Since I noticed that every day now as many Americans are dying in the Trump Pandemic as died during the 9/11 attacks I have thought about how different public and government reactions have been.
9/11
2,977 people died in the attacks in the US on 9/11/2001. 9/11 brought on a 19 year war fought mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan with frequent excursions in many other countries. Here is the summary of the costs from the Watson Institute at Brown University1:
- Over 801,000 people have died due to direct war violence, and several times as many indirectly
- Over 335,000 civilians have been killed as a result of the fighting
- 37 million — the number of war refugees and displaced persons
- The US federal price tag for the post-9/11 wars is over $6.4 trillion dollars
- The US government is conducting counterterror activities in 80 countries
- The wars have been accompanied by violations of human rights and civil liberties, in the US and abroad
9/11 brought on the creation of the Federal Department of Homeland Security and increased militarization of domestic police. This department is the third largest federal department after Defense and Veterans with over 240,000 employees. The 2020 budget was $74 billion.
9/11 brought on mass surveillance of telephones, email and text messages of Americans.
9/11 brought on a more than doubling of deportations even through the Obama administration.
Trump’s Pandemic
I won’t go into an endless recital of the failures of the Trump government to address the pandemic. Let’s just let the numbers do the talking. The US has 4.5% of the world’s population. As of 12.5.2020 the US has 22% of the infections and 18% of the deaths in the world. Today’s death total of 275,386 2will certainly blossom to 400,000 by 1.20.2021.
Total combat related US deaths during WWII were 405,399 3
