Nov 17, 2015

Let's Not Get It Wrong This Time: The Terrorists Won After 9/11 Because We Chose to Invade Iraq and Shred Our Constitution

We destroyed ourselves with our dumb 9/11 overreactions. It's essential not to make the same mistake again.
By Bret Weinstein / commondreams.org
Let's Not Get It Wrong This Time: The Terrorists Won After 9/11 Because We Chose to Invade Iraq and Shred Our Constitution

What is terrorism? Many are convinced that the word is inherently so vague as to be meaningless. I have never understood this. To me the definition seems singular, and obvious, and it would appear that simply understanding it is the key to avoiding terrible missteps in the aftermath of an attack like the one in Paris.

Terrorism is a tactic in which the primary objective is to produce fear, rather than direct harm. Terrorist attacks are, first and foremost, psychological operations designed to alter behavior amongst the terrorized in a way that the actors believe will serve them.

The 9/11 perpetrators killed about 3,000 people, and did about $13 billion in physical damage to the United States. That’s a lot of harm in absolute terms, but not relative to a nation of 300 million people, with a GDP of almost $15 trillion. It was a massive blow to many families, and to New York City. But to the nation as a whole that level of damage was about as dangerous as a bee sting.

You may find that analogy suspect because bee stings are deadly to those with an allergy. But what kills people is not the sting itself. It is their own massive overreaction to an otherwise tiny threat, that fatally disrupts the functional systems of the body. And that is exactly what terrorists hope to trigger—a muscular and reflexive response on the part of the victim-state that advances the perpetrators’ interests far beyond their own capacity to advance them.

The 9/11 attack was symbolic. It was not designed to cripple us economically or militarily, at least not directly. It was designed to provoke a reaction. The reaction cost more than 6,000 American lives in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more than $3 trillion in U.S. treasure. The reaction also caused the United States to cripple its own Constitution and radicalize the Muslim world with a reign of terror that has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani civilians.

The return on the terrorists’ investment was spectacular. Assuming the official story is right, then Al Qaeda got $7 million of effect for every dollar it spent on the attack–$7 million, to one. The ratio of harm inflicted on U.S. targets by the 9/11 attacks, to the financial harm the U.S. inflicted on itself reflects the same amplification. For every $1 of damage they did to us, we did $231 to ourselves. For every American that was killed in the attack, we sacrificed more than two on the battlefield. And that is all before we consider the instability we brought to the Middle East, the harm we did to our own freedoms, and the spectacular cost to our reputation abroad.

The lesson, of course, is that above all else a nation should refuse to do what everyone will expect it to do in response to an attack. And if there is a silver lining, it is that one does not need to be sure of the identity or intent of their attackers to respond intelligently.

Terrorists do not engage in terror attacks because they are strong. They engage in these attacks because they are weak. The gruesome spectacle of terrorism is a cost saving measure in which the fears of the victims and onlookers amplify the resources that the terrorists themselves are able to deploy.

Reacting reflexively is inherently self-defeating. If a nation wishes to make itself an unappealing target, then it should get its primordial fears under control.

We are not made safe from terrorists by helicopters, or missiles or boots on the ground. Nor is it drones, torture or digital dragnets that protect us. What makes us as individuals safe from a terror attack is the staggering probability that we will be elsewhere when one occurs. Accepting a tiny chance that we will die at the hands of terrorists is a bargain price for freedom. Reconciling oneself to it is very much like accepting a small chance that one will die on the highway, in exchange for the ability to travel at will.

There is much we do not know, and much we many never know about ISIS and its objectives. We can, however be sure of this: ISIS would like the citizens of the West to surrender their liberties, while lashing out blindly into the dark.

This time, let’s not.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Bret Weinstein

Bret Weinstein is a professor of evolutionary biology at The Evergreen State College. He can be reached at [email protected]

Politics   War & Peace
Rate this article 
War & Peace
Hope is a Verb
Transition Films
Trending Videos
Project 2025 Explained in Schoolhouse Rock Style!
5 min - The song that could save America. Share widely. Written, animated and performed by Jason KravitsProduced and mixed by Sean Dixon with Jason Kravits, Christopher Walz, and Brian O’Neill
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011)
174 min - A series of BBC films about how humans have been colonised by the machines we have built. Although we don't realise it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the...
Democracy Doesn’t Exist in the United States | Chris Hedges
37 min - As Donald Trump returns to the White House, many are raising concerns about the possible decline of liberal democracy. What then would a second Trump term mean for the next four years for the...
ENOUGHNESS, The Prequel: Indigenous Economics with Tantoo Cardinal
8 min - Indigenous Economies have “values added”. Today’s economy values hoarding, greed and consumption. Using Indigenous values of sharing, cooperation and fairness with the millennial old design...
Breaking: Trump Confirms Panama Canal Steal; Another Plane Crashes; Trump Tariffs To 'crash' Economy
9 min - Support The Show On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/seculartalk  
Born Sexy Yesterday: A Hollywood Movie Trope That Maybe Needs to Die
18 min - "This video essay is about a gendered trope that has bothered me for years but didn’t have a name, so I gave it one: Born Sexy Yesterday. It's a science fiction convention in which the mind of a...
Bitter Lake (2015)
136 min - Politicians used to have the confidence to tell us stories that made sense of the chaos of world events. But now there are no big stories and politicians react randomly to every new crisis ...
Trending Articles
The Limits of Ally-ship
Documentaries from the Early Days of Films For Action
Subscribe for $5/mo to Watch over 50 Patron-Exclusive Films
Subscribe $5/mo View All Patron Films

 

Your support keeps us ad-free and financially independent

Our 10,000+ video & article library is 99% free, ad-free, and entirely community-funded thanks to our patron subscribers!


Want to donate extra? You can subscribe and donate an extra $5/mo or more.