never been the primary cause of death, but it's the primary cause of death you can do something about. We have evolved entire emotions and social instincts about dealing with enemies. From anger and hate to paranoia and suspicion/mistrust. We don't have instincts for evading lightening or car crashes.
Hence why shootings and terrorist attacks get far more media attention than natural disasters and accidents. The boston bombing happened around the same time as a massive chemical plant explosion which killed hundreds. Guess which one was all over the news? Guess which one people remember?
So then create shall-issue laws for concealed weapons nationwide and encourage ordinary, law abiding citizens to purchase and carry with them guns all the time. Also ensure that there are no exclusion zones, or else those become the prime target areas. If it is well documented that 1 in 5 Americans has a gun at any time, terrorists might think twice about their odds of success. Further, if they do carry out an attack, they won't be able to hurt many people before the people strike back.
If you want to put an immediate end to terrorist attacks the only way to do so is to ensure that there are people witnessing the unfolding events (so they know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys) and empower them to solve the problem right away. No matter how you slice it, you can't make 1 in 5 people permanent, paid police officers so you have to look at the citizenry. If you can't abide the idea of normal people carrying guns everywhere then you need to learn to live with the idea that the police can't be everywhere all the time, and that these are the risks you take regarding terrorism to feel safe from your fellow countrymen who you deem untrustworthy.
I can't tell if your post is sarcastic or not. If you cannot prevent terrorist acts on your soil, the solution is pretty obvious then, it's not to give weapons to everybody or to hire 20% of your population as cop, it's just to be sure that you're not giving reasons to anybody to come and bomb you.
That's the only realistic & cost-efficient approach given the threat model.
That's a long term solution and one I am in favor of. But what do you do in the interim, between the time that the US stops creating more terrorists through bad foreign policy and the time that everyone who is angry enough to want to kill Americans for revenge is either dead or doesn't care anymore?
Edit: I am not being sarcastic at all. It will be exceedingly difficult to get rid of all the guns in the US so suggesting disarmament is a non-starter here. That means that terrorists will be able to get their hands on guns if they desire. Which means that you need someone to counter them with something. The logical conclusion is another person (preferably many people) with guns also. And since the police ratio in the US is on the order of 0.1% that's not going to give you an adequate response time as we've seen from mass shootings.
The real question is "would the cure be worse than the disease?" and while I personally think the answer is "no" that doesn't make me right. And given how much the left hates guns, I suspect that we'll never actually find out, so don't worry.
Well, terrorism is really not about the number of deaths, it is more about the (frightening) spectacle, about instilling terror, this could, but doesn't have to, involve a large number of deaths.
Its whole point is that it weakens the prestige of the state being attacked, i.e. it's not a personal but rather a national level attack, hence the retaliation.
Except terrorism doesn't instill terror, as proven by the terrorism in the previous century, when we just defiantly went about our business the same as before. And I say "defiantly", but it doesn't take much bravery if you know that the odds of being blown up by terrorists are so much smaller than having an accident during your daily commute.
The government and the media are the ones that leverage terrorism to instill terror.
Terrorism as a tactic in itself is a proven failure. It requires the support of media and government to have any impact.
Which makes the conspiracy theories of our own governments deliberately encouraging terrorism quite realistic.
Especially given that it has happened before (CCC, Gladio, etcetera). Western governments have never shied away for faking or aiding terrorism, it's remarkable that we keep referring to this as tin foil hattery despite a) the long track record and b) the simple fact that they are the only ones who profit from it.
I think there's two sides to that argument: what victims think and what terrorists think.
Terrorists believe that they instill terror and historically (and still in some countries) that was often the case.
> we just defiantly went about our business the same as before.
That is the American and PARTIALLY western way of dealing with it. It also happens to be the only viable thing I can think of to do against terrorism - although it's not effective at halting terrorism:
The "defiant" solution is sadly only effective as a deep cutting form of revenge, I doubt it will truly ever deter terrorism as it takes a special kind of stupidity to think that fear will turn hearts to your cause in the long run. As defiantly as America stands against terrorism; so will terrorists blindly continue to believe that it actually achieves anything.
This is possibly something that only evolution could fix.
Excellent comment! Although of course one has to remember that the impact of terrorism cannot be measured purely by a body count. There is a strong symbolic dimension to it - if al-Quaeda had killed a few thousand people in some remote town in America instead of targeting the World Trade Center, the response would have been much different.
It is very much like the risk of flying. The media got the message and now, pretty much anytime a plane crashes, will repeat again and again that the risk is extremely low and that it is safer to take a plane than cross a street.
For terrorism (or any disease for that matter) they do exactly the opposite. The message is pretty much "this could happen to you".
