Chicken Little and Global Terror: How Bad Is It?
All these hysterics and the dramatic chest beating by the Bush Administration inflaming Americans to "do what it takes to fight the evil forces of terrorism" reminds me of two things. The first is Chicken Little who frantically ran around scaring everyone in the barnyard shrieking "The sky is falling, the sky is falling". And the second is the big Red Scare of the 1950's. Chicken Little, if you remember, was a pesky bird that got hit on the head by an acorn and ran around the barnyard panicking his fellow animals and making them insanely frightened. Only later was it discovered that the sky wasn't falling at all and the fear and anxiety that plagued the little community was all for naught. The big Red Scare was basically the same thing but much more dark and sinister, mainly because it was real and, like Bush's "War on Terror", was driven by a conservative political agenda by people who realized that they could cause hysterical fear in the public mind and use it as a weapon to: (1) make them seem very important, (2) advance their careers to dizzying heights, and (3) allow them to rapaciously destroy their opponents. Interestingly enough, the vehicle of choice used to wage the "War on Commies" back in the '50's was the same as Bush is using today.......flagrant disregard for, and destruction of American civil liberties. Rights guaranteed by the US Constitution and the US Bill of Rights.
The Red Scare of the '50's, as it turns out, is a black stain on America. The primary perpetrators and prosecutors of it were eventually discredited and dishonored. But a lot of innocent people paid the price with false imprisonment, public vilification, black-listing and loss of jobs, destruction of families, subjection to unlawful searches and seizures, and discrimination for exercising their unalienable rights as US Citizens, as granted by our founding fathers. We are seeing a replay of these same events right now......only it is now dressed up as: Bush's "War on Terror". And instead of fighting the godless Commies, we are now fighting Muslim extremists who have allegedly vowed eternal war on our mores and culture.
So why believe me when I say Bush's "War on Terror" is a hoax? I say don't!!! In fact don't believe ANYONE. Look at the facts and decide for yourself if we need to be waging a "War on Terror" and dumping boatloads of money into stopping those "dirty Muslims" from blowing us up and killing our kids as opposed to fueling our economy, helping poor people make a living wage and get better jobs, feeding people living in poverty, housing the homeless, educating our youth to be competitive in the global marketplace, creating a better American for everyone living here. I encourage you to look at the data and then decide for yourself if Bush's willful destruction of our personal rights and freedoms such as: (1) the right to speak our minds freely and know what our government is doing; (2) protection from unlawful imprisonment, (3) protection from unwarranted spying on our communications and our personal lives, (4) protection from torture at the hands of a government that will stop at nothing to have you say what it wants you to say in order to justify your arrest, and (5) protection from being capriciously shipped overseas to some secret prison where god knows what might (and can) happen, is really worth it.
So where are these facts....You can find them in the US State Department's own report on patterns of global terror. These annual reports were mandated by Congress in the 1970's and you can find them back to 1976 at the link above. They give an accounting of all terrorist groups, their activities, and the death and destruction related to terrorist incidents each year. At the end of each report, except for 2005, there are graphs that summarize the State Department's findings in terms of killed and wounded US citizens and incidents on US soil. It is very interesting. I should warn you, however, that the 2005 report does not contain many graphs or statistics. This is because in 2004, terror attacks, worldwide, quadrupled over the previous year and the Bush Administration did not want to bring this to anyone's attention. Why? Because then reasonable people might think Bush's "War On Terror" was a sham. Fortunately Congress was watching and they insisted that SOME statistics be included. You can read this in an article in the Christian Science Monitor which, I should point out, is not not noted to be a bastion of liberal journalism.
Now I know that many of you probably do not have the time or patience to poke around in these reports, but I made time because I have been shooting my mouth off about how I feel this whole "War on Terror" thing is vastly over-rated and strictly a political ploy on the part of US conservatives to vilify anyone in America who does not support their conservative/military/industrial-complex, right-wing agenda. "Hey", I thought, "I have been saying all this stuff without really looking at the data. I'm just like the knee-jerkers I blast in my blog!" Until now, I was just going on my gut feeling from what I see on TV, read in newspapers, or hear on the radio. But last night I had a revelation.... "You know? I could be wrong!". So I sat down and looked at the same stuff that Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Congress look at to decide if Americans really ARE in danger. I swore that if the data showed we face a credible terrorist threat on US soil, I would willing to eat crow in public. Below I summarize what I found out; and if you don't believe me, click on the link above and go look yourself!
