Voodoo Security?
By: Raphie Frank
Call it Voodoo: The Sequel? From the same
folks who brought you the smash hit of the ’80’s Voodoo
Economics comes the latest greatest rage,
Voodoo Security! Stay tuned. Coming soon to
a theater of war near you.
Why of such a santeria frame of mind here? Well, curious with respect to this
whole idea that Republicans keep us safer then Democrats, I ran some
numbers this weekend…
International Terrorism Related Deaths according to the National
Counter Terrorism Center (via Wikipedia):
1995 (165), 1996 (311), 1997 (221), 1998 (741), 1999 (233), 2000 (405),
2001 (3547), 2002 (725), 2003 (625), 2004 (1,907 )
Meaning?
Total number of terrorist deaths on Bush’s watch due to international terrorism
during the four years for which statistics are available? 6,804. And on Clinton’s
watch from 1995-2000 (last 6 years of his Presidency)? 2,076.
Meaning?
On average over the course of four years 1,701 people a year have died at the
hands of international terrorists under Bush. Under Clinton there were 346
deaths per year. That’s a 391% increase on Bush’s watch.
But, you say, 2001 was a statistical anomaly? Not fair to factor that in because
of 9/11? Okay, take out 2001 and Bush’s 3 year avg., minus 2001 comes down
to 1086 deaths/year, in which case there is only a 213% increase
in terrorist deaths on Bush’s watch. But fair is fair. Shall we assume anyone can
have an off year and toss out Clinton’s worst year as well, 1998 when there
were 741 terrorist related deaths?
Clinton 5 year avg. (minus 1998) = 267 deaths /year.
In other words, toss out Bush’s worst year out of four for which statistics
are available (2001), and toss out Clinton’s worst year of his final six (1998)
and Bush’s comparative record on fighting deaths related to international
terrorism is worse by a factor of more than 4x. On average, the
Johnny-come-world citizen has a 306% greater chance of dying as a
consequence of international terrorism under Bush than under Clinton. And those numbers don’t even include attacks against soldiers in
Iraq.
To be fair, these numbers also don’t include the Oklahoma City bombing, the
worst act of domestic terrorism in American history. Bush has done a
commendable job on that front. If not overseas, he’s certainly keeping
Americans safe in America, safe from far right loonies such as Tim McVeigh,
that is.
Raphie Frank is a New York City-based interactive producer, writer,
photographer and designer, but at heart a simple storyteller. At the moment he
is looking for stories to tell with happy hopeful endings, but such stories,
sadly, are far and few between these days.
Additional writings from a “far left centrist” can be viewed on Raphie’s blog Politinotions.