The reality is that plane crashes in Europe probably killed a multiple of what terrorism killed the past few years. We have 100+ deads in a single accident at least once a year. Us being afraid of terrorism is like an elephant afraid of a mosquito.
this happens when emotions take over rational thinking and decision process. as non-american, and apologies upfront to our US friends, whole WTC was more like 'meh', just another ugly day, what's the big deal... no reason to prefer some clerks over some other kids/women hacked with machetes, smashed by earthquake or other tragedies happening left and right. Manmade or not, not a big difference
But when emotions kick in, when YOU feel YOU are attacked (and those are some powerful emotions!), proportions change, and you just want to nuke 'em to hell, twice. I think I react in similar way in... +- similar situations (more personal ones rather than attack on the nation). Sad story that whole USA got swayed into blind acceptance of any security measure to stop that ugly terrorist
There has always been terrorism - living in the UK in the 70's and 80's we were constantly aware - but 9/11 was an order of magnitude larger than anything that happened before. I would suggest that would be what increased the sensitivity.
> The Washington Post referred to the bombing as an “act of war,” though no one could be certain who the enemy was.
Jesus, that sounds familiar. And this:
> Wall Street soon became a symbol of patriotism in the eyes of the country, and stock trading came to be viewed as an act of defiance against the terrorists. Before the attack a number of outspoken citizens had decried the unchecked growth of power underway on Wall Street, but many of those voices fell silent in light of the new public sentiment. Those critics who continued to voice their concerns were denounced as supporters of violence and terror, a trend which rapidly smothered all public debate on the matter.
There seems to be no surer way to solidify a political tendency that to murder people while demanding its opposite.
Honestly it's hard to hear about such instances when it's past the birth year of most of our parents. If information isn't actively taught about historic events then we're left with the few who actively seek it that will know. I'd be willing to bet that by 2110 most wouldn't have heard of the September 11th attacks simply because the people who experienced it and many of their parents will be gone by then. It'll be relegated to the history books possibly to be replaced with bigger issues that happen later.
While I agree with the first part of your post, I would claim that it will be several centuries before 9/11 is forgotten.
The impact it had on the world is just too big to forget within 100 years. 9/11 fundamentally influenced American foreign policy. Think of the Iraqi invasion, the war on terrorism, the war in Afghanistan, heightened airline security.
We still learn about the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. It may have been the killing of just one man, but it led to WWI. We still learn about the Black Hole of Calcutta (whether it actually happened or not is a different story). We still learn about the Boston Tea Party. We still learn about the Defenestration of Prague that started the 30 Years War. I could go on...
That event didn't shape humanity, whereas September 11 did. Here your schoolbook in 2110: "The world was recovering from the fall of the USSR. CIA had reduced operations in the middle east. Apart from minor crisis (Balkans, or 1998 crack in Russia), tensions were appeasing. On September 11, five places in US were hit by simultaneous terrorist attacks, the most famous being NYC with over 3000 deaths. The blame was immediately put on Bin Laden, who was searched for 10 years until his capture in 2011, and globally on Arabic people. USA raised CIA budgets, sent its army to Irak, Afghanistan and Pakistan, created illegal prisons, used torture against what was later proven to be civilians, sprung unprecendented measures for security. In the middle east, the recovery from the Cold War was replaced by a constant storm of missile strikes. Military started using automated robots such as the Predator, spreading a worldwide solidarity among arabic people. In the USA, impacts were high on civilians. In airports, people were arrested for not being able to explain where they were going, military tanks started being used in USA police stations, military methods were used to bust poker parties, killing hundreds of Americans per year, and NSA was in charge of establishing a permanent control on all private communications. In 15 years the most powerful country of the world became able to squash any interior political movement with military methods. Worst of all, a poll showed that 40% of the population believed that September 11 was an attack organized by the CIA to renew the nationalist sentiment."
> It'll be relegated to the history books possibly to be replaced with bigger issues that happen later.
Maybe not, if it's the root explanation of said later events.
What unexplained event, potentially terrorist, catalyzed the US engagement in the Spanish—American war?
Similar sorts of geopolitical consequences, similar timescale... the ease with which you recall the event is likely similar to the ease with which inhabitants of the US in 2115 will recall September 11.
The other thing is that events pre-1990s are poorly documented on the internet. Anything happening since yields a lot of material. So I'd expect the internet to introduce a big bias in term of how we percieve history in the future.
If you go to 47 Wall street just 25 feet from where George Washington was inaugurated as president, you can see chunks of marble missing on the wall where the shrapnel hit.
