I’ve never been to Israel, but pretty much every one I know who has gone there says it is a nation full of bad drivers.
In 1997, Israel had 530 motor vehicle fatalities. In 2002, Israel had 525 motor vehicle fatalities.
Assuming this rate as a baseline, in the 42 years between 1961 and 2003, there would have been as many as 21,000 road deaths in Israel. (I’ll stipulate that this number is doubtless pretty high)
Just as a comparison, according to the Department of State publication I cited earlier, there have been approximately 381 deaths in Israel caused by Palestinian terrorism form 1961 to 2003.
But…I doubt that a government in Israel (or the United States) would fall – would be voted out of power – because of traffic deaths. Even though each of those deaths is as wrenching to those close to the person who died.So what’s different enough about deaths from terrorism (as opposed, say, to deaths in traffic accidents) that they occupy such a central place in our political dialog? Why will we marshal the resources of a country to battle terrorism while we – largely – ignore other issues which may cause more deaths?
I honestly don’t know why they are (and they are, both in my reaction to them and in the polity’s), and acknowledge that I’d better start thinking about it trying to come up with an explanation.
I think that this explanation is going to be a key to unlocking my own difference of perception with many of those who see the issues of the war differently than I do.
I’ll suggest that the direction to look in is because deaths from terrorism – particularly organized terrorism – threaten the core legitimacy of the societies in which we live.
In my view, societies can function because they command the loyalty of their members. This explicit legitimacy is undermined severely when the basic social fabric collapses (as it has in failed states) or, I’ll suggest when the perception is created that the society can’t defend it’s members.
I’m careful here not to explicitly say ‘the government’ can’t defend it’s citizens.
But it may be that societies are very vulnerable to a ‘loss of faith’ by their members.
Some library time is in order.
[Update: I completely spaced and should have credited a comment by blogger Bill Roggio – who did how own post on “Why Terrorism and not Car Accidents?”:http://billroggio.com/archives/2004/08/why_terrorism_a.html back in August.]
I think maybe an explanation for it comes from having some feeling of control over the situation. In a car, you can attempt to swerve around obstacles or avoid an oncoming driver. As unlikely as it is to avoid certain accident, you are still in control of your car.
Terrorism, on the other hand, is often different. Unless you’re on an airplane or happen to be standing next to the guy holding the briefcase-bomb (of whatever sort), etc., you are helpless to stop a terrorist act. There is a feeling of uncertainty, that someone is driving the car for you and you are depending on someone else for your own livelihood.
I’m sure others have additions or differing opinions, but that’s a core difference for me.
Cheers
Your post is nonsense. There is no excuse for the murders which have been committed in Israel; the fact that being a free country, some accidents have taken place on the roads does not excuse your low blow. Want to start a public safety campaign? By all means; but you don’t have to smear the focus on victims of deliberately deadly attacks. Since you have time to post messages on the computer, you may want to invest some time in learning to spell in common English. Driving your car irresponsibly is against the law, both here and in Israel; so is plotting to attack or kill another person. Those who enter the roadway know that they may be at risk, and must be on guard for reckless drivers. But victims of bombings and stabbings did not embark upon such a risky activity. (By the way, there are many good, responsible drivers in Israel, many who are surely better skilled than you.)
I think the big difference is that nobody is _trying_ to increase the number of traffic fatalities, so you can believe that next year’s toll will be about the same as this year’s. With terrorism (or other forms of war) you know somebody wants to make more attacks, and deadlier attacks, and unless they’re stopped the death toll will keep getting higher until the attackers win.
Dalcius hit it on the head. Its an issue of human nature, and the relationship of human nature and freedom. People are always going to drive too fast and eat and drink things that will kill them, which will kill off the vast majority of our population. Those are taken as acceptable. We, as a society (the ‘hive mind’ Den Beste talked about perhaps), have decided the cost of road accidents is worth what it gives us. Freedom of mobility is something taken for granted but very important.
