April 27, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY


9/11 IN PERSPECTIVE

George W. Bush and Republicans in general have been like ghouls in using the terrorist attacks on 9/11 for their political advantage. The attacks were ghastly. They were committed by criminals. But we shouldn't let the attacks on 9/11 destroy our civil liberties or change who we are. In this column Rosa Brooks shows that there are many things that cause more deaths than terrorist attacks, but we aren't going in meltdown mode over them. This column is at www.latimes.com:

The 9/11 attacks were appalling and tragic, but they did not threaten the survival of the nation. The year 2001 aside, total deaths (not just of Americans) caused by international terrorism worldwide have never exceeded — or even approached — 2,000 a year. Sept. 11 was an outlier: On 9/11, a group of brutal, extremist Islamic thugs got very lucky. Even Osama bin Laden couldn't have imagined that the Twin Towers would collapse, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Of course, 3,000 dead is 3,000 too many. But keep it in perspective. As a nation, we have survived far worse. We lost more than 100,000 Americans in World War I, more than 400,000 in World War II, 37,000 in Korea, 58,000 in Vietnam — all without allowing our national character to turn into quivering jelly.

Every year, we also lose millions of Americans to preventable accidents and disease. We're more likely to die on the road than as a result of Al Qaeda's machinations. Annually, we lose some 43,000 people to auto accidents. For the grieving families, that's 43,000 deaths too many. But, although we surely could reduce auto fatalities if we chose to make it our top national priority, the Bush administration has yet to announce a "War on Highway Deaths."