Rah Rah America! We’re Number Ninety-Seven!

The Global Peace Index has ranked 140 countries according to how peaceful they are. “Peaceful” includes domestically and how the country interacts with the outside world.

America needs to learn how to work and play well with others. We’re in the bottom third. Last year we were ranked at 96; this year we’ve gone down a notch.

The index was created by the Institute for Economics and Peace. This is a think tank that examines the relationship between peace, business and economics. They use 24 indicators to measure how peaceful a country is. These indicators include: arms sales, the number of soldiers killed overseas, the violent crime rate and the country’s human rights record.

Iraq and Afghanistan are at the bottom of the list, along with Somalia, Sudan and Israel. The U.S. is also more peaceful than Iran (105) and Russia (131).

Countries that are more peaceful than the U.S. include: Libya, Belarus, South Korea, Chile and Cuba.

Iceland ranked number one. Japan was 5th, Canada 11th, Germany 14th, Italy 28th, France 36th and Britain 49th.

Big deal, right? We have the world’s largest army — so there. If any other country has something to say about our low ranking, we’ll just obliterate them.

cross-posted at Bring It On!