Terrorist attacks are quite the opposite. They are other human beings (who oppose all of our values in fact) who have decided to impose their will upon us or see us dead. I believe this strikes a terrible nerve in Americans, and indeed in all free peoples.
I think the terms ‘live free of die’ and ‘liberty or death’ strike a lot of people these days as anachronistic at best and jingoistic at worst. But I believe the revulsion we feel towards terrorism belies this. We all gotta go sometime, and somehow. But I think most Americans will be damned before they let some scumbag with their fascist agenda order the time of their going. Choking to death on a McNugget is bad luck, getting blasted apart by somebody trying to stuff your daughter in a burka is something else entirely.
Riffing on Mark and Dalcius,
The outrage generated by a traffic accident is directly proportional to the moral culpability of the driver at fault (or the manufacturers of defective products, if they are culpable – see, e.g., Firestone).
Moral culpability of drivers in auto accidents are pretty much limited to degrees of recklessness – with actual intent to kill, the “auto accident” is a case of murder, with the deadly weapon being the automobile. Intent is a key here, which is why even feigning an attack with an auto can provoke extreme road rage – it’s basically equivalent to waving a gun in someone’s face.
Even with regard to recklessness, egregious recklessness provokes outrage – e.g., driving extremely drunk. Further, systems of thought which excuse or justify reckless behavior tend to become deprecated over time, as outrage coalesces into the will to change society – e.g. M.A.D.
It’s not so much outrage at the failure of the state to protect us as outrage at the failure of the guilty parties moral compass. Social policy which achieves an actual minimal body count will not itself enjoy legitimacy if it does not address the moral dimension. Even if the social architect could prove to people a certain policy will result in the minimum possible number of dead people, that policy will not be accepted if it is judged to be amoral. It is by this thread of moral responsibility that the reactions to auto accidents and the reactions to terrorism can be viewed as being in harmony, and not in contradiction. Justice is an essential component of Utility after all.
Slightly different but related topic:
At what point does the number of “collateral” foriegn casualties outweigh the impetus for going to war? (Or, can they at all?) Are the 1 million plus Indo-Chinese civilian deaths justified by our logic in fighting the Vietnam war? Is there a hypothetical number of Iraqi casualties which could not be justified, nomatter how careful we are or how cruel the insurgency is?
A. L.,
Your numbers re: terrorist attacks seems off by a factor of 10. At the height of the stupidfada with a bomb going off a week (on average) it was said to be no worse than traffic. Haaretz or Jerusalem Post had the story.
In warfare morale is all important. In the Battle of Albuera in the Peninsular War an outnumbered and effectively beaten British Army defeated a superior French force because they refused to give up. Wellington was away on another mission that day.
The purpose of attack is to reduce the morale of the enemy until he decides that the fighting is not worth it and asks for terms. Or runs away.
Traffic accidents have no such moral purpose. They have no meaning in context. Surrender will not change the death rate.
Context is what gives meaning to signals.
Which is why a wink and a nod is sufficient to those in the know. Where several books may be required for those who do not have the context.
Think of your computer. Nothing but billions of switches. Only on or off. The meaning of each on/off is only developed in the context of where it occurs. Those on/offs controlling the screen have different meanings than those in the communications channel.
Shannon worked this out in the 40s.
SAO,
The problem with your moral calculus is that the number of dead from a capitulation cannot be determined before hand.
Would 5,000 American dead a year for 10 more years and 50,000 Indo Chinese a year in that same period have been worth it to save 2 million Cambodians? Yep.
Problem is you can never know in advance what will be prevented.
John Kerry thought if we left ‘Nam 3 – 5,000 US supporters would be killed. More reputable numbers were 50,000. (if you count the boat people it turned out to be in the 100,000 to 200,000 range in VietNam).
So all you have left in such cases is guesses and your moral compass. Will those left alive be better off if the Americans prevail or if their enemies do?
History so far is on the side of the Americans.
I am in awe at the level of ignorance you have acheived with your post. As usual, the ever sensitive liberal point of view leaves much to be desired.
You are comparing traffic _accidents_ to deliberate and cold blooded murder.
