[A-List] Terrorism and the scale of human problems: a few stats to consider

["Jurriaan Bendien" <adsl675281@xxxxxxxxxx>]

A few estimates:

As a result of the attacks on the World Trade towers, about 2,823 people
died; the estimated cost of attacks to US based solely on property losses
and insurance costs was $21 billion, the estimated number of jobs lost in
lower
Manhattan area following 9/11 was 100,000.
(http://observer.guardian.co.uk/waronterrorism/story/0,1373,776451,00.html)

Total US war fatalities associated with the Iraq war stand at about 2,238
and
the total injured at 16,549 (http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/) (For more
quick stats, see e.g.
http://usliberals.about.com/od/homelandsecurit1/a/IraqNumbers.htm ).

Acording to the State Department report "Patterns of Global Terrorism",
there were in 2003 globally 208 acts of terrorism involving 605 deaths and
3646 wounded. However this report was discontinued in 2004 after its
methodology was challenged. It was replaced by the "Country Reports on
Terrorism",  which provides no statistics.
(http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002243262_terror16.html
).

In a 2005 press conference the State Department said  1,907 people had
been killed and 9,300 wounded in terrorist attacks in 2004, the
highest ever (http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/45279.htm ). A separate
report released by the National Counter Terrorism Center cited 651
"significant" attacks worldwide in 2004, killing 1,907 people wounding
around 8,000. ( http://www.tkb.org/documents/Downloads/NCTC_Report.pdf ).

If we estimated the number of deaths due to terrorist attacks annually in
the United States at 7,500 (well above government and media
estimates), that would imply less than 3 deaths per 100,000, as against
about 34 deaths per 100,000 due to accidents of all kinds. Accidents
generally account for 4.4% of all deaths each year in the USA, the fifth
leading cause of death after heart attacks, cancer, strokes and respiratory
diseases, and the annual odds of dying from accidents of any type are 1 :
2,698 (http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm). Within the USA in 2003,
2,889,000 persons were injured in traffic accidents, there were 6,328,000
vehicle crashes, and 42,028 people lost their lives in traffic accidents
(Bureau of Transportation Statistics www.bts.gov).

In 2003, there were in the USA some 24.2 million crime reports, including
18.6 million property crimes, 5.4 million violent crimes, and 185,000 petty
thefts (Bureau of Justice statistics www.ojp.usdoj.gov). In 2001, 30,622
Americans committed suicide, but more than four times that many are
hospitalised each year following suicide attempts (National Centre for
Injury Prevention and Control (http://www.cdc.gov/ ). Suicide is the third
leading cause of death among young people ages 15 to 24, with American
Indian and Alaskan Natives having the highest rate.

Every year, 12,000 Americans are claimed to die of unnecessary surgery,
7,000 die because of medication errors in hospitals, 20,000 die of other
errors in hospitals, 80,000 die of infections in hospitals, and 106,000 die
due to the negative effects of administered drugs (Barbara Starfield, "Is US
health really the best in the world?" Journal American Medical Association.
2000 Jul 26;284(4):483-5).

Foodborne diseases cause approximately 76 million illnesses,
325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year.
( http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol5no5/mead.htm ).

Globally, for example:

- a billion people live on less than $1 a day.
- In 2002, an estimated 815 million people in developing countries had too
little to eat to meet their daily energy needs.
- in 2002, 231,798,000 people suffered protein-energy malnutrition,
505,792,000 people suffered iodine deficiency, 1,049,407,000 suffered iron
deficiency. (http://www3.who.int/)
- Each year, almost 11 million children die before the age of five. That's
30,000 children a day.
(http://millenniumindicators.un.org/unsd/mi/mi_coverfinal.htm )
- 11 million people died from infectious diseases
- 40 million live with HIV
- Tuberculosis kills 1.75 million a year
- There are about 300 million cases of acute malaria each year, with a
million deaths a year.
And so on...

It all makes you wonder what is the real crime (or immorality): a few
individual acts of terrorism, or an obsessive focus (backed by huge funds)
on individual acts of terrorism. I think really the focus on terrorism is
more purely ideological, and is linked to the fact that the global credit
system is to a large degree dependent on the existence of public "trust" and
social stability. A breakdown of public trust (panics etc.) and social
stability sends the markets out of kilter.

Jurriaan