by James Glaser
June 7, 2002

"The ability to evaluate information, situations, and the like with respect to their meaningfulness or comparative importance." (New Webster's Dictionary)

The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was a horrible dastardly deed. Those that suffered the loss of a loved one will never truly get over that loss and September 11 will always bring that grief back to the surface.

President Bush and just about everyone in Washington is working to stop any subsequent attack. Money is no object when it comes to our war on terrorism, but is that right?

Every year in America about 15000 citizens lose their lives to drunk drivers and tens of thousands lose their lives due to cancer and heart disease. How many older Americans die because they couldn't pay for the high cost of prescription drugs?

There are many more things that cause more deaths each year in America than terrorism and when we put Terrorism into perspective like this we find that the loss of life to a drunk driver or to some form of cancer is just as hard on the victims loved ones, as was being killed by terrorists. Losing a loved one is hard no matter how they died.

One thing is different and sets that terrorist attack apart from all the other killers of our people. That is the research we put into trying to stop all of the others. Only in this terrorist attack do we jump right up there and say we know how to cure this problem. In just a few days we decided what was the root cause of this loss of American life and we sent the troops to kill those that attacked us.

We don't kill drunk drivers, even repeat drunk drivers. Most of the time we don't kill premeditated killers. We do nothing to drug companies that put the cost of medication out of reach for thousands. Terrorists we go after big time even if we have to kill thousands to get at them.

There is the difference. We will kill innocent women and children to get "justice" for those that died in a terrorist attack. There is one other glaring difference between a terrorist attack and some natural calamity like cancer or heart disease. With a disease we spend years and millions of dollars trying to figure out a cure. With terrorism we spend billions trying to kill the "disease."

Can any of you imagine what our nation would find if we took the time to research what caused these terrorist attacks. President Bush might be right when he says that those terrorists that committed suicide, killed themselves because they hated our freedom, but does that sound right? "Those people are way too free, lets kill them." Do you think that is what those 19 young men were thinking?

I would like to know what caused 19 young men to throw away their lives, not because I would like to save future men like that, but to stop future attacks on America. I quit smoking because of a correlation between smoking and cancer. If America is doing something to cause terrorism we should know about it.

Those in Washington think that they already know the answers, but it takes years of research to come up with cures for other things and these same people that know so much now couldn't even connect the dots from all the research that the FBI and CIA gave them.

If America is willing to spend hundreds of billions in fighting a disease like terrorism that has killed 3500 in the last ten years why not one hundred billion for something like heart disease, that kills millions. Maybe medical research doesn't raise the poll numbers.