“Terrorism in Israel”:http://lindasog.com/public/terrorvictims.htm/
The difference is simple:
A society exists to help protect its members from external threats; threats that the individual can do little about. Terrorism is one such threat. Driving, where you have considerable (though NOT perfect) control of your environment is not.
StargazerA5
>>Would 5,000 American dead a year for 10 more years and 50,000 Indo Chinese a year in that same period have been worth it to save 2 million Cambodians? Yep.
Ahem.
It’s my understanding that the US strat bombing of Cambodia was a major factor in trashing the country to the point where the Khmer Rouge could take over. Said bombing also directly killed a very large number of Cambodian civilians (~100k).
Please also recall that when the Khmer Rouge finally got displaced from power it was at the hands of the NORTH VIETNAMESE, who got tired of the maniacs doing cross-border raids into Vietnam to grab more victims.
The USG, naturally, decided to covertly back the Khmer Rouge against the North Vietnamese during this period.
This post indicates disapointing retrograde progress on your migration from liberalism. Re-read Karl till you really understand the diference.
“It’s my understanding that the US strat bombing of Cambodia was a major factor in trashing the country to the point where the Khmer Rouge could take over.”
That is way to simplistic. M Simon makes an important point about causality, you cant determine that A caused B so simply even after the fact, certainly not beforehand. In the Cambodian example its entirely debateable whether the influx of North Vietnamese and VC through Cambodia had more of an impact on the nation than American bombing. For that matter it is little discussed that the door swung both ways, thousands of Cambodians trained in North Korea and returned to destabilize the Sihanouk regime.
So who is at fault? Americans trying to stop the destabilization of SV and Cambodia or the NKs formenting the destabilization by being there in the first place?
>>So who is at fault? Americans trying to stop the destabilization of SV and Cambodia or the NKs formenting the destabilization by being there in the first place?
Both. The Commie Nationalists certainly weren’t making life better. The USG’s totally incompetent use of military force wasn’t helping either.
Raining down death on a large scale is an interesting way of persuading people of your benevolence and the superiority of your political system.
There are sane and rational ways to go about fighting communism. The USG didn’t use those ways, so it’s no surprise that the USG failed.
I’m not trying to put forward a purely utilitarian view here, just point out the danger of a purely deontological ethic.
I believe a healthy society has a little of both. Right now I don’t see this.
As philosopher Andre Glucksman said, terrorism is a form of oppression, comparable to Nazism or Stalinism:
What do extremist ideologies like the communism or Nazism of yesteryear and the Islamism of today have in common? After all, they support ostensibly very different ideals – the superior race, mankind united in socialism, the community of Muslim believers (the Umma). Tomorrow, it could be altogether different ideals: some theological, some scientific, others racist. But the common characteristic is nihilism.
The root element is the attitude that anything goes, particularly when with regard to ordinary people: I can do whatever I want, without scruples. Goehring put it like this: my consciousness is Adolf Hitler. Bolsheviks said: man is made of iron. And the Islamists whom I visited in Algeria said that you have the right to kill little Muslim children, in order to save them.
Like Stalinism and Nazism, Islamist terrorism is a specific form of violence and hatred that has the potential to destroy both the society that inflicts it and the society that suffers from it.
Accidental death and random health problems are a normal, mostly unavoidable part of life. Comparing them to terrorism is a good way of assessing individual risk (criticizing Islam and Mohammed and risking a fatwa is probably less dangerous than driving on the NJ Turnpike on New Year’s Eve).
But if you’re going to assess the risk to a society that can come from nihilistic, supremacist Islamist groups like Hamas, the effects (and body counts of similar oppressive groups, like the Nazis) should be taken into account.
“I’m not trying to put forward a purely utilitarian view here, just point out the danger of a purely deontological ethic.
I believe a healthy society has a little of both. Right now I don’t see this.”
I think examples of this mix is the reasonably limited response of the US to the 9/11 slaughter and the other American murders that have been adding up since the Iranian invasion of the US sovereign embassy in 1979.
