Al Qaeda Supports U.S. Military Spending

Ever since the September 11^th attacks, the United States has been in at war.  This war is not with any particular country and it involves many different groups.  The U.S. is fighting a ‘War on Terror’ and it seems to have no end in sight, like our extremely successful ‘War on Drugs’.  These are of course not real wars; the enemy is real, but there is no individual country or organization to defeat.  Traditionally, the U.S. fights foreign countries and it knows who’s its enemy is.  It’s a nice thought that the terrorists and enemies of the U.S. are all overseas, but the Boston Marathon bombings served as a reminder that home grown terrorists are a real threat.  It seems like the enemy could be anywhere or anyone.  This atmosphere of fear and uncertainty has made it hard in the past decade for the nation to step back and honestly evaluate its reaction to the past events. 

The U.S. has a strong tradition of spending heavily on its military, but in the past decade the budget has more than doubled under the guise of fighting terrorism.  Is this spending appropriate or is it an overreaction?  The U.S. military exists to protect its citizens and essentially save lives, but if the government is in the life saving business, why is so much more spent on defense, rather than healthcare?  Is spending all this money on war really what’s best for the U.S.?  The U.S. has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the Iraq War, because of non-existent weapons of mass destruction.  How many lives did the Iraq War save versus the lives spent going there at all?  The terrorist organization, Al Qaeda agrees with our government’s belief that more spending more on our military is better.

Recently, an Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri has been urging his supporters to make more small attacks in the U.S. in an attempt to spur increased military spending¹. This he hopes will help “bleed America economically.”  At a glance this might seem like some sort of reverse psychology tactic to make the American politicians actually spend less, but this would make some confused terrorist recipients and have an opposite effect, so it can only be sincere.  The government seems to be doing what the enemy wants it to do, putting us in a very difficult position.  Lower the budget and risk terrorist attacks or continue increasing it and risk wasting money better spent elsewhere?  Is it insensitive or irrational to reject increased military spending after a tragedy brought about by terrorists?

Hurricanes, earthquakes and tornadoes all do extreme amounts of damage to property and kill many people every year.  If a comparison was done between the number of Americans killed by these natural disasters and terrorism which number would be higher?  What about how much money the government spends fighting terrorism and preventing attacks versus how much it spends on disaster relief and prevention?  Terrorism kills very few Americans every year and natural disasters kill significantly more.  We spend a fraction of what is the military budget on disaster related programs.  The problem with this argument is that one can say the number of Americans killed is low because of how much is spent.  Even if the causation relation exists, spending more money on the military to protect against terrorism wouldn’t be saving any more lives.  Fighting terrorism is expensive and it can be hard to evaluate how many lives certain expenditures are actually saving.  Evaluations of the potential lives and money saved from enacting natural disaster mitigation programs in past disasters have promising results and provide a better use for tax-payer money. 

The U.S. is overspending and not all of us know it.  Threats do exist in the world, but they are often blown out of proportion and exist in our minds as much more dangerous entities than they are in life.  Terrorism should not be an excuse for the U.S. government to spy on its citizens or bomb other countries.  The enemies of the U.S. are trying to take advantage of what we think is our greatest strength.  Protection can be provided in more ways than military dominance.  Throwing more money at our problems won’t make them go away, so a new approach might be best to achieve better results.

1: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/13/us-qaeda-zawahri-idUSBRE98C05820130913