Tom Engelhardt: The Costs of Defense

Tom Engelhardt: The Costs of Defense

America’s military and intelligence infrastructures are about protecting people from terrorism, and little else.

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Since 9/11, author Tom Engelhardt estimates, perhaps twenty-five to thirty people in the United States have been killed by terrorism—far less than the number of deaths by homicide, or smoking, or car accidents. In this video, Engelhardt, a fellow at the Nation Institute, explains how the fear of terrorism dominates the US national security complex, at a heavy cost.

—Elizabeth Whitman

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