Should we Worry about Terrorism?

by Tom Kando

It’s happening weekly: On October 31, a terrorist killed eight people in New York. He used a truck to mow down his victims. Five days later, another one killed twenty-six innocents in a Texas church.

Having taught the Violence and Terrorism course at the university for many years, I feel compelled to write about this subject. Hopefully this article will be useful.

20th and 21st century man has become inured to news of violence because such news has become so frequent. Only a month earlier, Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and injured 546 in Las Vegas. Throughout this year, as in previous years, there have been attacks in various cities of the world - half a dozen in London and other British cities, several in Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, and so forth. Attacks on the Western World are covered most prominently, because we live in the West. We are most concerned about attacks against our world. This is selfish and totally natural.
Of course, the mayhem in trouble spots OUTSIDE the West is factorially higher. It is difficult to classify some of those areas. Are they war zones, failed states, “just” the locus of terrorism, or what? Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen are at war, as is Iraq still, Somalia and Libya are failed states, the Congo, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan and other African states experience varying degrees in instability, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar (Burma) experience terrorism while they remain relatively stable, etc...etc...

But to repeat: The body count outside the West is probably HUNDREDS of times higher than it is in Europe and North America. A November 5 article in the Guardian shows unambiguously that “deaths from terrorism remain rare in North America and western Europe, compared with the rest of the world.” It is good to keep this mind, as terrorism is sometimes framed as an assault upon “us.” The US is, after all, what Osama Bin Laden called “the far enemy,” the “head of the snake.” The West represents the white, Christian, affluent, resented colonizer. But the body count is not logical. I shall not get into the fairly obvious reasons for this.

Should we worry a lot?
Yes, because terrorism is very evil.
No, because it does not present a very great risk.

In a moment, I’ll give you a “risk assessment” analysis. But first, something about the evil character of terrorism. One could argue that violent political resistance has become uglier over the generations:

In the first place, the TARGETS have changed, somewhat: 19th century and earlier terrorism more often targeted the parties that were PERSONALLY held responsible for injustice, oppression or in some other way perceived as THE ENEMY. In other words, heads of state and other political leaders. Here is a list of a few of the more memorable assassinations I can recall from my history classes: Four US presidents, including two in the 19th century (Lincoln in 1864 and Garfield in 1881); Several European heads of state, including French president Sadi Carnot (1894) and Tsar Alexander II (1881). The latter was killed by the Narodniks, a Russian terrorist organization. Austro-Hungarian Archduke Ferdinand, whose assassination triggered World War One.

The 19th century and the beginning of the 20th were the true age of assassinations. Of course, heads of state and political leaders have been bumped off in all ages. There have been plenty of assassinations in our time, including those of martyrs such as John Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Same thing going BACK in time. For example, Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth were two consecutive French kings to be murdered (1589 and 1610). And if one goes all the way back to ancient Rome, there was the prototype of all assassinations - Julius Caesar’s murder in 44 B.C., followed by the assassinations of twenty or more subsequent emperors...(see Assassinations in Europe).

Today, terrorists no longer seek out “the head of the snake.” They kill more indiscriminately. Attacks such as the ones in Oklahoma City (1995), New York (2001, 2017), Sandy Hook (2012), Charleston (2015), Orlando (2016), Nice (2016), Las Vegas (2017) and Texas (2017) almost seem to PREFER INNOCENT victims. They go after non-combatant men, women and children. They target schools, churches, concerts, nightclubs, hospitals, hotels, tourist destinations.

To be sure, the State has an even longer history of attacking the civilian population. From ancient Rome through the Second World War and beyond, by far the greatest number of lives has been taken by the state, not by terrorists and freedom fighters. From Caesar’s Gallic wars to Dresden, the Holocaust and Hiroshima, genocide and mass annihilation have been the province of the State - “Terrorism from Above.”(see The Killing Compartments). However, this is not my topic today. This article is about “asymmetrical” violence - terrorism from below.

So the question is: Terrorists seem to be increasingly murdering innocent people - non-combatants. Why?

● Well, for one thing, there has been a HARDENING OF THE TARGETS. It has become a lot more difficult to assassinate heads of states and other leaders since JFK. Michael Corleone was wrong: it is NOT true that “you can kill anyone.” So terrorists go after surrogate victims.

