Nearly 12 years after the 9/11 attack, virtually every single element of
national security policy – from the occupation of Afghanistan, to the
drone war, to a massive NSA surveillance apparatus, to a defense budget
the outpaces the rest of the world combined – is justified by citing
terrorism as a threat. Together these policies amount to trillions of
dollars, the decay of the rule of law, rampant government criminality,
and the evisceration of the the constitutional rights of millions of
Americans.
What does this terrorist threat really amount to though?
According to the State Department a mere 10 Americans were killed by terrorism in 2012. None of them in the U.S.
U.S. citizens worldwide killed as a result of incidents of terrorism: 10
U.S. citizens worldwide injured as a result of incidents of terrorism: 2
U.S. citizens worldwide kidnapped as a result of incidents of terrorism: 3
Nine out of 10 of those killed were in Afghanistan, the remaining one in
Iraq. One of the injured was in Afghanistan, the other in Iraq. The
three instances of a single person being kidnapped occurred in Nigeria,
Somalia, and Yemen.
Instead of tormenting Afghans in a military occupation that costs more
than $120 billion per year; instead of empowering the NSA to snuff out
the Fourth Amendment and collect and store the communications of all
Americans; instead of wasting almost$1 trillion annually
on defense spending mostly as a wealth transfer to rent-seeking
corporations; instead of granting the president the kingly power to
assassinate anyone, anywhere, at any time – maybe we just shouldn’t go
to the above-mentioned countries. Then our terrorism casualty rate will
be zero.
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