Terrorist or Fearful Citizen – Who Has The Advantage?

This country has survived times far more difficult than what we’ve suffered in the early years of this new century. Yes, terrorists have killed our citizens in a very dramatic and traumatic manner. However, this new crisis pales compared to the real wars this country has already fought and survived. If we are to survive this new century and its perils, we must realize that our current situation is very mild compared with other American historical events and that our fearfulness of this new crisis needs some perspective.

At the beginning of this country, we fought an 8 year revolutionary war against British rule. We lost 25,000 of our first citizens and another 25,000 were wounded for what we now enjoy.

About 100 years later, we fought the American Civil War that lasted four years. We lost 618,000 of our fellow citizens to try and live up to what our 18th century forefathers intended — “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Just 64 years later, The Great Depression crashed our world and lasted 10 years. From 1929 to 1933, there was a 28 percent drop in the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It took another three years just to get back to the 1929 levels in 1937. At the low point in 1933, there was 25 percent unemployment, farm prices had fallen 60 percent, industrial production was down more than 50 percent, 2 million workers were out of work and most banks had closed.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt described the situation this way during his first inaugural address to the nation in March 1933:

… Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Less than a decade later, The Greatest Generation was forced into World War II and had to take on two enemies with vastly greater resources than the terrorists (or drug lords) of today. During WWII, over 418,000 of our citizens were killed. This includes the more than 3,000 killed during the attack at Pearl Harbour.

Compare the losses of these three major wars in our history to our current losses due to acts of terrorism. The U.S. military and civilian deaths directly due to terrorist attacks were 7,776 as of this posting. These terrorist killings represent 31 percent of our losses during our Revolutionary War but only 1.9 percent of our WWII citizen losses.

Now compare the after effects of the attack on September 11, 2001, to losses of The Great Depression or the other financial sacrifices made during WWII. There is no comparison. Most of us have made absolutely no sacrifice as a direct result of the attack in September 2001.

There is also little similarity to the worldwide deaths due to terrorism with the worldwide deaths from WWII. This war cost the lives of over 72,599,600 citizens of the world. Excluding the poorly defined civilian casualties for Iraq, the total deaths for both the victims of terrorism and terrorists ranges from 109,000 to 146,000. Even if you add the minimum, 75,164, and maximum, 1,220,580, estimates for Iraqi civilians there is no comparison. Deaths due to terrorism only represents 1.9 percent of the losses from WWII.

So, the more one looks at the war on terrorism, the more it looks like the war on drugs — not worth all the media attention or the efforts by politicians to scare us into voting for them. Yes, the losses are tragic for all these conflicts, but this “war on terrorism” doesn’t deserve so much media and political weight in our nations’ efforts or in our personal decisions.

I will close with another excerpt from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inaugural speech in 1933 when this country faced a truly significant threat to its future:

… This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

The primary tool the terrorists have working for them and against us, is our own fear of what we imagine they might do. I’ve tried to show here, and in other postings noted at the end of this posting, that our level of fear over another terrorist attack is exaggerated. This overrated fear paralyzes our minds and caused us to do stupid things like accept for truth a “Noble Lie,” give up our civil rights, relinquish our power to govern to one branch of the government and ignore the corruption and illegal activities of our elected leaders.

We need to regain all our noble advantages over the terrorists and their shallow human standards. We need to take back control of the government and elect those who will not use fear mongering to get our votes. We need to elect representatives that will respect our wishes while also honoring and protecting the laws of our Constitution. We need to be skeptical of what we read and hear that is based on an exaggerated fear of terrorism. We need to elect representatives that will help retake the moral high ground and regain the respect of other nations. We need to stop being fearful of such a small-minded enemy.