Btw: it's kind of shocking to see concrete and metal garbage receptacles (shrapnel-enhancing, hiding systems) in the US, after working abroad in FR and UK. These things need to be proactively replaced with tiny alumin(i)um hoops and clear plastic bags. Even the HS I went to in the 90's had a pipebomb issue at some point and hence no lockers.
I would argue the exact opposite. We need more "life goes on" and less fear.
Like how the stock exchange opened the next day.
I mean, changing garbage cans, really, is fine. It's not a huge cost and doesn't make it hard for us to continue to live our lives. If making a change to the garbage cans makes you feel better, go ahead.
But think of the incredible cost of implementing the level of airline security we have now. For anything under four hours, you are better off taking a car. Sure, we're trying to improve our rail infrastructure to the point where that's an option, too, but we're a long ways off.
The terrorists did some damage, sure... but the actual damage they did in the September 11 attacks has been dwarfed, at least economically, by the fact that we have essentially ruined our air-travel system in response.
Thumbs up for that. And respect to Boston for the way they handled the marathon bombings back in 2013.
> the actual damage they did in the September 11 attacks has been dwarfed, at least economically, by the fact that we have essentially ruined our air-travel system in response.
That however is a one-sided statement. The question is always: how many attacks did we prevent with the new security? You can't just weigh up 9/11 vs. the cost of airline security. You have to see 9/11 plus any attack that was prevented (which I agree is hard/impossible to measure) vs. our security costs.
I don't deny that some air-travel security is OTT. But you can't claim it's pointless.
(Quite apart from the fact that customers, out of fear, nowadays probably wouldn't fly with an airline that didn't provide an insane amount of security. Despite an almost century long track record of astounding safety, the air-travel industry still has to convince its customers all the time that flying is safe.)
TL;DR: "undercover investigators were able to smuggle mock explosives or banned weapons through checkpoints in 95 percent of trials"
To the extend increased security around air travel deterred anything, it's in the non-airport-screening efforts -- increased/better intelligence is a very plausible source, and the reinforced cockpit doors another.
9/11 has pretty much eliminated the possibility of a successful hijacking of a commercial flight in the United States, between better security between the cockpit and the cabin, and the fact that if any group of hijackers tries to take over using boxcutters again, they'll be bumrushed by the other passengers and beaten to death. Before, a hijacking usually just meant that your vacation plans got a little upset by a detour to Cuba, before negotiations straightened things out.
The last time I flew, I somehow got shuffled into a preferred-access security line. I showed my passport, and walked through to my gate, no dicking around with taking my shoes off, emptying my pockets out, dumping my laptop out of my bag, none of that garbage, and I was through to the gate 5 minutes after stepping out of the car. I did have to toss the last ounce or two of my coffee - clearly, something that I'm consuming in plain sight of the TSA weenies could be a volatile explosive compound. All in all, it was the best experience I've had with an airport since the days when there was no security. Or when I flew out of Germany or Switzerland.
> Sure, we're trying to improve our rail infrastructure to the point where that's an option, too, but we're a long ways off.
Which is fine until some idiot blows up a train, then all of a sudden that becomes a massive inconvenience (all in the name of public safety!) as well...
Although interesting to see that that's exactly what happened on the 7/7 bombings in London and seems to have made zero difference re: security theatre on the Underground.
That's a given, of course, and doesn't need mentioning... it's a false dichotomy. Reduce risks meaningfully with less security theater. Locking your front door and such, not taking off shoes, belt, pants and so on. Common sense plus data, not edge-case fears to balance risk reduction vs. practicality.
Have terror bombings ever accomplished the bombers' demands? Every one that I've heard of just seems to mobilize people to do the opposite of whatever they think the terrorists want, as violently as possible.
>In a [previous study of mine] assessing terrorism’s coercive effectiveness, I found that in a sample of 28 well-known terrorist campaigns, the terrorist organizations accomplished their stated policy goals 0% of the time by attacking civilians.
>Jones and Libicki (2008) then examined a larger sample, the universe of known terrorist groups between 1968 and 2006. Of the 648 groups identified in the RAND-MIPT Terrorism Incident database, only 4% obtained their strategic demands. More recently, Cronin (2009) has reexamined the success rate of these groups, confirming that less than 5% prevailed…Chenoweth and Stephan (2008, 2011) provide additional empirical evidence that meting out pain hurts non-state actors at the bargaining table. Their studies compare the coercive effectiveness of 323 violent and nonviolent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006. Like Gaibulloev and Sandler (2009), the authors find that refraining from bloodshed significantly raises the odds of government compliance even after tactical confounds are held fixed. These statistical findings are reinforced with structured in-case comparisons highlighting that escalating from nonviolent methods of protest such as petitions, sit-ins, and strikes to deadly attacks tends to dissuade government compromise. Chenoweth and Stephan employ an aggregate measure of violence that incorporates both indiscriminate attacks on civilians and discriminate attacks on military personnel or other government officials, which are often differentiated from terrorism as guerrilla attacks (Abrahms 2006; Cronin 2009; and Moghadam 2006). Other statistical research (Abrahms, 2012, Fortna, 2011) demonstrates that when terrorist attacks are combined with such discriminate violence, the bargaining outcome is not additive; on the contrary, the pain to the population significantly decreases the odds of government concessions.
