HELP! THE TERRORISTS ARE COMING! (OR ARE THEY?)

Four days till Christmas, and the US government’s national threat level is already at Yellow (i.e. “Elevated”) while the threat level for all domestic and international flights is Orange (i.e. “High). Here in the UK, the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, has warned that the threat of terrorist attacks in public places, including from radioactive dirty bombs (!), is “growing” and has asked the public “to remain vigilant over the Christmas period”.

In the press, New Labour lackeys and laptop bombardiers like Timothy Garton Ash in the Guardian and David Aaronovitch in the Times have railed this week in their columns against those who would dare suggest that “terrorism isn't that big a threat”. But – rhetorical sweeps, emotive language and instinctive reactions aside – how big is the terrorist threat to all of us ordinary folks, minding our own business, on the streets of London and Birmingham (or, for that matter, on the streets of New York and Los Angeles)?

Here are some facts and figures – often so overlooked and/or misunderstood by our political and journalistic classes who tend to avoid facts and figures, especially those which don’t fit into their pre-conceived view of the world – courtesy of the very brilliant American academic, John Mueller, Professor of Political Science at Ohio State University and author of the excellent book, ‘Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them’:

“Those adept at hyperbole like to proclaim that we live in "the age of terror." However…the number of people worldwide who die as a result of international terrorism by this definition is generally a few hundred a year. In fact, until 2001 far fewer Americans were killed in any grouping of years by all forms of international terrorism than were killed by lightning. Moreover, except for 2001, virtually none of these terrorist deaths occurred within the United States itself. Indeed, outside of 2001, fewer people have died in America from international terrorism than have drowned in toilets.

“Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, however, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism over the period is not a great deal more than the number killed by lightning--or by accident-causing deer or by severe allergic reactions to peanuts over the same period. In almost all years the total number of people worldwide who die at the hands of international terrorists is not much more than the number who drown in bathtubs in the United States--some 300-400.

“Americans worry intensely about "another 9/11," but if one of these were to occur every three months for the next five years, the chance of being killed in one of them is two one-hundredths of one percent: the posited attacks would kill 60,000 which is about .02 percent of 300,000,000. This would be, of course, an extended and major tragedy, but an individual's chances of being killed, while no longer microscopic, would still remain small even under this extreme scenario.

“Another assessment comes from astronomer Alan Harris. Using State Department figures, he assumes a worldwide death rate from international terrorism of 1000 per year--that is, he assumes in his estimate that there would be another 9/11 somewhere in the world every several years. Over an 80 year period under those conditions some 80,000 deaths would occur which would mean that the lifetime probability that a resident of the globe will die at the hands of international terrorists is about one in 75,000 (6 billion divided by 80,000). This, he points out, is about the same likelihood that one would die over the same interval from the impact on the earth of an especially ill-directed asteroid or comet. If there are no repeats of 9/11, the lifetime probability of being killed by an international terrorist becomes about one in 120,000.”

To summarize Mueller: more people drown in bathtubs than are killed by international terrorists, and we are more likely to be killed by an asteroid, Hollywood-style a la Armageddon or Deep Impact, than we are to die at the hands of Osama and co.

Over to you, David and Tim…