Henry Imler September 10th, 2006

I thought this was kind of interesting: Fighting Terror Five Years Later

In the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Mueller writes, “Although it
remains heretical to say so, the evidence so far suggests that fears of
the omnipotent terrorist . . . may have been overblown, the threat
presented within the United States by Al Qaeda greatly exaggerated. The
massive and expensive homeland security apparatus erected since 9/11
may be persecuting some, spying on many, inconveniencing most, and
taxing all to defend the United States against an enemy that scarcely
exists.”

Mueller goes farther than I would, but his point general point makes
sense. Certainly, our government should continue to seek out and thwart
those who would do us harm. But short of a stray nuclear weapon — a
real but unlikely threat, and a threat the objectionable parts of the
government’s war on terror do nothing to diminish — there’s little Al
Qaeda or other Islamic fundamentalist groups can do to us that any
other individual or group with violent ambitions could. Making them
anything larger than that is exactly what they want.

As the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11 approaches, Schneier offers
sound advice as to where we should go from here. He writes, “It’s time
we calm down and fight terror with antiterror . . . The surest defense
against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to
recognize that terrorism is just one of the risks we face, and not a
particularly common one at that.”

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