US foreign policy is frequently driven by both its citizen’s irrational paranoia, and their belief that American lives are somehow sacrosanct, inviolable. That belief, in turn, is promoted by equally irrational press coverage and congressional war hawks that both create and feed the paranoia. Little, if any, attention is given by Americans to the horrific crimes committed by IS on thousands of Iraqi and Syrian citizens or soldiers but should a single American be a victim of an IS atrocity, it is grounds for war. Too bad the American public and politicos do not adopt the same stance with regard to American lives lost in the civilian gun wars within the US.