In an effort to shore up it's "war on terrorism" the Bush administration revamped its 2003 terrorism fatality statistics today. According to the latest release 625 people died from international terrorism last year.

Sounds like a lot right? Something to be afraid of. Something to start a war on terrorism to stamp out?

Of course I'm not going to suggest that 625 deaths isn't a terrible human tragedy, especially since I would expect many of those to be innocent civilians. However its less than one-twentieth of the number of people who've died in a tiny country called Iraq - the majority of who are civilians - since Bush II invaded.

And compared to the largely preventable slayer of civilians worldwide - the automobile - it pales into insignificance. Latest estimates from 1998 suggest that worldwide over 1.1 million people died due to automobile accidents, and a staggering 39 million were injured.

So I ask you, which random cause of civilian death do you think you should be afraid of next year? The one in ten million chance of being killed by a terrorist? Or the two thousand times more likely chance of being killed in a car accident? And which do you think deserves a "war" against it? A war to stop a largely unidentifiable, ineradicable force of terrorists, or a war to dramatically improve automobile and highway safety - if not an outright war to eliminate personal automobiles, period?

0 Comments:

Post a Comment