Fears of Terrorism Remain Out of Whack With Realities

ANALYSIS

(Dec. 31) -- A new year -- a new decade -- is almost here, and there's every indication that the specter of terrorism that has hung over the country for most of the past decade will stay with us for years to come.

New revelations concerning the thwarted Underwear Bomber continue apace: On Thursday, the Detroit Free Press reported Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab studied at an Islamic Institute in Houston in August 2008, and Abdulmutallab himself has warned that there are many others like him who want to inflict harm on the United States. Meanwhile, The Associated Press reports that there are warnings of a New Year's Eve terrorist attack in Bali, where suicide bombers killed more than 200 people in attacks in 2002 and 2005.

But more than terrorism itself, it's really the threat of attacks that continues to affect the nation's affairs. Witness the aftermath of the attempted Christmas bombing: Holiday travelers were greeted by even more layers of airport security and in-flight regulations -- never mind how doubtful it is that any would-be terrorist is likely to be caught by such clumsy measures.

"We won't be any safer -- more people will die in car crashes resulting from the increase in automobile travel, and terrorists will simply switch to one of the millions of other targets -- and we won't even feel any safer," security expert Bruce Schneier says. "It's frustrating; terrorism is rare and largely ineffectual, yet we regularly magnify the effects of both their successes and failures by terrorizing ourselves."

There's the rub. Terrorist attacks remain rare and kill relatively few people, yet they lead to disproportionate, unjustified, even silly responses: color-coded threat levels, secret prisons, xenophobia. In terms of the numbers, you're far more likely to be killed in an automobile crash -- there were more than 37,261 traffic-accident-related deaths in the United States in 2008 -- than an al-Qaida-organized airline explosion. And yet officials are not pushing for the radical decrease in speed limits that research has shown would save many American lives. We've become accustomed to car crashes and accept them as an unfortunate byproduct of the way we want to travel.

In contrast, terrorism creates a psychology of anxiety, and from that gains its true power. After the 2005 al-Qaida attacks on London, a British columnist wrote, "Terrorist attacks awaken deep existential fears and poison the very process of reasoning." This played out in the United States following 9/11, he continued. "Intriguingly, what in the United States came to be called 11 September syndrome was not something which affected those directly involved in the trauma. Rather it affected people across America, in epidemic numbers, and was most prevalent among those who had remained transfixed to their television sets for hours, watching the towers crash over and over again. If the propaganda value of 9/11 was immense, the response of a TV-addicted nation made it even more so."

The thing about irrational fears is that they resist being brushed aside by reason alone. The collective mindset may only change for the better if events conspire favorably. "If the threat wanes, then the fear and alertness wears off over time," according to psychologist Michael Reddy. If there are no terrorist attacks on the United States in the next decade, then perhaps the country will return to its pre-9/11 sanguinity.

There is, though, another possible outcome. Americans may grow accustomed to terrorism the more they see of it. A recent study demonstrated that Israelis have done just that, hardly altering their lives in reaction to years of suicide bombings. Thus, Slate columnist Christopher Hitchens urges Americans to "get used to being the civilians who are under a relentless and planned assault from the pledged supporters of a wicked theocratic ideology."

It's a tough pill to swallow. But if the next 10 years can't be terror free, the choice for Americans will be between letting our fears drive us, or finding a way to harness them to a more productive ends.