by John Mattingly
Prior to September, 2001, I thought of home, land. and security as three separate words. But as patriotic fever has spread through the country, possibly a fourth has presented itself as home and land as one, and from that, a few points of thought.
1. Look both ways. Soon after we attacked Iraq, we often heard the mantra, “The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad.” Then it moved to include the streets of Kabul, and now Karachi.
This never made a lot of sense to me, but it made even less when I was nearly run over on the streets of Denver by an SUV, its driver missing the whole incident, engaged in a cell phone conversation. A little research revealed that car-pedestrian fatalities in the U.S. average around 5,000 a year. Since September 11, 2001, there have been over 45,000 car-pedestrian deaths in the U.S., well over fifteen times the terrorist-caused fatalities. All traffic fatalities since 9/11/2001 approach 350,000, fully a third alcohol related. In 2008, 4,553 people died in motorcycle accidents. In the years after 9/11/2001, we might have been better advised to tell Americans their safety depends on looking both ways when they cross the street, driving sober, and wearing a helmet.
And, consider this. The 9/11/2001 terrorist attack killed 2,749 out of total U. S. population of roughly 300,000,000. So there’s less than a one-in-a-hundred-thousand chance of being killed in a terrorist attack in any given year, and the historical incidence of such attacks is distinctly infrequent. On the other hand, over the last five years an average of 117 military personnel out of a military population of about 6,000,000 were killed in what the military calls Class A accidents (non-combat mishaps involving fatality). So there’s roughly a 1/60,000 chance of being killed in a non-combat military mishap every single year—even when there’s no war being fought. A U.S. soldier is roughly 150 times more likely to be killed in a non-combat accident than is a U.S. citizen of being killed by a terrorist.
The War on Terror has been a colossal success in the War on Risk Assessment. The smart money is still on staying out of the military, looking both ways when you cross the street, drinking at home, and putting on that helmet.
2. Incidence/consequence. The insurance industry has identified and isolated low incidence, high consequence events, usually listed as exclusions from a policy. A terrorist attack in the U.S. with a nuclear device would clearly be a such an event, and it is possible to write a rider to any policy to cover such an event, with a substantial premium increase. The owner of the World Trade Center had such a terrorist rider and collected billions in damages. No insurance company, however, will write a rider to cover the cost of preventing low incidence, high consequence events. Instead, insurance companies pool capital in segregated funds to mitigate losses incurred from such an event, if it should occur.
To this day, even after a change of administrations, our federal government is paying the open-ended expense of preventing a low incidence, high consequence terrorist event in the U.S. and paying billions of dollars more to do so than would be required to pay the insurance premiums of mitigating the losses, if they should occur.
One might argue this is a legitimate function of government, falling under the broad rubric of protecting its citizens from all dangers, no matter how small the risk and no matter how high the cost. If so, the government better get started preventing the low incidence, high consequence event of sea levels rising 80 feet in the next 50 years, or a meteor the size of Rhode Island hitting a continent, or lightning striking golfers, or an errant brick falling from a construction job and hitting a passer-by on the head, all of which are in the same risk probability range as another terrorist attack.
3. Home. Early in my career as a farmer I had a couple of good years and money in the bank, which gave me the idea to build a new home. The old farmers in the neighborhood put their hands on my shoulder and said, “Don’t do it. We’ve seen it before: a young farmer makes a little money, builds a new home, and in a few years he’s broke. Leave that lucky money in the bank, son. Never spend your luck.”
From then on, home for me was a simple place out of wind and weather with a familiar bed, running water, a stove and fridge, and a place to sit comfortably. It held memories while protecting items of function. I never considered home as an investment, a castle, or a place to exhibit windfall profits.
4. Land. I spent more energy and time outside than inside the home. Land sourced my livelihood—though not without some stress and irritation—but I never lost sight of land as the source of both my life and that of a significant share of the planet. We all live at the pleasure and produce of twelve inches of topsoil that turns solar energy into carbohydrate that, in turn, feeds our bodies, gives us mobility, and liberates us from daily worries about where our next meal will come from.
Land was basic, a generous source of life, and working with it was a genuine privilege. Though being a farmer perhaps gives me different perceptions of the land than most people, I am always surprised at how many people have some association with a farm, be it a memory of Old Uncle John’s farm, a job in their youth, or actual time on a farm. This isn’t surprising, really, given that in the U.S. we only recently became an abundantly urban culture. I’d venture to say that most people—apart from multi-generational urbanites who really believe that food comes from a supermarket—appreciate the necessity and vulnerability of land as our source of sustenance.
5. Security. This manifests in ways both personal and social. Home and land provided a fundamental security: satisfaction of creature needs, and a relationship with a process that, if well cared for, provided income for me personally, with the added outcome of food for other humans. Faith in social infrastructures and trust in those managing them gave an implied security: roads, reservoirs, rails, and runways; schools, post offices, and courthouses; systems of national defense, regulation, and emergency response; and businesses of every stripe and color operating (for the most part) within the restraints of a legal system that judiciously oversaw the ownership, possession, and control of resources. When deviations occurred, remedies of enforcement and complaint were (for the most part) available.
6. Homeland Security. After 9/11/2001 we were asked to bring our notions of home, land, and security together into an exclusive, narrow, aggressive view, aimed at all who might threaten us. From my worm’s eye view as a farmer, this strategy was a misdirection of process. From the tractor seat, I recall thinking our best move as a nation was to bow our necks, clean up the mess, and address the attack as a crime against the rule of law, not an act of war. Analogies to Pearl Harbor did not persuade, as the attack was not the act of a sovereign nation, and perhaps more significant, the U.S. was now a lone superpower, arguably compelled to show restraint in keeping with its position.
What is the most important lesson the U.S. has to learn from the event of 9/11/2001 and the flow of events thereafter?
A) There is no intelligence in coercion
B) Shock and Awe mean Safe and Secure
C) We in the U.S. are now in the world, not on top of it
D) A Superpower has proven weak against Super-empowered Individuals
E) Risk Analysis should be a required class to graduate high school in the U.S.
The U.S. had the goodwill of the entire world at its back and could have used the attack as a compelling rationale for building a worldwide security force directed at protecting the security of the homes and land of the nations of the world, not just those of the U.S. By taking a narrow view, time will tell if we have lost a chance to do both.
John Mattingly cultivates prose, among other things, and was most recently seen near Creede.
