I saw this quote from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff today:

“In my personal military judgment, formed over 38 years, we are living in the most dangerous time in my lifetime right now…”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General Dempsey (16 February 2012)

It is from an article at Defense.gov entitled Panetta, Dempsey: Sequestration Would Defeat Defense Strategy.

I beg to differ.

Over 600,000 Americans were killed in the American Civil War.

Over 500,000 Americans died in the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918.

Over 400,000 Americans were killed in World War II.

The Cuban Missile Crisis nearly brought about planet-wide destruction. Only recently has it become widely known just how close we came to oblivion.

Off the top of my head, I can think of a few individual events that were far more dangerous than the sum total of credible threats extant in the world today.

Catastrophic climate change aside, that is…