Violent Crime and Homeland Security: Collateral Damage in the War on Terror

The WOT is always the big story coming out of the Bush administration -- even when there's no story at all. Meanwhile, about 80,000 people have been murdered in the U.S. since 9/11 -- five times the toll of 9/11, every year. Yet Bush, neocons and the media seem uninterested in the subject. Why?

There may be another view of the new crime statistics: That increased violent crime in the U.S. is reflecting a fundamental change toward violence in our country (a cultural change led by the Bush administration and the neoconservative movement).

Could there be a correlation between the War on Terror and a tendency toward violence in society at large? For example, does para-militarization of local police cause a hardening in criminal culture? Do increasingly belligerent and violent government policies set the tone for the rest of us?

Stanly Sporkin gave an ADL speech in 1993 called “The ‘Meaning’ of America” where he suggested that harshness in government is reflected throughout the country.

You might be interested in this Australian analysis of the USA's astonishingly high levels of incarceration:

With less than 5% of the global population, the USA has more than 20% of the world’s imprisoned people. Yes that’s right, of the nine million or so prisoners in the world’s gaols, two million are in the USA. The rate of imprisonment is 714 per 100,000 there, which is not just slightly or even significantly higher than in comparable countries. It’s wildy higher.

For example, the rate in England and Wales is 142 per 100,000, in Canada it’s 116 and in Australia, 117. In non-English speaking countries some of the rates are even lower: 75 in Sweden, 96 in Germany, 58 in Japan. The only nation of any size that comes even remotely close to the USA is Russia (532).

Doesn’t a social phenonemon like this scream “Hang on, there’s something not right here”?

I have often said that Bush is just a symptom of a sick society. The symptom will abate when Bush leaves office, but the illness still needs to be cured.

     According to a 2004 study at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine by Drs. Hillel W. Cohen, Robert M. Gould, and Victor W. Sidel,

"The present expansion of bioterrorism preparedness programs will continue to squander health resources, increase the dangers of accidental or purposeful release of dangerous pathogens, and further undermine efforts to enforce international treaties to ban biological and chemical weapons. The public health community should acknowledge the substantial harm that bioterrorism preparedness has already caused and develop mechanisms to increase our public health resources and to allocate them to address the world’s real health needs." 

Hillel W. Cohen, Robert M. Gould, and Victor Sidel, "The Pitfalls of Bioterrorism Preparedness:  the Anthrax and Smallpox Experiences," The American Journal of Public Health, October 2004, Vol 94, No. 10, pp. 1667-71.