Have you ever wondered what the planners of the 9/11 attack must be thinking as they see the results of their handiwork? Do you think they ever in their wildest dreams thought they would be so successful?

Even from the beginning, I don't think they realized that by crashing into the Twin Towers they would bring them down, or kill so many people, so just that obviously had them high fiving, screaming, and dancing around with joy (not to mention some sexual release, if you know what I mean!)

But consider the ramifications since then.

We have spent a gazllion dollars on security, ranging from increased "safety" measures at airports (including a whole new department  - TSA) and protecting things like dams, electrical grids, and schools.  I would really be curious to know how much, all total (is anyone out there keeping track?)

We have spent a horrific amount of time waiting in line at airports as we watch elderly folks and mothers with children getting searched. Seriously, does it REALLY make us safer knowing that granny isn't carrying a bomb? And now we're getting ready to subject ourselves to full body scans? Seriously?

There have been many articles written on the subject of terror, but two in the WSJ addressing the terror issue from a little different perspective popped out at me today.  
The first, "Undressing the Terror Threat" looks at the terror "game" and discusses the current "rules" and how we need to change them. Paul Campos sets up his premise:

I'm not much of a basketball player. Middle-age, with a shaky set shot and a bad knee, I can't hold my own in a YMCA pickup game, let alone against more organized competition. But I could definitely beat LeBron James in a game of one-on-one. The game just needs to feature two special rules: It lasts until I score, and when I score, I win.

We might have to play for a few days, and Mr. James's point total could well be creeping toward five figures before the contest ended, but eventually the gritty gutty competitor with a lunch-bucket work ethic (me) would subject the world's greatest basketball player to a humiliating defeat.

The world's greatest nation seems bent on subjecting itself to a similarly humiliating defeat, by playing a game that could be called Terrorball. The first two rules of Terrorball are:

(1) The game lasts as long as there are terrorists who want to harm Americans; and

(2) If terrorists should manage to kill or injure or seriously frighten any of us, they win.

He goes on to discuss the statistical threat, cowardice, and acceptable risk, and ends up with a comparison that is certainly worth consider...the sooner the better:

Yet not treating Americans as adults has costs. For instance, it became the official policy of our federal government to try to make America "a drug-free nation" 25 years ago.

After spending hundreds of billions of dollars and imprisoning millions of people, it's slowly beginning to become possible for some politicians to admit that fighting a necessarily endless drug war in pursuit of an impossible goal might be a bad idea. How long will it take to admit that an endless war on terror, dedicated to making America a terror-free nation, is equally nonsensical?

What then is to be done? A little intelligence and a few drops of courage remind us that life is full of risk, and that of all the risks we confront in America every day, terrorism is a very minor one. Taking prudent steps to reasonably minimize the tiny threat we face from a few fanatic criminals need not grant them the attention they crave. Continuing to play Terrorball, on the other hand, guarantees that the terrorists will always win, since it places the bar for what counts as success for them practically on the ground.

The second companion article "Crunching the Risk Numbers" is by Nate Silver of "fivethirtyeight.com" fame, which discusses, as you would guess, the statistics involved.

Most of us are horrible assessors of risk. Travelers at American airports are taking extensive steps due to fears of terrorism. But in the decade of the 2000s, only about one passenger for every 25 million was killed in a terrorist attack aboard an American commercial airliner (all of the fatalities were on 9/11). By contrast, a person has about a one in 500,000 chance each year of being struck by lightning.

The usual response I get to these statistics--especially in the wake of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempt to bring down Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day--is that although terrorist incidents aboard airplanes might never have been common, they are becoming more so. This belief, too, is mistaken. Relative to the number of commercial departures world-wide, passenger deaths resulting from what I term "violent passenger incidents"--bombings, hijackings, and other sabotage--were at least five times less common in the 2000s than in any decade from the 1940s through the 1980s.

He goes through more analysis, and ends with:

Many object to this sort of analysis--no cost is too high, they say, to prevent the next 9/11. But if history is any guide, the next attack will probably not be like 9/11--it will be like NWA 253, something which threatens the lives of dozens or hundreds of people, not thousands. To the extent we overreact to these incidents--allowing them to disrupt our economy and our way of life--we do little but increase the value to terrorists of committing them.

Next up for the terrorists has GOT to be a "butt bomb."  In light of the fact that a "butt bomb" would not be detected even by the most sophisticated screening machines, and only body cavity searches would be completely reliable, (please tell me we will NOT submit to that!) is all the money we are spending REALLY worth it?

It seems to me we are better off accepting that the world is a dangerous place, and we, as individuals, have to determine which risks are acceptable, and which are not. Those who scream that the government is too big, are the very ones who are clamoring for the President to protect us from ALL risk of terror. There isn't enough money in the world, or a government big enough to do that.

****A comment made has spurred me to ask this question...

If you could fly on an airline that conducted mandatory cavity searches, luggage searches and an intensive 15 minute interview, (all financed by the airline and reflected in your ticket price) would you fly that airline, rather than the one you fly now?