According to a recent poll, Americans are more pessimistic about terrorism than at any time since 9/11. The CNN/ORC survey (full results in .pdf format) asked, “Who do you think is currently winning the war on terrorism — the U.S. and its allies, neither side, or the terrorists?” Forty percent of respondents said that the terrorists were winning, while a mere 18 percent believed that the United States and its allies were winning. After the killing of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011, just 9 percent believed the terrorists had the upper hand.
This recent poll, conducted in mid-December after the San Bernardino attacks, is hardly a fluke. Others have found U.S. fears of terrorism to be at or near all-time highs. “Although other issues — particularly economic ones — often crowded out terrorism as a topic of daily concern,” explain my Cato colleague John Mueller and co-author Mark Stewart, “terrorism has won an apparently permanent space in the American mind.”
WNU Editor: This is telling ....
.... “An American’s chance of being killed by a terrorist,” note Mueller and Stewart, “has been, and remains, one in four million per year with 9/11 included in the calculation, or one in 110 million for the period since 2001.” More Americans have been killed by weather incidents in the last two weeks than have been killed by attacks by Islamist extremists on U.S. soil in the last 14 years.
Not to be too cynical but:
ReplyDelete"More Americans have been killed by weather incidents in the last two weeks than have been killed by attacks by Islamist extremists on U.S. soil in the last 14 years."
It's a lot easier to kill us "over there", than here.
You (and all of us) have every right to be cynical Jay. :)
ReplyDelete"According to a recent poll, Americans are more pessimistic about terrorism than at any time since 9/11."
ReplyDeleteThen the "terrorists" have succeeded, thanks to the press. That's the definition of terrorism.
The US definition of terrorism in the criminal code is found in 18 U.S. Code § 2331. 18 USC § 2331 states:
(1) the term “international terrorism” means activities that—
(A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;
(B) appear to be intended—
(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;
(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or
(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping;....
Success! They have intimidated or coerced a civilian population.
Holy smokes!!
ReplyDeleteNATO is a terrorist organization!