For the past decade, the debate community has been buzzing about the number of terrorism impacts. They have been a staple of policy debate, and almost every plan imaginable can either solve terrorism, or link to it. Most terror impacts are based off the idea that a large terror attack would spark retaliation by U.S. that would result in global nuclear war, but a recent article by Charles V. Peña, a Senior Fellow with the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, former Senior Fellow with the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute and Former Director of Defense Policy Studies at the Cato Institute has splashed onto the scene and virtually disproven all terrorism impacts. In his article, "Better Safe Than Sorry?", Peña cites the fact there have been over 1,300 terrorist attacks since the 70s, but none have of them have had the major effects that Alexander Yonah, along with every other terrorism impact author, claims they should have. More people die every year from unintentional poisonings than from all the terrorist atacks from the past 35 years combined.
I really wonder what kind of effect this new evidence will have on the debate community. I highly doubt that teams will stop running Terrorism advantages,but I might be wrong. To see the actual article, go to http://original.antiwar.com/pena/2010/09/30/better-safe-than-sorry/print/
This is very interesting. This shows how much our society is based on fear and paranoia. It is ridiculous that our media is so negatively based. Our culture is so conformist that when one person says that a certain culture or religion is "the enemy" we must attack them, even if the majority of those people are not harming anyone. Terrorism is a radical interpretation on beliefs, this does not mean that those beliefs alone are radical.
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