Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, professed that “if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.” Our elected representatives, Democrat and Republican alike, have spent the past dozen years verifying the potency of this observation in relation to the supposed existential threat posed by terrorists around the globe. One can, on a daily basis, pick up a newspaper or turn on the television to find solemn intonations from congressmen on the menace of so-called “Islamic terrorism,” and the consequent increases in government power needed to stem this threatening tide. While such assertions dominate our public discourse, rarely do you hear any evidence to substantiate such claims. Once a belief becomes orthodoxy among our two major political parties, the usual need to provide evidentiary support goes out the window.
With our government locked into a permanent state of fear mongering, it becomes incumbent upon us, the citizenry, to dispassionately analyze the true nature of the dangers we face. For a contrarian, and more robustly supported, take on this issue, we can turn to John Mueller, professor of political science at Ohio State University, who has researched in depth the threat of terrorism and considers the U.S. response dangerously overwrought.
Mueller uncovered all instances of terrorism in the U.S. dating back to the 1960s and found that an American has a one in 3.5 million chance of dying in a terrorist attack, compared to a 1 in 500 chance of dying from cancer, 1 in 8,000 chance of dying in an automobile accident, and 1 in 22,000 chance of dying in a homicide. Indeed, roughly the same number of Americans have died from terrorism since 1960 as those who have died from “accident-causing deer.”
This obviously seems counterintuitive when juxtaposed with the panicked statements of public officials, but the data reveals the hollowness of their proclamations. According to the State Department, an average of 252 Americans have died from terrorism each year since 2000. In comparison, more than 30,000 Americans die each year from handgun violence, an issue that only recently became a subject of mass debate after the Sandy Hook shootings, while the alleged terrorist menace has received nonstop coverage and trillions of dollars worth of appropriations.
Speaking of expenditures, the U.S. intelligence budget now numbers $75 billion per year, while total spending on domestic homeland security has increased by more than $1 trillion since 9/11, a number that does not even include the decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words, the same legislators who pontificate on the need for budget austerity and putting the social safety net at risk in a time of economic hardship also stridently protect the grossly inflated defense, intelligence and homeland security budgets in response to the overblown threat of terrorism.
One other fact must not escape our notice. After 9/11, the word terrorism became associated in the public mind with the stereotypical image of angry Muslims donning turbans, hell-bent on bringing death and destruction to America. Once again, a look at the data quickly dispels this hyperbolic notion. So-called Muslim extremists have accounted for one-fiftieth of one percent of all homicides in the U.S. since 9/11. Yet, needless to say, Muslims at home and abroad have born the brunt of the erosion of civil liberties and heightened militarism perpetrated by the U.S. government. The time has come for a serious reckoning with the facts, instead of relying on the same old caricatures and empty threats.
Our public officials have spent the last 12 years relentlessly beating into our heads the idea that terrorism threatens to destroy us, and most of us, due to sheer force of repetition, have believed them. We, the people, must adopt a renewed skepticism, keeping in mind the legendary journalist I.F. Stone’s bedrock principle: “All governments lie.”
Jon is a senior majoring in history and international studies. Do you feel that the government has had a fear mongering agenda over the last 12 years? Do these statistics surprise you? Tell us your thoughts! Please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com, and visit our website dailycardinal.com for more!
