Seriously, the Communist loving freaks with the Economist Intelligence Unit are really one upping themselves with stupidity:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iceland is the world’s most peaceful nation while the United States is ranked among the bottom third, according to a study released on Tuesday.
The “Global Peace Index,” compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit, ranked the United States 97th out of 140 countries according to how peaceful they were domestically and how they interacted with the outside world.
The United States slipped from 96th last year, but was still ahead of foe Iran which ranked 105th. It, however, lagged Belarus, Cuba, South Korea, Chile, Libya and others which were listed as more peaceful.
Iraq, which the United States invaded in 2003, leading to the toppling of Saddam Hussein, ranked lowest on the index. Afghanistan, another country invaded by the United States this decade, was also in the bottom five, along with Sudan, Somalia and Israel.
Commenting on the U.S. ranking, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said to realize a more peaceful and prosperous world, “Often times, you have to do difficult things and a lot of times, people don’t agree with them. They don’t like them.”
“A lot of times you fall down in these lists but at the end of the day it is in defense of democracy and the way of life we have enjoyed over the past several decades,” he added.
The United States has come under strong international criticism for the invasion of Iraq and its chaotic aftermath.
Its image has also been damaged by the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the detention of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.
Small, stable and democratic countries were found to be the most peaceful in the index, with 16 of the top 20 coming from western or central European democracies.
The index looks at 24 indicators of external and internal measures of peace, including U.N. deployments overseas and levels of violent crime, respect for human rights, the number of soldiers killed overseas and arms sales.
The Group of Eight major economic powers were a mixed bag. Japan ranked fifth, Canada 11th, Germany 14th, Italy 28th, France 36th and Britain 49th. Russia was near the bottom at 131st, the only one in the group below the United States.
Based on a comparison of 121 countries in the same index last year, scores were slightly improved for levels of crime, political instability and the potential for “terrorist acts,” said a statement accompanying the release of the index.
The index was launched under the auspices of the Institute for Economics and Peace, a new think tank that looks at the relationship between economics, business and peace.
Supporters of the index urged policymakers to focus more on education, wealth, and well-functioning government and pointed to the role of business in creating more stability.
(Reporting by Sue Pleming; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
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Like I care what other countries think of us? Ha. It is to laugh.
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Did we decapitate prisoners at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib? Perhaps the peace-loving swimmers in this particular toilet, er… think tank should move to Iceland and shut their holes.
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Hi guys,
Just what I was thinking. It annoys me just reading this asinine article.
Well, ya know, it’s easy to be “peaceful” when bloodthirsty crazies don’t fly planes into your skyscrapers in an attempt to kill fifty thousand of your citizens. Likewise, it’s easy to be “peaceful” when you don’t have to deal with the predecessors of such murderous acts - like bombing those buildings, bombing the U.S.S. Cole, or the like. It’s REALLY easy to be “peaceful” when the entire free world, and the world that would like to be free but is under the control of murderous, raping dictators, looks to you to save their bacon.
/rant
Arms sales? Do these jerks not realise that the right to own guns - and the exercise of that right - keeps us free? Would they prefer that we live like the Jews in Nazi Europe, who were rounded up and shoved into gas chambers because they couldn’t fight back? Every dictatorship gets its power by disarming its citizens.
Let’s move on to this b.s. about “human rights.” You’re seriously telling me that most countries do better on human rights than we do? That we are only slightly above the countries that deny women the right to drive and have honour killings? that have official rape rooms? (Oh, wait, we had that from 1992-2000: it was called the Oval Office.)
If we suck so much as a country, why is everyone trying to live here?
Did any of these brain trusts stop to think that most of our crime (66% of L.A. gang members are illegal immigrants, for example) is due to immigrants and not us? Ergo, why not attribute that crime to Mexico and Gautamela?
Iceland is pretty isolated. Iceland and its people have little say about what goes on in the world. Iceland also has among the highest personal tax rates in the world. They can be the most peaceful nations in the world, it also means they are among the weakest with some of the highest government dependency there is. I wouldn’t want to live there.
“Cuba”
It sure is easy to maintain domestic tranquility in a police state where dissenters and criminals can simply be shot or imprisoned without due process.
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