“Critical threats” to the United States

“Critical threats” to the United States

Foreign policy goals % saying “very important”

--60 Minutes (CBS), 16 February 2003

• Michael Moore: The chances of any of us dying in a terrorist incident is very, very, very small.

• Bob Simon: No one sees the world like that.

Chemical weapons:

• Chemical weapons:

• World War I experience

• Aum Shinrikyo in 1995: kill 12

• Iraq in Halabja in 1988: 5000 dead?

9/11: aberration or harbinger?

• al-Qaeda capacity?

I think, therefore they are, 2003

• --Robert Mueller February 11, 2003 testimony

I think, therefore they are, 2005

• --Robert Mueller February 16, 2005 testimony

• 9/11: economic costs

• human costs

• opportunity costs

Clinton and embassy bombings,1998

• 9/11: economic costs

• human costs

• opportunity costs

An incentive to pass along vague and unconfirmed threats of future violence, in order to protect themselves from criticism in the event of another attack.

• Politicians

• Bureaucracy

• Media

• Risk entrepreneurs

Juval Aviv, Staying Safe New York: HarperResource, 2004 Hardcover: The Complete Terrorism Survival Guide, Juris Publishing, 2003

• Stay away from crowds

• Treat official reassurances circumspectly

• Ask yourself where you stand in the hierarchy of terrorist targets

• Determine whether someone is paying too much attention to one particular thing

• Keep in mind that a terrorist may be one of your customers

• Be wary of odd-looking neighbors

• Try yoga-type breathing exercises to relax

• Separate small pets from large ones

• Know the five primary means of assassination

• Never take the first taxicab in line

• In a department store or other crowded public place, be careful not to get trampled

• Forgo eating food from salad bars or restaurant smorgasbords

• Wash your hands after returning from an outing, especially if you used mass transit or a taxicab

Juval Aviv, Staying Safe New York: HarperResource, 2004 Hardcover: The Complete Terrorism Survival Guide, Juris Publishing, 2003

• Don’t eat, drink, or smoke around mail

• In a multipurpose household, designate one person as the primary mail opener

• Make it a standard practice to wash with antibacterial soap immediately after touching mail

• Never shake a suspect piece of mail

• Avoid long waits at U.S. border crossings

• Don’t exchange currency at the airport

• Never park in underground garages

• Avoid aisle seats on airplanes

• Spend as little time at the airport as possible

• Stay away from heavily glassed areas in airports

• At an airport baggage carousel, position yourself near the luggage chute

• Try to fly wide-body planes, because terrorists often avoid hijacking them

Fragile, vulnerable, existential, survival

• Fragile, vulnerable, existential, survival

• Myers: do away with our way of life

• Y2K effect

--Bernard Brodie

Bin Laden goal: overreaction

• It is easy for us to provoke and bait....All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin...to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses. Our policy is one of bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. The terrorist attacks cost al Qaeda $500,000 while the attack and its aftermath inflicted a cost of more than $500 billion on the United States.

--Michael Sivak and Michael J. Flannagan in American Scientist, Jan-Feb 2003

• An American's chance of being killed in one non-stop airline flight:

• one in 13 million

• An American’s chance of being killed while driving 11.2 miles on America's safest roads, rural interstate highways:

• one in 13 million

• Number of 9/11-type airline crashes required to make flying as dangerous as driving the same distance on America's safest roads:

• one a month

Airplane hijacking?

• Airplane hijacking?

• Cheap reassurance

• Cry wolf

• Keep track of predictions

• Reduce costs

• Check literature on witches

• Absorb?

Risk communication

• people tend greatly to overestimate the chances of dramatic or sensational causes of death

• realistically informing people about risks sometimes only makes them more frightened

• strong beliefs are very difficult to modify

• a new sort of calamity tends to be taken as harbinger of future mishaps

• a disaster tends to increase fears not only about that kind of danger but of all kinds

• people, even professionals, are susceptible to the way risks are expressed  far less likely, for example, to choose radiation therapy if told the chances of death are 32% rather than that the chances of survival are 68%

• when presented with two estimations of risk from reasonably authoritative sources, people choose to embrace the high risk opinion regardless of its source; that is, there is a predilection toward alarmist responses and excessive weighting of the worst case scenario

Average background radiation in US 360 mrem per year

• Average background radiation in US 360 mrem per year

• High end of low level radiation range 10,000 total mrem

• Well-known cause of cancer 30,000 total mrem

• Blood cell changes, infections, temporary sterility 200,000 short-term mrem

• Death with days or weeks 400,000 short-term mrem

To live at 245 mrem per year:

• Don’t have a pacemaker

• Don’t have porcelain crowns or false teeth

• Don’t use a gas camping lantern

• Don’t have X-rays or a CAT Scan

• Don’t live in a stone, adobe brick, or concrete building

• Don’t wear a luminous wristwatch

• Don’t watch TV

• Don’t use a computer terminal

• Don’t have a smoke detector in your home

• Don’t live within 50 miles of a nuclear or coal-fired power plant

• Don’t consume food or water

• Live in Biloxi

• Don’t fly or go to airports

Lebanon 1983

• Lebanon 1983

• Somalia 1993

• World Trade Center 1993

• Oklahoma City 1995

• Khobar Towers 1996

• U.S.S. Cole 2000

• Anthrax 2001

• Madrid 2003

The United States is living on borrowed time  and squandering it.