Terrorist Attacks: We Need Appropriate Security Measures and No More

After ten years of what has come to be known simply as 9/11 it may be instructive to look at its impact on the society and the economy. Americans and the world were shocked by the magnitude of the disaster; death of nearly three thousand people when two planes owned by the American airlines and carrying a large load of passengers were hijacked and crashed into two of the tallest buildings in the world which were reduced to rubble. The official and public reaction to the tragedy was to treat the hijacking planned and executed by a jihadist group as war and elevate the status of the unfortunate victims to heroes, notwithstanding that a hero is someone who puts up a brave fight against the invading forces while those in the towers and planes had no opportunity to do anything but surrender to their fate. They were unwitting victims deserving of our sympathies but not the admiration that the heroes are accorded. The true heroes in the tragedy were the individuals who died in the rescue effort in horrible circumstances or contacted disease and died prematurely later. The respect to their sacrifice is diminished if they are considered on the same level as those who died trying to escape the collapsing towers or tied helplessly to their seats in the crashing planes.

The U.S. administration decided on a response with two goals: make absolutely certain that the events will not be repeated on American soil and bring the perpetrators, El Qaeda and their leader Bin Laden, to heel. To achieve the first, an ever expanding all encompassing department of ‘Homeland Security’ was set up which put in operation measures to safeguard all public buildings, national and international flights and scrutinize all visitors to the country. It also set up elaborate systems to listen to and records all communications whether on phones or the internet with total disregard to the constitutional rights of citizens. Whatever this department budgeted for personnel and equipment was approved. It now employs 230,000 people and its annual budget exceeds 50 billion dollars. Although opinions differ on whether such expenditures are needed to keep El Qaeda and its cohorts out of the country, Americans do feel a sense of relief that there were no attacks on American soil after that day in 2001; a few rather crude attempts were made but they were easily quashed. Many give credit for this good fortune to the extensive security system and perhaps it is deserved. On the other hand excessive security checks at every turn have made the travel an unpleasant experience instead of a thrill it used to be. More glaring is the human cost of the process. Assuming that every traveler spends on average an extra fifteen minutes on security checks at various points at the airport, estimated 800 million passengers in a year in the U.S. spend in total the equivalent of more than 23,000 years, 300 lifetimes. Over ten years the number of wasted lives adds up to more than those lost on the towers and this count does not include land and sea transport. Add to this the number of security agents at the airports, shopping malls, offices and those guarding the leaders and the inescapable conclusion is that the number of lives being consumed in the U.S. alone by our fear of the repeat of 9/11 is staggering. It is not hard to imagine what it would do to the economy and general social welfare if even a fraction of this resource could be spent in productive and life enhancing work instead of mothers travelling with babies worrying about how to pack the milk bottles before leaving for the journey or the agents looking for tubes of toothpaste in the bags of seventy year old ladies.


Bush administration started two wars to eliminate the evil forces behind what he called the ‘war of terror’. No constraints were placed on the budget of the Defense Department to fight the wars on another continent. Iraq war cost 4,474 American lives and the Iraqis are worse economically and more divided than they were under the hated dictator who, by the way, was no friend of El Qaeda. The war in Afghanistan is still being fought after ten years. The Allies’ casualties there were low for the first few years but they have dramatically increased over last three years and now total 1,766 Americans and 955 allies. The civilian casualties in the two countries are in hundreds of thousands but they don’t count in our calculation. Total cost of the two wars to the US treasury so far is estimated at 2.5 trillion dollars and another 1.5 trillion is yet to come. Including Homeland security budgets during its nine years of existence, total costs to fight the ‘war on terror’ so far exceeds 3.0 trillion dollars, $10,000 for each American and twice as many American dead as the number of 9/11 victims. It has been estimated by some US academics that if this money were spent in supporting the infrastructure, education and industry, it would have created one million jobs.

There can be little doubt that three trillion dollars spent on the security abroad (wars) and at home (Homeland Security) have contributed significantly to the precipitous decline in the economies of the U.S. and the European Union, its industrial and resource-poor trading partner. Since the taxes could not be increased for ideological reasons, budget deficit and the cumulative debt ballooned even though budget allocation to essential services was cut to the bone. The same pattern was repeated all over Europe. The human, industrial and technical resources which would have been more gainfully employed in improving efficiency to compete with the consumer goods exported by China and commercial services offered by India were diverted to enhance ‘security’. The obsession with ‘war on terror’ offered a golden opportunity to Asian countries and they took full advantage of it to expand their markets in America and Europe. There was a huge transfer of wealth from developed West to developing East and China, India, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia had unprecedented economic growth. We saw a bizarre spectacle of Chinese and Indian companies buying the mainstays of Western industry to firm up their foothold and their governments offering to buy distressed Euro bonds of near bankrupt nations to help them out.

There is universal agreement on the need of measured security steps against a real threat. But the methods adopted to counter the threat must strike a balance between the expected damage and the cost of protection in actual dollars, human resources and the demands made on the public. A concerted effort to achieve such balance could in fact enhance our security rather than reducing it and if it had been struck instead of the knee jerk response of the Bush administration, the US economy would not be hovering near collapse and there would be a million fewer Americans looking for work. And Bin Laden would not be laughing from his perch in Heaven surrounded by three thousand virgins.

CBC at its most memorable

CBC is celebrating 75 years of service to Canada. I have been an admirer of the radio program CBC2 for most of my 37 years in Canada. As a tribute to all the people who have made the organization great, here is one of my cherished memories.

It must have been about twenty years ago. I was driving to visit a client downtown. As usual the radio was tuned to CBC2 of good old days when it was devoted to classical music. It happened to be playing one of my favourite pieces, Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll. It was an outstanding recording, better than any I could remember. I scratched my head wondering which great orchestra it was; Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, Vienna Philharmonic or Berlin under von Karajan, Abbado or some other great conductor. I sat in the car mesmerized till the piece came to an end. To my utter surprise, the recording was a performance by CBC Vancouver orchestra under Mario Bernardi who was also the conductor of Calgary Philharmonic in those days. I was disappointed to learnt that the recording was not for sale to the public.

Unfortunately, that great orchestra is now no more and maestro Bernardi is not conducting any longer. But the orchestra and the great Canadian conductor will live in my memory through that performance till the senility sets in.

Decline in Gold Price

It tickled me to observe how media have disregarded the drop of more than a hundred dollars in the price of gold this week. In previous two weeks, it was the news of the hour, latest quoted price being broadcast on the radio, on the internet and commentary on business pages. Now that the decline, sorry correction, has set in there is a deafening silence.

Setting of new records is always news and if the investors get carried away by the hype and buy the overpriced metal it is their decision. Some of them are now losing their shirts but it is not an interesting story and not worth a passing mention. Maybe just as well. If media made a fuss about the drop, the decline could cause a stampede of sellers and the banking system, thanks to huge losses the investment arms of banks would suffer, could seize again as it did in 2008. Let us thank Media Moghuls for small mercies.