| "... but people's minds shut down when confronted with "terrorism"." And why is that? I ask, because, like many here -- well, as few, at least -- I grew up in the UK with the IRA bombing things around me every now and again. These were frequent events. I saw the aftermath of a few of them myself. They were as hideous, as you can imagine. I narrowly missed being caught up in two. My girlfriend and I had a picnic on the Regent's Park grandstand the day before it was blown up with the military band playing at the time. I suspect that the bomb was right beneath us that day as we ate. Ticking away. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyde_Park_and_Regent%27s_Park_b... There were almost nightly atrocities on the TV news. It was a constant. But minds did not shutdown. The public message, conveyed by the media, was to carry on as normal; that to do otherwise was to let the terrorists win. So we did. We kept calm and carried on. So why are folk, these days, freaking out at the mention of terrorism? Rationally, we know that the number of deaths from terrorism is tiny compared to almost every other form of death. We know that the probability of being present, let alone injured or worse, at the scene of an act of terrorism is vanishingly small. What if instead of our politicians and media ramping up the fear factor they instead suggested stoic, silent resistance. What if they said that they had our backs. What if they were positive instead of negative. Fear of terrorism is irrational, and everyone -- well, the vast majority -- would act accordingly if the politicians and media didn't exploit citizens' fears for whatever reasons they are exploiting citizens' fears. And, because of this, going back to your point, I agree, killing Bin Laden should never have taken priority over harming polio eradication efforts. Doing so was purely story-building to support political grandstanding. It had nothing to with security or reducing terrorism. |