What is terrorism? Many are convinced that the word is inherently so vague as to be meaningless. I have never understood this. To me the definition seems singular, and obvious, and it would appear that simply understanding it is the key to avoiding terrible missteps in the aftermath of an attack like the one in Paris.
The 9/11 attack was symbolic. It was not designed to cripple us economically or militarily, at least not directly. It was designed to provoke a reaction. The reaction cost more than 6,000 American lives in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more than $3 trillion in U.S. treasure. The reaction also caused the United States to cripple its own Constitution and radicalize the Muslim world with a reign of terror that has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani civilians.
The return on the terrorists’ investment was spectacular. Assuming the official story is right, then Al Qaeda got $7 million of effect for every dollar it spent on the attack–$7 million, to one. The ratio of harm inflicted on U.S. targets by the 9/11 attacks, to the financial harm the U.S. inflicted on itself reflects the same amplification. For every $1 of damage they did to us, we did $231 to ourselves. For every American that was killed in the attack, we sacrificed more than two on the battlefield. And that is all before we consider the instability we brought to the Middle East, the harm we did to our own freedoms, and the spectacular cost to our reputation abroad.
The lesson, of course, is that above all else a nation should refuse to do what everyone will expect it to do in response to an attack. And if there is a silver lining, it is that one does not need to be sure of the identity or intent of their attackers to respond intelligently.
Terrorists do not engage in terror attacks because they are strong. They engage in these attacks because they are weak. The gruesome spectacle of terrorism is a cost saving measure in which the fears of the victims and onlookers amplify the resources that the terrorists themselves are able to deploy.
Reacting reflexively is inherently self-defeating. If a nation wishes to make itself an unappealing target, then it should get its primordial fears under control.
We are not made safe from terrorists by helicopters, or missiles or boots on the ground. Nor is it drones, torture or digital dragnets that protect us. What makes us as individuals safe from a terror attack is the staggering probability that we will be elsewhere when one occurs. Accepting a tiny chance that we will die at the hands of terrorists is a bargain price for freedom. Reconciling oneself to it is very much like accepting a small chance that one will die on the highway, in exchange for the ability to travel at will.
There is much we do not know, and much we many never know about ISIS and its objectives. We can, however be sure of this: ISIS would like the citizens of the West to surrender their liberties, while lashing out blindly into the dark.
This time, let’s not.
Bret Weinstein is a professor of evolutionary biology at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington
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2 Comments
The terrorists are the western powers, by any measure, but certainly by the body count over the 35 years since the Iranian revolution. Armed to the teeth, attacking wherever and whenever they wish, checked only by the reality of their own disastrous ‘interventions’, which spawn new and seemingly more vicious reaction.
It is worth remembering that until 1980 (approx) – Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, Iranian revolution, Israeli invasion of Lebanon – the dominant narrative in the Middle East was pan-arab socialism. But there was no room for any progressive thought – and still isn’t – in the western leaders desire to reshape the globe to their enrichment.
The reaction of the French government to the current atrocities is, predictably further aerial bombardment, notoriously inaccurate and unlikely to have any lasting impact other than on civilians and refugees, some 250,000 of whom have so far perished in the Syrian war, although luckily none of them were killed by USA, UK or French bombs, it seems.
I’ll take Professor Weinstein’s ideas a step further. The immediate physical and economic harm of the 911 attacks was not the objective, nor even that from the war it was intended to start. The terrorist planners hoped for such a war as would arouse the entire Muslim Community in fearful resistance – to paraphrase Australian ex-PM Tony Abbott, the Crusaders “are coming to get us, each and every one”.
It’s been on a drip-feed since then – Osama was a popular birth-name in some places, the public-bombing rate trends up bit by bit, jihadi became a career-choice, but now –
With a single and gathering militia/movement on a purist Wahhabi base, claiming statehood and global authority, present from Europe, across the Middle East, through Asia (Malaysia and Indonesia), conducting a gruesome and active foreign policy –
We finally may have lit that touch paper laid by bin Laden.
Complicating matters further – as Bandar told Dearlove, a billion Sunni are fed-up with the Shi’a – we’ve taken side in a religious war.