● Another development has been the emergence of the cult of death. The suicide-terrorist views killing AND dying simultaneously as rewarding. This is clearly the result of religion (re)entering politics. Previously, kamikaze pilots were the main example of suicide attacks.

● Technology? It is true that, on the one hand, automatic weapons and explosives have become more sophisticated and more readily available. However, there has also been a trend towards more primitive weapons, notably knives and trucks. Nice (2016), London (2017 and New York (2017) were truck rammings.

Two aspects of terrorism become heatedly politicized immediately following every new attack: (1) the ethno-religious angle and (2) guns.

Let me clear up these two issues once and for all:

1. Consider the last three major attacks in the US - Stephen Padlock in Las Vegas, Saipov in New York and Devin Patrick Kelley in Sutherland Springs. Two of these three incidents (the two bloodiest) were by white, presumably Christian men. Yet, we continue to ISLAMIZE terrorism. Wikipedia does not even include Stephen Padlock in its list of terrorists! (See List of Terrorist Incidents).
This is a perfect tautology: We say that most terrorists are Muslims, because we define terrorism as acts committed by Muslims! When people like Padlock and Kelley kill dozens of people (and then themselves), we do not call these events suicide-terrorism, but “shootouts” or “rampages,” or “mass murders,” or “massacres,”or “lone wolves.”

2. Weapons: The link between terrorism and the proliferation of high-powered, automatic, rapid-fire weapons is so obvious that I am embarrassed to bring it up again. It is because of easy access to such weapons that new acts of terrorism often break all-time records in the body count. Remember the rat-a-tat of Stephen Padlock’s machine gun in Las Vegas, firing 280 rounds in half a minute, and continuing for ten minutes? Deranged people are nothing new, but what IS new is that a deranged individual can now mow down dozens of people within minutes. And you still feel that such technology should not be controlled? Nuts.

Now that these two issues are settled, let me move on to the question posed in the title of this article. How fearful of terrorism should we be?

There are two reasons why terrorism SEEMS to be a growing threat:

1. In ABSOLUTE terms, there may be more of it. Indeed, no week goes by without news about some new attack SOMEWHERE in the US or elsewhere. But this is largely because the US and the world have grown very populous. America has grown from 4 million people when George Washington was alive, to 325 million today. The world from 800 million then, to nearly 8 billion today. So, more people, more mayhem.

2. Through modern mass media, we HEAR about myriads of incidents everywhere. Two and a half centuries ago, most people rarely had any inkling of mayhem occurring in the next town down the road, let alone all over the globe.

Here we come to the Steven Pinker paradox (see The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined): While the absolute amount of violence and the perception of violence have increased, its relative amount has decreased. All in all, mankind is less violent and more safe today than in the past.

* * * * * *

Now let’s compare the likelihood that you will be the victim of terrorism with the likelihood that you will die in some other way.

My analysis is limited to people in the Western world - like you and me. As I said, terrorism kills far more people in the Third World than in the West. When a terrorist kills 16 people in San Bernardino (2015), 50 in Orlando (2016) or 8 in New York (2017), we get very upset. As we also do when terrorists kill Charlie Hebdo and 13 other people in Paris (2015), or 88 people in Nice (206), or 137 in Saint Denis (2015). These events elicit enormous media reaction. On the other hand, when 300 people are killed and over 500 wounded in Somalia (October 2017), there is much less commotion.

Here, I focus on the roughly 1 billion people who live in the West - about 743 million in Europe and 325 million in the US. It seems to be precisely those who suffer the LEAST amount of terrorism who perceive it to be the greatest threat:

The United States:
2015: 38 dead, including 16 in San Bernardino and 9 in Charleston.
2016: 58 dead, including 50 in Orlando.
2017 (so far): 92 dead, including 58 in Las Vegas, 8 in New York and 26 Texas.
Note that I include the Las Vegas and Texas shootouts, which is controversial. By doing this, I MAXIMIZE the threat of “terrorism.”
Three year average: 63 deaths from terrorism per year.

