http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/outlook/1106939

Oct. 26, 2001, 10:16PM

Drain swamps that breed millions of new terrorists

By CARL V. PHILLIPS

We never think to bring the mosquitoes to justice, even though every year they deliver malaria, West Nile Virus and other diseases that kill millions of people worldwide, including Americans. The people responsible for the Sept. 11 and anthrax attacks deserve to be brought to justice, and most Americans agree that violent deaths are one option for doing so.

But is the desire for justice (or vengeance) a luxury, expensive in terms of additional Americans lives lost? With no grand goal of remaking the world, as there has been in past wars, perhaps our goals should be stated in terms of what happens to us rather than what we do. In the war on terrorism, like the war on mosquitoes, it may not be useful to think of fighting to win, but rather to not lose too much.

As a student of military strategy, economics and public health, I find public health thinking -- a goal of reducing injury and death through whatever means are effective -- to be most relevant. Public health methods include fighting the harmful agent directly (hospitalization or immunization for infectious disease; security measures for terrorism), trying to wipe out the transmission vectors (spraying for mosquitoes; spying and diplomacy to root out terrorist cells), and altering our behavior (insect repellant; security checkpoints).

But above all a public health approach tries to change the environment that leads to the disease (draining swamps that breed mosquitoes, AIDS education, and improving nutrition). In the "war on cancer" we have made remarkable progress toward cures, but the vast majority of our success has come (and will likely continue to come) from reducing the causes. The war on terrorism presents similar opportunities and pitfalls.

Osama bin Laden declared that Americans will not be secure until his people find peace. It seems likely that even if the top terrorist leaders are killed and Afghanistan is given a new government, Americans will still be attacked and killed. Attacks will continue as long as there people so angry about U.S. actions in the Middle East that they are willing to kill and die.

Motivated individuals, even without a network, can still shoot an American tourist or bomb a McDonald's every few weeks. As the Israeli situation has demonstrated, tit-for-tat military retaliation does not end such attacks and no military action short of genocide can eliminate all potential enemies.

To deal with ongoing attacks, we would have to live on a war footing, with constant vigilance, curtailed freedom and an acceptance of casualties. Americans (quite reasonably) do not to want to pay this price, much like we do not wish to stop having sex to reduce the spread of HIV and hepatitis or ban alcohol to eliminate drunk driving. As the Israelis discovered, comfortable middle-class people have a difficult time fighting a simmering war against a desperate opponent. The Bush administration recently reminded us (ironically, when questioning conservation of the fuel that keeps us entangled in the Middle East) that our lifestyle is a blessed one. We resist responding to public health challenges by upending our lifestyle, which suggests that living on a war footing is not a practical option.

As with mosquitoes and cancer, the best method for fighting terrorism may be to change the environment, minimizing the number of young men who are so desperate or frustrated that they see no better option. Many Americans are frustrated about the behavior of our government and institutions, but with a single exception they have found more productive options than destroying buildings. Many French are disgusted with American cultural imperialism, but their criminal attacks have been only minor vandalism.

Eliminating poverty and provincialism is easier said than done, of course, but we can work to minimize the homicidal frustration. If we do not attend to this, our military action is likely to make more terrorists than it kills.

Social sciences like economics and public health show that most human traits are distributed as a bell-shaped curve, with most people fairly close to the average and a few trailing off toward each extreme. This distribution means that a tiny shift can dramatically increase the number of people in what had been the extreme tail. If everyone's height were increased by just a few inches, many men of average height would be able to dunk a basketball, multiplying by many times the number with that talent.

This pattern seems likely to apply to murderous fanaticism: There are perhaps a few hundred young men desperate and frustrated enough to die attacking American targets now, but there may be tens of thousands who are only inches short of it. If our goal is protecting American lives, a protracted military action that makes a few hundred million people each a little bit angrier could be our biggest mistake.

Conversely, figuring out how to shift things a bit in the other direction by respecting those people's concerns and desires would be the equivalent of draining the swamps that breed mosquitoes. The Germans are reliable friends not because we inflicted just punishment, but because we helped them become prosperous and happy.

This is not a call for pacifism or putting other people's interests above our own. Indeed, the public health approach is totally selfish, protecting ourselves using all available means. Fortunately this selfish calculation coincides with improving the lives of others too, saving us from a tough moral trade-off. Victory in this war is like the children's playground game "Red Rover," where members of one team are converted to the other until everyone is eventually on the winning side.

When embarking on a war that does not have a victory condition or exit strategy, we need to decide what we want to happen along the way. In the case of terrorism, should include minimizing the number of people who want to be transmission vectors for death and destruction.

Phillips is assistant professor in Management and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston.

-- Swissrose (cellier3@mindspring.com), October 28, 2001

Answers

This is a well written -- yet mostly specious -- argument. In actuality, it is not an argument for anything, just "against"...but, against...what?

He offers no call to action past some nebulous, undefined, appeal for calming the waters of hate. Outside of that, what does he propose...nothing.

As for what he may be against:

If he believes that we should withdraw from Saudi Arabia, why not say so and why.

If he believes we should stop our support for Israel, he should say so and why.

If he thinks we should stop out attacks in Afghanistan, he should say so and why.

If he thinks these things and said so, then he would have to defend his choices. It's easy to sit in an office and "think" when you don't have to make decisions that involve life and death.

One thing he does not address -- (or even seem to think about) -- that makes all his points moot about the "million more", is if Bin Laden and Al Quaeda can find a way, they will kill as many Americans as they can, including the use of nuclear weapons.

That potential must be destroyed...NOW. If there are more terrorist created in the future, they will have to be dealt with then.

JB

-- Jackson Brown (Jackson_Brown@deja.com), October 28, 2001.