In 2009, the State Department reported that the number of Americans killed that year around the world due to terrorism was a grand total of nine. Fourteen people were injured, and four were kidnapped. To put those numbers in perspective, the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 4,340 deaths due to workplace events or exposure in 2009.14 Deaths from car accidents numbered 30,797.15 Yet no one declared war on corporations or auto manufacturers. What’s more, a State Department terrorism report released in April 2009 states that “al-Qaeda . . . and associated networks continued to lose ground, both structurally and in the court of world public opinion.” Nevertheless, the report asserted that these organizations “remained the greatest terrorist threat to the United States and its partners.” All this reveals not only the disconnect between rhetoric and reality but also the mechanics involved in mobilizing a politics of fear. It is worth emphasizing that the threat from terrorism is a manufactured crisis, one that is useful to justify war and continued violations of civil liberties domestically. The green scare is just as useful today as the red scare was during the Cold War.

QUESTION: Would be worth verifying more recent comparable data on terrorism deaths versus workplace and car deaths to see if the disparity persists.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 508