Cancer isn't the only thing that smoking can do, since that's the only thing you mention in your posts.
Cigarettes have a much larger affect of cardiovascular diseases, diseases of the heart and circulatory system.
Starting simply, carbon monoxide from cigarette smoke (which is the stuff you inhale) will render all red blood cells it comes into contact with useless by combining with the cell like oxygen dose but doesn't let go. This means your heart needs to pump harder to fully oxygenate your body, giving rise to blood pressure.
A raised blood pressure means that blood travels through the vessels faster and that also means that walls of the arteries (the vessels which carry blood after it leaves the heart and so the vessels under the most pressure) are more likely to get damaged which may start either two processes.
One is atherosclerosis, the hardening and narrowing of the artery wall, this is dangerous because the reduced elasticity of the arteries and the fact that it's narrower lead to more increased blood pressure and so there is a vicious cycle.
The other is blood clots, when the damaged artery wall has an inflammatory response which starts a whole cascade of chemicals which results in a small package of red blood cells and platelets, bound together by fibrous tissue. A clot will also narrow that artery and raise blood pressure (again, vicious cycle) but a clot can have other devastating affects, if the clot is in the brain then you may get a stroke, if the clot is the heart then you may get angina (stabbing chest pains) or even a heart attack.
That isn't the only thing that cigarettes do though, smoking also causes your lungs to be filled with tar which break down the air sacks in your lungs meaning you must breath harder, but also, tar can go into the blood vessels where they deposit and have the same affect as a clot and raise blood pressure.
Another risk with smoking are the toxins which cause damage to the walls of the arteries which will, as said above, cause either atherosclerosis or clots.
One of the reasons for your claim that there are low numbers of people who smoke who die from cancer is probably because the rest of them have died because of a stroke of a heart attack.