Well until 9/11 2001, there were virtually no acts of terrorism in North America (i.e., the US and Canada). In fact in 1998, before the Iraq war, there were zero terrorist attacks in the US. In that year in the entire world there were only 243 reported terrorist attacks and the number of people, total, who died in them was only 741 or about 3 people per attack. Now considering how big the world is and the fact that there are about 6 billion people on the planet, this means in 1998, if you lived in the US, there was zero chance of being killed by a terrorist. If you lived somewhere else in the world, your chances were about 1 in 10 million. In 2000, there were two attacks in North America, but neither resulted in any deaths. The big year was 2001, The year of 9/11. However, even in 2001 there were less than 5 terrorist attacks in North American (remember this includes Canada here). And although the deaths related to 9/11 totaled about 3,235, in our country of about 300 million people, the chance of dying in the 9/11 attacks was only about 1 in 100,000. That is not very big. And to put that in perspective, your chance of getting killed by a handgun in the US, irrespective of any kind of terrorist activity, is about 1 in 10,000. Let's say you just get shot and don't die. Then the odds are about 3 in 1000. Three in a thousand, now that last statistic is starting to make me nervous. But you know what, it would not be a terrorist shooting me, it would be one of my American comrades!!! Seems funny that we are so worried about terrorists on US soil when our biggest fear should be ourselves and unregulated hand guns!! But then that would hurt the gun industry and so Congress will NEVER do anything about that. Listen, the odds of getting shot by one of your fellow Americans are almost 100 times higher than being hurt by any kind of terrorist!! Now that was 2001. What about more recent history.
In the most recent of those US State Department reports (i.e., 2005), the one with few statistics compared to the other ones, in the entire world only 56 US citizens were killed in terror attacks, and none of them were killed on US soil (remember that soldiers dying in Iraq are not considered to be killed by terrorists, they are considered casualties of war). So only 56 US citizens were killed by terrorists out of 300 MILLION and NONE were killed in the US!!!!! Is this worth spending 10's of billions of dollars on homeland security (10's of billions of dollars more than we were already spending)? I think not!! Even the US State Department's official documents show that there is no justification for any credible threat! Sure people hate Americans out there, but given our "cowboy" actions and over-throwing of governments and complete disregard for international governing bodies whose mandate is to analyze and implement internationally-supported actions to solve problems, is there any wonder? I have to admit, I am not too enamored of the US and its policies, myself, these days.
So, what it basically comes down to is that the data just to not show there is a credible terrorist threat to America on its own soil. In fact, John Mueller from the Council on Foreign Relations agrees, noting that an American's chances of being killed by a terrorist are about the same as being killed by a meteorite. Hmmm, Now, I don't see President Bush mounting a hysterical attack on protecting the Earth from rocks in space and I don't see him pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into a program like this. But then again, I guess there is no political advantage in protecting the populace from something that cannot be used to show you are "tougher" and "more resolute" on protecting your people's safety than some other guy (i.e., in this case namely the Democrats). Bush's "War on Terror", is simply a thinly disguised political strategy for bashing Democrats or any others who might disagree with Bush's policy of knee jerking and international jingoism. And the scary thing is that he is getting away with it. The American people need to see this "war" for what it really is. They have to refuse to buy into the politics of fear. If they don't, we will no be able to stop our slide down that long slippery slope to fascism and despotism, which we, our Congress, and our Supreme Court have already initiated.
The Red Scare of the '50's, as it turns out, is a black stain on America. The primary perpetrators and prosecutors of it were eventually discredited and dishonored. But a lot of innocent people paid the price with false imprisonment, public vilification, black-listing and loss of jobs, destruction of families, subjection to unlawful searches and seizures, and discrimination for exercising their unalienable rights as US Citizens, as granted by our founding fathers. We are seeing a replay of these same events right now......only it is now dressed up as: Bush's "War on Terror". And instead of fighting the godless Commies, we are now fighting Muslim extremists who have allegedly vowed eternal war on our mores and culture.
So why believe me when I say Bush's "War on Terror" is a hoax? I say don't!!! In fact don't believe ANYONE. Look at the facts and decide for yourself if we need to be waging a "War on Terror" and dumping boatloads of money into stopping those "dirty Muslims" from blowing us up and killing our kids as opposed to fueling our economy, helping poor people make a living wage and get better jobs, feeding people living in poverty, housing the homeless, educating our youth to be competitive in the global marketplace, creating a better American for everyone living here. I encourage you to look at the data and then decide for yourself if Bush's willful destruction of our personal rights and freedoms such as: (1) the right to speak our minds freely and know what our government is doing; (2) protection from unlawful imprisonment, (3) protection from unwarranted spying on our communications and our personal lives, (4) protection from torture at the hands of a government that will stop at nothing to have you say what it wants you to say in order to justify your arrest, and (5) protection from being capriciously shipped overseas to some secret prison where god knows what might (and can) happen, is really worth it.
