Tornado Central

Wow, I haven't blogged in quite a long time! There hasn't been too much to speak of in terms of chasing, so that partially explains the inactivity. I did chase in northern Texas at the end of November (my latest chase in terms of the calendar year), but it didn't net much. Otherwise, I've been working on a couple of projects for school, and a couple other side projects unrelated to school. Kim and I went up to Bluefin (in the far northeastern Minnesota town of Tofte) for a few days earlier this month... I'm still working on the pictures, and I hope to have them up later this week.

As I listen to the President's State of the Union speech tonight, I find myself wondering if the money we've spent "fighting" terrorism is really the best use of that money. According to government reports, we have spent ~$500,000,000,000 ($500 billion) on the war on terror since 9-11-01. Much of that money has gone to the Iraq war, a war that was based on misinformation. Sure, it may be better that Saddam is gone, and it may have been worth the price if we had actually found WMDs and a link connecting Iraq to the 9-11 attacks. However, that's not the case. Instead, as many Americans that died on 9-11 have died in the Iraq war, with the vast majority of those occurring after our President claimed "Mission Accomplished!"

The interesting thing about terrorism is that the absolute risk is quite small compared to other dangers we face each day. Each year, approximately 45,000 people die on our roads. That means that, since 9-11-01, approximately 225,000 people have died on our roads. I have a massively greater risk of dying while I'm driving or riding in a car than I do of being killed by a terrorist. If you believe that the amount of money we pay (as taxpayers) should be somewhat commensurate / proportional to the degree of risk, then you'd see a reason to scratch your head. What happens if we put just 1% of the "War on Terrorism" money into increased automobile and roadway safety? Again, the chance of you, or someone you love, being a victim of an automobile accident is many, many times greater than being a victim of an act of terrorism. Sure, you can say that "Well, if you drive safely, you don't need to worry about anything". However, many "innocent" people each year die each on our roads, folks who are doing nothing wrong and just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You can look at other sources of death (as morbid as that sounds) and see that government spending may go a long way in terms of reducing deaths from that source. Cancer research? Public health care? Public campaigns against obesity (there's an awful lot of tax money being spent on medical actions as a result of obesity, much is quite is entirely preventable)? Education programs in middle and high schools to help decrease smoking rates among teenagers? Millions of dollars in tax money is spent as a result of smoking-related illnesses, diseases, and cancers.

So, why do we spend such a large amount of money "fighting" terrorism? Are we naive to think that $500 billion saves more lives when spent "fighting" terrorism than when spent on domestic issues? I think part of it lies in the fact that we don't want "others" to come over to our "homeland" and kill "our" people. I think the idea of "foreigners" (many people seem to be paranoid of Middle Eastern'ers) threatening our way of life lets us forget (or shuffle under the rug) our own problems and our own actions that kill our own citizens. Along these grounds, I think USA citizens are starting to see through the fear-mongering of the past 4 years. Of course, we don't seem to have as much of a problem with "our" people killing "our" people (and I'm not talking about murder)... For example, obesity is largely preventable, yet think of the amount of tax money spent paying the medical bills of those who need medical attention as a result of obesity (either due to heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, medications, and so forth). Could some of the money we've spent on Iraq be spent to help reduce the obesity epidemic? I can think of many other causes that could result in an appreciable reduction in deaths in the USA if funded properly, and most of these causes are much more likely to affect Americans than terrorism. What about the millions of dollars that have gone to small towns for chemical weapon protection? There's an interesting USA Today article (titled "Homeland security money doesn't match terror thread ) that addresses this... Do small towns and rural counties really need hundreds of thousands of dollars in bomb detection, chemical weapon, and other "terrorism response" equipment? Sure, it's always good to be prepared, but at what point do we realize that spending an incredible amount of money is not the answer.

In the end, I hear a lot about the "war on terrorism" being a "war to protect our freedom". It's seems as though if we don't give the President unequaled power to spend as he pleases, all on the grounds of "fightning the terrorists", we'll all die a horrible, fiery death. Or worse, we'll all be unpatriotic. Heck, I'm sure some reading this will call me unpatriotic because I think we've been spending too much money fighting terrorism. I think, to the contrary, that I'm just as patriotic -- I want to protect my fellow citizens from the real-life, substantial risks that threaten the safety of many of us. I'm NOT saying we don't need to protect what we have. There are people out there who want to kill Americans. Period. I realize that, but they will always find a way to accomplish their mission. Some terrorism attempts may be stopped (reference the mid-August bust of the plan to blow up several jetliners between England and USA), but to think that we'll stop every single one is a little silly. When the risks to our lives are considered, one sees that "death by terrorism" is a relatively minor risk compared to those associated with preventable health conditions, roadways and driving, and other leading causes of death. And, like terrorism, many innocent people die doing things we all do every day (driving, etc). So, is the $500,000,000,000 we've spent really the best way to reduce American deaths and preserve our quality of life? Does the $500,000,000,000 spent make us feel safer and more "free"? I'd rather see money spent to subsidize automobile safety programs (e.g. subsidize car manufacturers to require side-impact air bags and active electronic stability systems, two features which would likely save as many lives in the US in the next couple of years as was lost on 9-11). Heck, look at the education system in many urban areas of the United States. Why can't just 1% of the terrorism money go to schools that can't afford textbooks now? Does the $500,000,000,00 spent fighting terrorism preserve our "quality of life" better than improving our education system (something that could be accomplished by reappropriating even 10% of that money to schools). In the end, what betters our society and life more? I'd argue that giving more money to the hundreds of public schools that are in shambles or increasing the amount of federally-subsidized college student loans would improve our quality of life more than the $500,000,000,000 we've spent fighting a risk that is, by all standards, relatively minor.