Information Warfare: The Global Peace Index

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June 7, 2007: A subsidiary of The Economist magazine was hired to create a Global Peace Index. Thus the ten least peaceful nations on the planet are; Angola, Ivory Coast, Lebanon, Pakistan, Colombia, Nigeria, Russia, Israel, Sudan and, at the very bottom, Iraq. The list does not measure how dangerous it is to be in a nation, but rather how much of a threat the nation is to world peace. Thus a large army would make you more dangerous, even if the army was rarely used, and was there mainly to keep hostile neighbors from attacking you. Because of this, Israel ends up on the bottom ten, even though it is a safer place to live than most of its neighbors. Same with Russia. The country with the most horrific war, Congo, doesn't even make the "10 Worst." The United States is also near the bottom of the list, because of its large armed forces. Yet many of the nations that are higher on the list, have small armed forces courtesy of the United States, which sees to many of their defense needs. No good deed goes unpunished. The Global Peace Index is endorsed by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, the Dali Lama, and archbishop Despond Tutu of South Africa (which has one of the highest murder rates on the planet, peaceful, maybe, but safe, definitely not.)

 

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