Sure there is a risk, but the risk / reward ratio is what most people are concerned about.
Not quite. What people are worried about is
perceived risk. This is skewed by things like media attention but also by the amount of influence that the people themselves have on the risk.
What a terrorists want is to change this
perceived risk, not the actual statistical risk, and thereby change behaviour of people, eventually changing society.
There's a lot of statistics on the web about actual causes of death in the US. This is just one of them:
10 Leading Causes of Death in the U.S., 2004 — Infoplease.com
Nine out of ten main causes of death in the US are basically health-related. A lot of these can be mitigated by adopting a healthier lifestyle. Yet the government does not do a whole lot in encouraging people to get a better lifestyle, or discouraging unhealthy lifestyles.
The other main cause of death is "unintentional injuries" and if you dig a little deeper into the statistics, you'll find that most of these are motor vehicle incidents - 40.000 deaths per year on average in the US alone. A lot of which can be prevented by wearing seatbelts, not go driving while drunk, not speeding and so forth. Perhaps even by raising the legal limit to drive a car from 16 to 18. Or encouraging people to take public transport, a pushbike or even
walk somewhere. But oh, no, let's not do anything about the ultimate display of personal freedom!
Dogs kill way more people each year than sharks in the US. Yet Yaws is seen as a thriller and Lassie as a family movie. There's about as many deaths from furniture catching fire as from plane accidents. Yet, people have no fear whatsoever from sitting (and smoking) on a couch but loads of them have a fear of flying.
Bruce Schneier, in his book "Beyond Fear" identifies the following reasons for the difference between perceived risk and actual risk:
- People exaggerate spectacular but rare risks and downplay common risks.
- People have trouble estimating risks for anything not exactly like their normal situation
- Personified risks are perceived to be greater than anonymous risks.
- People underestimate risks they willingly take and overestimate risks in situations they can't control
- People overestimate risks that are being talked about and remain an object of public scrutiny.
Terrorists know this and play on these five perceptions so that a relatively minor attack has the greatest possible impact. 9/11 killed 3000 people one day and has so far been a unique occurrence. AIDS alone kills approximately 10.000 people per day, every day of the year (3 million deaths annually, worldwide). Yet, how much money is being spent on airline security vs. AIDS research? How much media attention does the War on Terror get vs. AIDS research? How much pressure does the US government put on countries like Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and a few others for condemning terrorism and punishing/extraditing terrorist leaders vs. how much pressure does the US government put on the Pope to allow, or even encourage, condom usage in Africa?
A big part of this is the question "can this happen to me"? With driving and with a lot of other activities we feel in control, so we downplay the risks. Other activities, such as going to a busy market square in Israel, or having sex in Africa, we feel we can avoid them. But there are activities, such as flying as a passenger in a commercial aircraft, where we feel at risk, we can't avoid, and don't have control of the situation. Those are the activities that play the terrorists card the best.
Bomb in a small airplane? Most of the general public will never go near a small airplane so that part of the perceived risk is zero. They do go into high-rise buildings but that's something they do every day and there they feel in control. And the payload of a small aircraft is such that even a high explosive (if you can obtain that, get it on board and explode it at the right moment) will do limited damage. Less than what could be obtained with a small van in a parking garage. Yes, it will kill the pilot and a few people on the ground but it won't fundamentally alter the lifestyle of a lot of people. I don't think that makes a good terrorist plot - although it would have an effect on GA, for sure.
I'm not saying we should ignore terrorism altogether. But I see a lot of short-sightedness in the response to perceived terrorism threats. All sorts of silly and counterproductive legislation being passed, and this legislation is then used for non-terrorism-related goals. People, government, politicians, police forces, airlines and a lot of other stakeholders all have different, and sometimes hidden, agendas and find that by invoking the t-word they can advance those agendas.
Fortunately the tide is turning. I read today that there's a Senate hearing about whether customs officials are allowed to search your laptop for suspicious files or not. This was one of the measures that were needed, someone thought, to stop terrorism but whose only effect seems to be to annoy a lot of business travelers. Recently an air marshal was prevented from boarding the flight he was supposed to safeguard, because his name was on the TSA no-fly list, so now, finally, TSA is modifying the way the no-fly list works. And Charlie Black has backed down from, and will possibly be fired over his speculation that a terrorist attack right now would be good for McCains polls.