While testifying before Congress, John Kerry claimed that the United States, and the world as a whole, is safer now despite the “visible killings” committed by ISIS:
“Our citizens, our world today is actually, despite ISIL, despite the visible killings that you see and how horrific they are, we are actually living in a period of less daily threat to Americans and to people in the world than normally, less deaths, less violent deaths today than through the last century.”
Taking a look at the numbers, a report by The Huffington Post, stated that 17,891 people were killed due to terrorism in the last year – 19 of them were American citizens.
Despite low numbers of American casualties, there was a resurgence of worldwide deaths due to terrorism in 2013, as this graph from Statistica demonstrates:
Image Source: Statista/State Department
Fox News reports that Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, had this to say about the comments from the Secretary of State:
“Kerry is ‘out of touch with reality, he clearly is not listening to the entire U.S. intelligence community.'”
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also testified before Congress and stated that 2014 “was the deadliest year for global terrorism ever recorded”:
“‘When the final accounting is done, 2014 will have been the most lethal year for global terrorism in the 45 years such data has been compiled,’ Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee.”
A House judiciary subcommittee is holding a separate hearing today where FBI and local law enforcement officials are expected to testify on the threat of ISIS in America.
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