Left I on the News

Today in a Capitol Hill hearing, Gen. Keith Alexander was defending the NSA, justifying its extensive spying. He actually had the nerve to say the following without seeming to have the slightest idea of what he was really saying:

"In just this last month, 2,336 people were killed, 1510 injured [by terrorists] in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Nigeria. And yet there has not been a mass casualty here in the U.S. since 2001."

Alexander neglected to point out how many people were being killed per month by terrorists in Iraq or Afghanistan before the U.S. invaded those countries (answer: 0). Or how many people were being killed per month in Pakistan before the U.S. started drone bombing that country (answer: 0). Or how many people were being killed by terrorists each month in Syria before the U.S.-supported "revolution" started (answer: again 0). (Not sure what's going on in Nigeria, to be honest).

And as far as this nonsense that there has not been a "mass casualty" in the U.S. since 2001, my guess is that there are hundreds of families in this country who would beg to differ. Perhaps none killed by "terrorists" as the U.S. government defines them (i.e., Muslims), but plenty killed in "mass casualty" events.

And, by the way, there were ten U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan last month, four in one "mass casualty" event. Ten people (along with thousands before them in Iraq and Afghanistan) who would all be alive were it not for the U.S. wars. The U.S. "defending" itself, via the NSA or anything else, is the main source of such deaths in the world, not the major thing preventing them.