So where are these facts....You can find them in the US State Department's own report on patterns of global terror. These annual reports were mandated by Congress in the 1970's and you can find them back to 1976 at the link above. They give an accounting of all terrorist groups, their activities, and the death and destruction related to terrorist incidents each year. At the end of each report, except for 2005, there are graphs that summarize the State Department's findings in terms of killed and wounded US citizens and incidents on US soil. It is very interesting. I should warn you, however, that the 2005 report does not contain many graphs or statistics. This is because in 2004, terror attacks, worldwide, quadrupled over the previous year and the Bush Administration did not want to bring this to anyone's attention. Why? Because then reasonable people might think Bush's "War On Terror" was a sham. Fortunately Congress was watching and they insisted that SOME statistics be included. You can read this in an article in the Christian Science Monitor which, I should point out, is not not noted to be a bastion of liberal journalism.
Now I know that many of you probably do not have the time or patience to poke around in these reports, but I made time because I have been shooting my mouth off about how I feel this whole "War on Terror" thing is vastly over-rated and strictly a political ploy on the part of US conservatives to vilify anyone in America who does not support their conservative/military/industrial-complex, right-wing agenda. "Hey", I thought, "I have been saying all this stuff without really looking at the data. I'm just like the knee-jerkers I blast in my blog!" Until now, I was just going on my gut feeling from what I see on TV, read in newspapers, or hear on the radio. But last night I had a revelation.... "You know? I could be wrong!". So I sat down and looked at the same stuff that Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Congress look at to decide if Americans really ARE in danger. I swore that if the data showed we face a credible terrorist threat on US soil, I would willing to eat crow in public. Below I summarize what I found out; and if you don't believe me, click on the link above and go look yourself!
Well until 9/11 2001, there were virtually no acts of terrorism in North America (i.e., the US and Canada). In fact in 1998, before the Iraq war, there were zero terrorist attacks in the US. In that year in the entire world there were only 243 reported terrorist attacks and the number of people, total, who died in them was only 741 or about 3 people per attack. Now considering how big the world is and the fact that there are about 6 billion people on the planet, this means in 1998, if you lived in the US, there was zero chance of being killed by a terrorist. If you lived somewhere else in the world, your chances were about 1 in 10 million. In 2000, there were two attacks in North America, but neither resulted in any deaths. The big year was 2001, The year of 9/11. However, even in 2001 there were less than 5 terrorist attacks in North American (remember this includes Canada here). And although the deaths related to 9/11 totaled about 3,235, in our country of about 300 million people, the chance of dying in the 9/11 attacks was only about 1 in 100,000. That is not very big. And to put that in perspective, your chance of getting killed by a handgun in the US, irrespective of any kind of terrorist activity, is about 1 in 10,000. Let's say you just get shot and don't die. Then the odds are about 3 in 1000. Three in a thousand, now that last statistic is starting to make me nervous. But you know what, it would not be a terrorist shooting me, it would be one of my American comrades!!! Seems funny that we are so worried about terrorists on US soil when our biggest fear should be ourselves and unregulated hand guns!! But then that would hurt the gun industry and so Congress will NEVER do anything about that. Listen, the odds of getting shot by one of your fellow Americans are almost 100 times higher than being hurt by any kind of terrorist!! Now that was 2001. What about more recent history.
In the most recent of those US State Department reports (i.e., 2005), the one with few statistics compared to the other ones, in the entire world only 56 US citizens were killed in terror attacks, and none of them were killed on US soil (remember that soldiers dying in Iraq are not considered to be killed by terrorists, they are considered casualties of war). So only 56 US citizens were killed by terrorists out of 300 MILLION and NONE were killed in the US!!!!! Is this worth spending 10's of billions of dollars on homeland security (10's of billions of dollars more than we were already spending)? I think not!! Even the US State Department's official documents show that there is no justification for any credible threat! Sure people hate Americans out there, but given our "cowboy" actions and over-throwing of governments and complete disregard for international governing bodies whose mandate is to analyze and implement internationally-supported actions to solve problems, is there any wonder? I have to admit, I am not too enamored of the US and its policies, myself, these days.
So, what it basically comes down to is that the data just to not show there is a credible terrorist threat to America on its own soil. In fact, John Mueller from the Council on Foreign Relations agrees, noting that an American's chances of being killed by a terrorist are about the same as being killed by a meteorite. Hmmm, Now, I don't see President Bush mounting a hysterical attack on protecting the Earth from rocks in space and I don't see him pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into a program like this. But then again, I guess there is no political advantage in protecting the populace from something that cannot be used to show you are "tougher" and "more resolute" on protecting your people's safety than some other guy (i.e., in this case namely the Democrats). Bush's "War on Terror", is simply a thinly disguised political strategy for bashing Democrats or any others who might disagree with Bush's policy of knee jerking and international jingoism. And the scary thing is that he is getting away with it. The American people need to see this "war" for what it really is. They have to refuse to buy into the politics of fear. If they don't, we will no be able to stop our slide down that long slippery slope to fascism and despotism, which we, our Congress, and our Supreme Court have already initiated.
