RESIST!: We Worry About The Wrong Stuff

Sunday, March 27, 2016

We Worry About The Wrong Stuff

In December of last year, Gallup noted the following: After the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, Americans are now more likely to name terrorism as the top issue facing the U.S. than to name any other issue -- including those that have typically topped the list recently, such as the economy and the government. About one in six Americans, 16%, now identify terrorism as the most important U.S. problem, up from just 3% in early November. (1)

Yesterday, Juan Cole offered some reality to the debate over what we really need to worry about: The right wing is carping that President Obama is “downplaying” the dangers of Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) in the wake of the Paris and Brussels attacks on soft targets. But whipping up hysteria about the threat of terrorism is a racket that mainly benefits security firms and arms manufacturers. No one will deny that such attacks are horrible affairs that kill dozens of innocents and everything humanly possible should be done to combat them. But it is also just the case that the attacks are intended to provoke fear, terror, hatred and polarization, so such sentiments should be avoided. And these assaults on soft targets should be seen in some sort of perspective. So let us just consider the leading causes of death in the US (2014), a country of some 318 million, in the context of terrorism (defined as non-state actors using violence against civilians to accomplish a political goal). (2)

A partial list of leading causes of death for Americans:

1. Heart disease: 611,105

2. Cancer: 584,881

3. Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 149,205

4. Accidents (unintentional injuries): 130,557

5. Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,978

Meanwhile, in the 10 year period ending in 2015, about 303 Americans died from terrorism worldwide, or 30.3 per year. 30 people dead per year from terrorism vs. 130,000 from accidents… methinks (I love that word and just had to use it here) we need to shift our expensive Horrific War On Terrah™ to something far more beneficial to the average American.