Thursday, May 31, 2007

A Violent Superpower

As the world's only superpower (for now at least) we have been a terrible example to be followed when it comes to peace. An index was created based on two dozen indicators including arms sales, the amount of wars a country is involved with and violent crimes. The United States currently ranks 96th out of 121 countries. To cite a comparison, Iran was 97th and Yemen was at number 95. Most of the countries at the top of the list were in Europe.

I honestly thought we would be lower than that, so I guess not being dead last is a good thing. With the amount of arms sales, over 11,000 handgun deaths every year, having troops in dozens of countries across the globe and fighting at least two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) officially, there is a lot there to justify being placed at the bottom. Of course when you think about it, Russia is far worse, being named #118 and Iraq (obviously) is at the very bottom.