There was also the MK in South Africa which did some bombings and then its allies, the ANC took over the government. There were no doubt other factors besides the terrorism here though.
Don't forget Nelson Mandela used to be called a terrorist but has since had his demands met so perhaps by definition a terrorist who wins is no longer considered to be a terrorist. Maybe that's why we don't hear about much history of this happening. We rewrite it.
I've heard the effect of IRA bombings of empty buildings insured by Lloyds of London were fairly influential in leading to negotiations, but I forget my source.
People commit violence for all sorts of reasons. You really have to look at the motivations of the people involved on a case by case basis. Often times the reasons are entirely different from what any of the the people involved publicly claim. Sometimes there are long term political goals involved. Sometimes it is just simple revenge.
Isn't a bit bizarre from the author to point the finger to Italian anarchists for this unsolved case? I mean the "pair of Italian-American anarchists had been indicted five days earlier for bank robbery and murder" he mentions are none less than Sacco and Vanzetti, who were victims of one of the most spectacular miscarriages of justice willingly perpetrated for political reasons I can recall. To find an Italian anarchist guilt of something in the US during the 20s proofs were not really a requirement, so this case wouldn't end up unsolved.
> Isn't a bit bizarre from the author to point the finger to Italian anarchists for this unsolved case?
It's the investigators that are pointing the finger, not the author: "Investigators immediately suspected that the bombing was the work of Galleanist anarchists"
The author chose how much context to include. Not to even mention the issues that most historians have with the treatment of S&V, while mentioning the case in apparent support of a completely opposed proposition, is odd in a work of this length.
Author of the article here. I did not intend to imply support for the conclusion that Galleanist anarchists were to blame. To the contrary, I feel the response of the public was misdirected and the response of the government was heavy-handed. Hence my phrase "the orgy of misguided justice."
I understand and I hope you'll forgive my nitpicking. It's just that when I read the paragraph with the Sacco & Vanzetti reference, I got the vibe of something in the lines "look what else the Italians were doing" and that rubbed me the wrong way. I would have much preferred something like "were _wrongly_ indicted of", to avoid the misunderstanding. I hope this comment will be taken not as a void critique by somebody who got offended, but as a reminder that phrasing is important to not to have your writings be interpreted the other way around.
I write obnoxious comments all the time, and I can't recall when I've been downvoted as much as this thread. It's clear that you and I and our non-psychic reading habits have touched a nerve with this author and his band of acolytes.
I'm downvoting you for implying without evidence that the author is responsible for a backlash against you. You are not contributing anything to discussion.
It's clearly referring to the entire fallout from the attack. The author specifically says that anarchists "had not been proven responsible"; he mentions them to explain the context that led people to blame radicals at the time.
The "orgy" was the series of events that led up to the deportation, including the presumption that anarchists were to blame. Of course, it is quite probable the bombers were self-styled anarchists, but they didn't act on behalf of all anarchists, and many of those punished were not demonstrably guilty of anything.
You are free to be adamant about that. I wonder what gives you this confidence though. I hope it's something more substantial that contradicting witnesses speaking decades after the fact and a pistol who passed dozens of hands. Certainly, that does not convince me that two men should die, nor should a reasonable jury. Sacco and Vanzetti weren't executed because they allegedly killed a man during a robbery. They were executed because of what they believed.
For instance in the EU: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_European_Un... The number of attacks and number of victims has been pretty much consistent since the 50s with a small spike with the Madrid bombings.
What has changed is our sensitivity to terrorism which has become absurdly high. There are violent crimes happening every day which kill an order of magnitude more people. Gang violence alone in the US kills several 9/11 every year. There are thousands of knife attacks just in London every year. None of that even make it to the news anymore.
And the number of deaths linked to terrorism (1,100 in Europe since the 50s according to that wiki article) is dwarfed by things like death due to accidental drowning (35,000 every year according to eurostat).
It is useful to remember this when we see politicians in pretty much every western countries throwing out of the window basic civil liberties in the name of the war on terror. The budget spent on anti-terrorism should be better spent teaching people to swim.