Putting Al Qaeda in Perspective | John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart | Cato Institute: Commentary

Putting Al Qaeda in Perspective | John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart | Cato Institute: Commentary: "A standard cost-benefit analysis suggests that enhanced US domestic expenditures on homeland security since 9/11 would have to prevent one large attack per day to be cost effective."

"The chance that an American will perish at the hands of a terrorist at present rates is 1 in 3.5 million per year. And extremist Islamist terrorism worldwide has claimed 200-400 lives per year outside war zones, which although tragic and regrettable, amounts to the yearly number of bathtub drownings in the United States."

"the FBI receives more than 5,000 "threats" a day. Only a tiny number of these have led to terrorism arrests, but the FBI continues to follow up all of them, expending huge amounts of money in what some in the Bureau call "ghost chasing." "