"How did it come to pass that an opposition's measure of a president's foreign policy was all or nothing, success or "failure"? The answer is that the political absolutism now normal in Washington arrived at the moment--Nov. 7, 2000--that our politics subordinated even a war against terror to seizing the office of the presidency." - Daniel Henninger - WSJ 11/18/05
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"the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." - George Orwell
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Thursday, February 01, 2007

A Professorial attempt at "Putting 9/11 into perspective"

Not to be taken as belittling the loss of 3,000 lives on 9/11/01, Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, David A. Bell asks us to consider that if we had lost 20 million on 9/11 forward that this would be:

"what the Soviet Union suffered during World War II,"
He believes:
"contemplating these numbers may help put in perspective what the United States has so far experienced during the war against terrorism."
It would appear someone from the Left has finally taken a stand regarding the number of deaths that would allow for the prosecution of this "war on terror."
"Even if one counts our dead in Iraq and Afghanistan as casualties of the war against terrorism, which brings us to about 6,500, we should remember that roughly the same number of Americans die every two months in automobile accidents."
"Has the American reaction to the attacks in fact been a massive overreaction? Is the widespread belief that 9/11 plunged us into one of the deadliest struggles of our time simply wrong? If we did overreact, why did we do so? Does history provide any insight?"

Now I understand where the term, "educated guess" comes from....."Putting 9/11 into perspective."

Hey, after thought, perhaps he should write about theories as fact, "Putting global warming into perspective."

 

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