CONTROLLING IRRATIONAL FEARS Running Head: CONTROLLING IRRATIONAL FEARS AFTER 9/11

Controlling irrational Fears After 9/11

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CONTROLLING IRRATIONAL FEARS Controlling irrational Fears After 9/11 The news article on controlling irrational fears after 9/11 presents several arguments concerning how America reacted to the 9/11 attacks and makes conclusion on where they went wrong in their reactions to the attack. The general argument of the author of the article is that Americas over reacted to the attacks and elevated the magnitude of the attacks to the

advantage of the attackers with a dear cost to the American citizens. However, two arguments will be analyzed in this paper with a focus to establish if the arguments are deductively or inductively construed or if they are invalid or weak arguments. The first argument presented by the author is that the death toll during the 9/11 attacks was not enough reason to justify the irrational reactions displayed by most Americans and especially the government. The premise of this argument is that in the recent past, the world and America in particular has experienced higher death tolls either through natural calamities like the earthquake in Gujarat India that killed 20,000 people or the closer example of the 15,000 homicide cases per year reported in America every year. According to the author, the death toll of only 2800 people from the 9/11 attacks is too small compared to other death toll statistic presented on American soil and yet they dont receive equal attention to that accorded to the 9/11 attacks. This according to the author gives the attackers an upper hand, knowing that they achieved their objective of instilling grave fear to Americans. This argument is invalid. The death toll of the 9/11 attack is not a valid reason to base the cause of the irrational reaction triggered by the attacks. As a matter of fact, United States have always been cautious of terrorism attack on their soil, therefore the moment, the heart of the country, New York was hit by the terrorist with such ease in broad daylight, then it must have caused great alarm irrespective of the death toll. If for example the white house was attacked only and only the president and his family died, the same reaction would be experienced because it is more of pride of being the super powers than the damage incurred

CONTROLLING IRRATIONAL FEARS by the attacks. Furthermore using the example of an earthquake and car accidents is not comparable to the terrorism attack neither is the homicide cases. The second argument the government has misplaced its priorities in reacting to 9/11 attacks. The Author of the article compares the 9/11 attacks to other national threats like car accidents and homicide cases and concludes that the government is spending too much money unnecessarily in the name of fighting terrorism. He argues that the spontaneous reaction by the government that saw it spent billions in running after suspected terrorist

around the world, setting up Homeland security, redeploying National Guards and paying off airlines for their losses is total waste of money. Instead, the government ought to have reacted soberly as in other national threats by setting up policies and gradual measures that would see eventual reduction of terrorism threats. This argument by the author of the article is deductively valid. America by spending all the billions of money towards terrorism does not translate to automatic safety of the American citizen. Terrorism threats still exist in American soil like before even more now since the terrorist cells have been greatly annoyed by United States reactions and will eventually make a comeback in their attacks on America soil. The premise of this argument is however difficult to prove. Even though united States have employed mild policy based solutions to problems such as homicide and car accidents, the fact is they still occur, therefore imply that the government is yet to fully put the problem under control after all those years. On the other hand, the measures put in place by the government using billions of dollars to fight terrorism cannot be qualified has having solved the problem of terrorism on American soil or citizens. Terrorists continue to issue threats to American citizens vowing to attack. United States soldiers continue to be killed by terrorist militias in Afghanistan and Iraq as they fight the terrorist who have never surrendered even after the killing of their leader Osama Bin laden.