(These sirens are damned annoying. How does one opt out?)
Bin Laden sought to destroy America by bankrupting it. With a wavering economy and foreign debt broaching $15 Trillion, it seems the United States may have succumb to the deceased Face of Terror’s devious plan.
This is precisely how the terrorists win – by provoking a response from society that ultimately does far greater harm than the initial attack.
Unfortunately, as the decade long failure known as the War on Terror can attest, there is little we can do to directly prevent terrorism. For as long as humans are free, some might choose to hurt other people for whatever stupid reason.
But that doesn’t mean we should give up our liberties. Especially not for a predominantly trivial threat, like terrorism, which kills about the same number of people as bathtubs.
Instead of running for the hills every time some bad guy says boo, we can just accept that getting-exploded-by-some-ideological-douchebag is just one more item in a long list of things that can kill us.
This way, we’ll have more energy to focus towards a broader approach to terrorism, attacking the underlying social issues, like poverty, which foster violent extremism.
