9/11 Five Years After: Time for a "War on Comets"!

The Bush Administration likes to boast that "national security" is its top priority, job one, first responsibility, primary task, whatever. Therefore, to (allegedly) protect Americans, the Bush Administration has directed massive funding to the likes of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, TRW, General Dynamics, and many other war profiteers to create the armaments for the so-called "war on terror."

However, despite spending many billions of dollars on this ridiculous "war on terror"--federal funding, by the way, not spent on education, healthcare, transportation, housing, whatever--most Americans don't feel any safer. And if only they realized how threatened they actually are. Not by terrorists, but by celestial objects!

In an excellent and provocative essay on CommonDreams.org last week, former Nixon White House counselor John Dean cites an academic who has studied the real risk terrorists pose to Americans:

For example, John Mueller, a professor of political science at Ohio State University, asserts in the current issue of Foreign Affairs that "the lifetime chance of an American being killed by international terrorism is about one in 80,000 --about the same chance of being killed by a comet or a meteor."

When answering the question "Is There Still a Terrorist Threat?," Professor Mueller concludes that, "Although it remains heretical to say so, the evidence so far suggests that fears of the omnipotent terrorist -- reminiscent of those inspired by images of the 20-foot-tall Japanese after Pearl Harbor or the 20-foot-tall Communists at various points in the Cold War (particularly after Sputnik) -- may have been overblown, the threat presented within the United States by al Qaeda is greatly exaggerated. The massive and expensive homeland security apparatus erected since 9/11 may be persecuting some, spying on many, inconveniencing most, and taxing all to defend the United States against an enemy that scarcely exists."

Wait just a minute! Did Professor Mueller of the Ohio State University say the threat posed by comets and meteors is as great as the threat posed by unshaven men in caves?!? Huh? How can the Bush Administration say their top priority is "national security", yet they appear to be doing nothing to protect us from a massively catastrophic strike by a malicious meteor? Where is the "War on Comets"?!? And that's just rocks out there? What about defense against extraterrestrial forces? I saw War of the Worlds.

Therefore, I propose that the Bush Administration start awarding massive contracts to Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Halliburton, and other worthy protectors of American existence for a "War on Comets"! If we have to liquidate Social Security to enable the profits--er, efforts of these great corporate partners in national defense, so be it! Let's go America! Wake up to the threat!

As an afterthought, I offer the following:
• Number of Americans killed on 9/11: 2,973
• Number of Americans killed in traffic collisions, 2001: 42,196

I grieve for the victims of 9/11. I also grieve for the 214,000 people killed on our roadways in the past five years, many of whom were pedestrians or bicyclists. I also grieve for all the victims of this criminally destructive Bush Administration.