A modest proposal--managing the next 9/11

Let’s take them at their word. Let’s assume for a moment that 9/11 was not an inside job, and that we are fighting the War on Terror to prevent another one. The war in Iraq is only one piece of the larger picture. The battlefield could spread, to Iran, Syria, wherever. It could take decades, it may not be over in our lifetimes.

How’s it working out so far? Let’s do the math. On Sept 11, 2001, we lost around 3,000 lives, three large office buildings, four airplanes, and the remodeling of the Pentagon had to be redone. Total pricetag, in terms of cleanup, medical payouts, and insurance payments to Larry Silverstein, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Since then, in our response, with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, we’ve lost over 3,000 American lives, with tens of thousands more grievously wounded, untold hundreds of thousands of foreigners (mostly civilians) killed, with estimates of the cost going all the way up to a trillion dollars. To say nothing of the loss of the world’s respect and goodwill. At this rate, with the dollar sinking, we definitely can’t afford another 9/11. The cure is worse than the disease.

But, what if it can’t be prevented? What if Pat Robertson is right, that God will allow, perhaps even demand another horrendous terrorist attack on American soil? At least now, with the advantage of hindsight, we can manage it so that the terrible cost in human lives and property is minimized.

It would be cheaper all the way around to just make a deal with Al Qaeda. They get to pick the time. Surprise us. We’ll pick out three or four office buildings, hopefully that need to be demolished anyway, or that contain sensitive government data that might fall into the hands of the public. This time, to be fair, we make sure there is a representative sample of people inside, so that critics and conspiracy nuts can’t complain that, for instance, all the Israelis got advance notice. Pick a couple of different airlines, so that United and American don’t feel unduly singled out. Allow only deserving insiders, like teacher’s pension funds or Katrina relief organizations, to place the put options, to make the millions when the airline stock plummets.

From our end, we promise to Al Qaeda the same level of inattention to prospective hijackers and their visa problems. We let them train at high-security American bases, as before, but of course no real pilots are allowed. We agree to a basic standdown of military responses, and suspend standard operating procedures when it comes to hijacked aircraft, as before. Give them a couple hours headstart. The buildings, of course, are rigged for controlled demolition, so that neighboring buildings aren’t damaged, but still, the planes have to hit the buildings first.
The final totals, of both lives lost and property damages, are of course a matter of negotiation. But look at what we save. We bring the troops home. Save the trillion dollars that the next war will cost, invest that money in American infrastructure. To make it work politically, we could even award the reconstruction contracts (to build new Freedom Towers to replace the demolished buildings) to Halliburton. Wouldn’t this be cheaper all the way around? Isn’t this the kind of win-win breakthrough we need? Cause this War on Terror we got now--it’s a real bad bargain.