Self-Defense & Violence Prevention Blog

by Scott Hughes

Today marked the fifth anniversary of the tragic 9/11 attacks that killed 2,819 citizens. This is not a day for celebration, but is rather a mournful day. The horrible memories of that terrible day still plague the hearts and minds of people worldwide.

As with all avoidable tragedies, we must fight through our pain, and solve the problems that originally led to the tragedy. We must not let our pain debilitate us into just awaiting the next avoidable tragedy.

Albert Einstein said, “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Unfortunately, as I pointed out in a recent blog, we still continue the same actions that foster terrorism and needless death, as shown by the rise in global terrorism.

Ignoring the inherent link between war and hunger, we still allow 16,000 children to die from hunger every day [1]. Indeed, there is a relationship between the 2,819 innocent people who died on 9/11 from terrorism and the 16,000 innocent children who died on 9/11 from hunger. Yet, we continue to allow innocent children and people to die from these causes: violence and hunger.

Ignoring the link between drug prohibition and terrorism, we still allow an easy funding opportunity for terrorists and other violent criminals, instead of reducing crime and terrorism by repealing drug prohibition.

Instead of actually fixing the conditions that caused and allowed 9/11, we have allowed our leaders to waste resources not only on the $50 billion dollar a year drug war as mentioned, but namely on the war in Iraq. The ousting of the secular tyrant Saddam Hussein in Iraq surely had a positive impact on his local enemies. However, this war has only increased anti-Americanism, hatred, violence, and terrorism. So far, the war in Iraq killed well over 40,000 citizens! So far, the war in Iraq cost United States taxpayers well over $300 billion! So far, the war in Iraq killed over 2,500 U.S. soldiers.

The UN says a $40 billion increase in current aid would provide food, clean water, sanitation, health services, and education to everyone on the planet. That’s less than one seventh the cost of the Iraq war. The 16,000 children who died today could have been fed and educated, instead of the Iraq war. Would a world in which children didn’t starve have less terrorism and hatred? Would a world in which all children were educated (and thus taught how to take care of both themselves and the future children of this world) have less terrorism? So, instead of increasing terrorism by causing the death of over 2,500 U.S. troops and 40,000 Iraqi citizens, couldn’t we have reduced terrorism and violence, and the death of the innocent!

And, we would have had over $270 billion left over.

End the drug war, and we’d have $320 billion left over.

Or instead, perhaps we could return the tax-dollars to the citizens from which they were taken. These citizens could then spend the money on personal DEFENSE, which would actually decrease violence and protect the lives of innocents.

Perhaps we could prevent the next 9/11, rather than facilitate it.

About The Author: Scott Hughes writes this blog.

[1] State of Food Insecurity in the World 2005. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.