WORSE THAN TERRORISM

Several newspapers recently estimated the number of Americans injured in Iraq now exceed 6,000. In addition to those figures are the over 1,000 Americans who were killed in Iraq… and for what? Surely this was never about terrorism, as it has been revealed that Saddam Hussein did not have any chemical weapons, nor the capability of developing them. This was always about corporate profits, and every single person in America knows that, but some people were willing to overlook that because they believed, naively, that Saddam Hussein may have also posed a terrorist threat. Everyone knew Bush did not believe his own rationale, but they pretended to think he believed it because most Americans have always harbored some paranoia about Iraq, ever since the first gulf war. Saturday Night Live skits, news casts, jokes told in television shows painted a picture of Saddam Hussein which left a lasting impression in people's minds… that he was dangerous and determined to attack us. We now know that this was all nonsense. Yet some people still believe that Iraq has some relevance to the national security of the United States. Whenever one reason for supporting this war is proven false, they invent a new reason, one which is just as imaginary and untrue as the reason which preceded it.

They convince themselves the war is now suddenly justifiable because "Al Quaida now has a foothold in Iraq", or "Religious extremists will start a civil war and the result will eventually increase the threat of terrorism", or "We have to finish what we started or the Iraquis will be angry at us for leaving and then engage in terrorism". All of these reasons are absurd. Even if you are dumb enough to believe these bogus excuses for Bush's refusal to bring the troops home, consider this: The Iraq war has, now, statistically, harmed more Americans than the attacks of September 11th did. Over 7,000 Americans have been senselessly and purposelessly killed or wounded in Iraq. Even when the WTC casualty figures were at their most inflated estimates, they never exceeded 4,000. Once all the inaccuracies were corrected, the figures were lowered to somewhere in the 1,000 + range.

So Bush's war in Iraq, which was never the American people's war in the first place, has actually harmed more Americans than the September 11th attacks. Bush has now harmed more Americans than Osama Bin Laden. The war in Iraq is a greater threat to the American people than terrorism is. The continuation of the Iraq war is a worse scenario than that of another terrorist attack. Even if we were attacked by terrorists again, it is unlikely the death toll would be high enough to come close to the number of Americans Bush himself has killed with his narcissistic obsession with Iraq. Not even if the number was added to the September 11th numbers.

Don't get me wrong. People are much more than numbers, and I understand in a very personal way how terrible September 11th was. I lost many of my neighbors that day. I could have died that day, given that I commuted through the World Trade Center every morning. Yet I would feel much safer in a world where terrorism was the worst thing I had to worry about, than I would in a world where a never-ending war was the worst thing I had to worry about. It is quite clear to me that terrorism, though dangerous, is nowhere near as dangerous as war. There is absolutely nothing positive which can be achieved from continued US military involvement in Iraq. The worse terrorist act imaginable cannot harm as many Americans as leaving our troops in Iraq would.

Bush's war in Iraq has already devastated a larger number of American families than the September 11th attacks ever did. For the American people to tolerate the continuation of this war because it makes them feel safer is self-defeating. This war is already harming too many Americans, and it's inflicting more harm than any terrorist attack ever could. This war in itself is a greater danger to the safety of the American people than anything else. There is no greater threat to our safety than this war, and not because it increases the likelihood of terrorism, but because the death toll is worse than that of terrorism.

I am not suggesting that we stop caring about terrorism, but that we understand that anti-terrorism efforts should be handled strictly by law enforcement as they always were. What should we be doing, as an alternative to this self-defeating involvement in the middle east? We should be increasing the size of our police forces, providing new police and FBI recruits with the best possible training, and expand the FBI and CIA without consolidating them. We should be giving out government grants to management firms that own skyscrapers so that they can install cutting edge technology which would enable them to sense a problem before it occurs, conduct an evacuation, and notify the authorities. We should have our entire military stationed here in the US, and deploy it domestically only for the purpose of responding to a specific threat or incident.

Our military should never have been involved in an overseas operation. Nothing could have been achieved by such a course of action, and nothing will be achieved by it. Yes, the September 11th attacks were a horrible, horrible thing which I hope and pray we as Americans never experience the likes of again. However, we need to be careful not to let our fears cause us to support a course of action which is more dangerous to our way of life than Al Quaida could ever be. Most of the arguments which an array of lawmakers and media pundits have tried to pound into our brains have been lies, manipulations, and propaganda. Even if some of the people who read this article do believe Iraq is relevant to our national security, they should seriously consider the fact that this state of war is, in itself, killing and maiming more Americans than a series of Al Quaida attacks ever could. We should not offer the souls of our young to Iraqui blood hunters as human sacrifices just because it gives us the illusion that those of us still living on American soil are somehow safer. The matter of domestic terrorism has always been dealt with by domestic law enforcement, and it always will be. Nothing that happens in the middle east will help our domestic law enforcement agencies, and thus nothing which happens in the middle east will have any affect on the question of whether we are or aren't attacked by terrorists.

The war is worse than terrorism. If we are going to worry about something, we need to worry more about the prospect that a bunch of fools in Washington may be too ignorant to see that they are personally responsible for harming more Americans than Osama Bin Laden himself, and that their complicity in the continuation of this war poses a greater threat to the security of the American people than terrorism does.