We have managed to slow roll a serialized war versus wholesale destruction of quite obvious complicite regimes.
We have sacrificed our fellow citizens lives in an effort to minimize death and destruction in the puruit of our enemies. Just look at Russia’s response(s) in Chechnia.
Quibble–I think that the State Department report is, perhaps, crap. If the report’s numbers are taken as complete, then no one was killed in Israel by terrorist attack before the signing of the Oslo Accords.
Perhaps more stock should be put in the disclaimer about the list not being exhaustive.
“Each of those deaths is as wrenching to those close to the person who died.”
Oh, that is utter tripe.
There are support groups — e.g. http://www.pomc.com/ — founded on the very premise that an accident and a murder (e.g. terrorism) have a very different impacts on the mourning.
I’d be very surprised to hear the parent of a murdered child say that they’re no more upset than if the child had died in a car crash, instead of as the direct result of someone’s consciously evil act.
On library reading: Hobbes would have probably labeled terrorism, an act of war because it was a public challenge of the sovereign’s power. Where there is war, there is no industry, no commerce, no arts, no society, and no justice — just a short, brutish existance. Thus, the first rule of Nature:
bq _That every man, ought to endeavour Peace, as farre as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all helps, and advantages of Warre._
Hobbes did not consider unintended harms to be acts of _warre_, nor were they sins or crimes. They were a matter for civil law, for which justice was the primary concern. Unjust civil laws could lead to war.
If you are Hobbesaian then, there is little room for moderation in response to acts of terror (although peaceful means are preferred) because the potential consequences are so dire. With respect to accidents, however, moderation is desirable because injustice is also to be avoided.
Patrick
The difference in reaction is because humans are not very rational beings, especially when it comes to processing information. This is why we have to keep reminding ourselves of such things like “correlation is not causation” and “the plural of anecdote is not data.”
A disproportionate fear of unlikely events is just another example of this.
By the same token, a lot (probably more than die in road accidents each year) die from diet/exercise related illnesses each year. And smoking-related deaths probably top everything.
So why not have the food and smoke police prevent anyone from smoking, and monitor every bite that goes into everyone’s mouth?
Terrorism is something specific … violence aimed at the populace to terrify them into submission. “Do this or else! No one can protect you!”
The terrorism is less dangerous than road accidents idea is one propagated on various DU/Daily Kos/etc sites; if I’m not mistaken Michael Moore and various Brit newspapers like the Guardian have picked up on it. The purpose is obviously political … to deny the legitimacy of the anti-Terror actions at home and abroad, particularly wrt Israel.
People can within some measure control their risk of dying in road accidents, by driving safer cars, driving in a safe manner, and avoiding risky situations. Terrorism is not something that can be avoided. You’ve also left out that driving habits have become less safe in Israel as a direct result of terrorists targeting motorists (people drive faster to be less of a target to gunman, terrorists setting off explosives etc).
In that respect, you could put all or most of the traffic fatalities as indirectly the result of terrorism.
Terrorism causes Accidents:
bq. _According to a team of researchers from Princeton University and Hebrew University, in Jerusalem, who analyzed Israeli traffic-accident data from an eighteen-month period, *the number of fatal traffic accidents increased by 35 percent on the third day following an attack by Palestinian militants* (and only on the third day; the effect disappears thereafter). The reason for this spike is unclear, since traffic volume diminishes in the days following a terrorist attack. Perhaps, the authors suggest, it’s on the third day that many people attempt to resume their normal activities, even though they haven’t psychologically recovered from the trauma. The most intriguing possibility, however, is suggested by a phenomenon known as “imitative suicide,” in which prominent suicides are succeeded three days later by a rash of traffic fatalities. If the Israeli traffic accidents are not accidents at all but covert suicides, this would explain why on the third day only fatal accidents spike, whereas the rate of merely “serious” accidents holds steady._
Atlantic Monthly (Dec. 2004) (taken from “Terror Attacks Influence Driving Behavior in Israel,” Guy Stecklov and Joshua Goldstein, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)