Europe: (see Terrorism in Europe):
1970-2016: 11,288 deaths over 47-year period: = 240 per year.
However: Prior to the turn of the century, there was more terrorism in Western Europe, due to the strife in Northern Ireland and in the Basque Country. In the 21st century, there has been more terrorism in Eastern Europe, in places like Ukraine and Chechnya.

France:
1972-2016: 492 deaths in 44 years = 11 per year.

United Kingdom: (See How Many People are Killed by Terrorists in the UK?):
1970-2016: 2519 deaths in 46 years = 55 per year.
Most of this occurred before 2000, for example in northern  Ireland and at Lockerbie in 1988 (270 dead).

Both the United Kingdom and France have had declining rates of terrorism in the 21st century.

So now, how do your chances of dying from terrorism compare?

United States: 63 terrorism deaths per year = 1 per 5.2 million.
France: 11 deaths per year = 1 per 6.2 million (so France is actually safer from terrorism than the US).
United Kingdom: 55 deaths per year = 1 per 1.2 million
Europe: 240 deaths per year = 1 per 3 million.

Compare this with other risks (in the US):
1. Drug overdose: 64,000 deaths per year = 1 per 5,100 = One thousand times more likely than dying from terrorism.
2. Suicide: 44,200 = 1 per 7,350 = 700 times more likely than terrorism
3. Car accident: 37,500 = 1 per 8,700 = 600 times more likely than terrorism
4. Murder: 17,250 = 1 per 19,000 = 274 times more likely than terrorism (And remember that the vast majority of murders are by spouses and other relatives, friends and neighbors and other people known to the victims).
5. Pedestrians (killed while walking): about 5,000 = 1 per 65,000 = 80 times more likely than terrorism
6. Falling down stairs and ladders: about 1,300 = 1 per 250,000 = 21 times more likely than terrorism (mostly the elderly).
7. Bicycling: about 1,000 = 1 per 325,000 = 16 times more likely than terrorism
8. Drowning in bathtub or hot tub: about 335 = 1 per 1 million = 5 times more likely than terrorism (many infants).

Two things which are safer than terrorism:
9. Lightning: 27 deaths: = 1 per 12 million = 2.3 times safer than terrorism
10. Flying on a commercial US airline: ZERO fatalities.

In sum, when it comes to terrorism, the problem is as much perception as reality, and the media have much to do with this. To quote the Guardian recently: “Despite the horror of the New York truck attack, data shows that western countries remain very safe when compared to other parts of the world.”

When I return from Europe, people often say to me “Thank God you returned safely.”

My reply: “When you drove to the supermarket this afternoon, you took a bigger risk than when I flew to Rome.”

Leaders such as Obama and Trump can reiterate the usual pablum after each attack, that terrorism is evil, that we must remain resilient, that we must pray together, etc. However, the reality is that terrorism is not a war that can be WON once and for all, but a CONDITION which, like crime, must be MANAGED.

The greatest progress can be achieved by reducing the proliferation of automatic weapons such as high-powered assault rifles and other rapid-fire firearms.

It may also help to capture more terrorists alive, so as to learn from them.

Some countries have a better record in the “war on terrorism,” for example Italy and Israel. The latter country is a small state where most of the population is always on alert and where everyone is subject to military service. Its solutions may not be applicable elsewhere. The Italian authorities may have learned by coexisting with the Mafia. Who knows. These are topics for another day.

Conclusions:

● In general, whether considering terrorism or other forms of violence, the world is becoming less violent (Steven Pinker).

● In the US, angry white men are far more dangerous than immigrants and/or Muslims.

● As far as terrorism goes, the Western world is far less dangerous than the Third World.

● While Europe as a whole has a bit more terrorism than the US, WESTERN Europe does not, at least not in the 21st century. Western European countries such as France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Scandinavia and the Benelux are safer from terrorism than the US.

● As to “common” murder - Nearly all parts of Europe are safer than the US.

● Guns have everything to do with terrorism and violent crime. When we learn to control the spread of high-powered weapons, we will have less terrorism and less “common” murder.

● Terrorism has little to do with mental illness: There is no correlation between the frequency of terrorism and the prevalence of mental illness - in time or in place.

● Flying - at least on US airlines - is by far the safest thing you can do - even safer than staying home.  leave comment here

© Tom Kando 2017;All Rights Reserved