Yep, George Bush Got It Right Again
So how’s the war on Terror Going these daysm, you ask?
Pretty much just like the President has said it’s been going.
NEW YORK (AP) – Reports of an increase in terrorist violence around the world have been distorted by the high number of civilian casualties in Iraq, and omitting those deaths reveals a decline in terrorism, a research group argued in a new report Wednesday.
The Human Security Brief 2007 said that without the figures from Iraq, fatalities from terrorism have declined by some 40 percent since 2001.
Disputing claims that terrorist activity is on the rise, project director Andrew Mack said that “when we look a little bit more closely at this data, the incidence of terrorism is declining.”
I’m not entirely on board with the interpretation of this study except on the main point. If you separate terrorism incidents into “Iraq” and “The Rest of the World”, then it’s clear that terrorists are concentrating themselves on Iraq and not killing nearly as many people elsewhere.
That, in a nutshell, was part of the President’s rationale for going into Iraq. As he and others in the adminisration ahve been saying in many different ways since 2003, we’re fighting the Islamists there so that we don’t have to fight them here. That’s exactly what has happened all around the world. Islamists have been flocking to Iraq (and dying in numbers that they can not replace) which has left them thin on the ground everywhere else.
Now, if we up and skedaddle from Iraq before we’ve well and truly beaten them down, just where do you think all those Islamists are going to go? And by “beaten them down” I mean not only in numbers, but in morale and will to wage aggressive war against us and our allies.
It’s a good bet they won’t stick around Iraq. So, really. Where will they go? Home? McDonalds? Their palatial cave hovels?
Other Posts of Interest:
- The White House Strikes Back
- Holding Out Against the Darkness
- Barack Obama Really Needs to Check His Package Right Now.
Category: Fighting the Islamists
"If you separate terrorism incidents into “Iraq” and “The Rest of the World”, then it’s clear that terrorists are concentrating themselves on Iraq and not killing nearly as many people elsewhere."
Seriously, does that statement really make sense to you? Terrorism is a tactic, not a group of people. People decide to employ terrorism when they believe it will benefit them. Nearly all religions have done it at times (I don't think the Jainists or Zoroastrians have ever engaged in it). That would include Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews, Cao Dai, Native Americans, Druze, and countless others I can't remember. And for the most part, terrorism occurs more frequently during war. So it seems a little strange to eliminate incidents occurring in a war zone. Right now, terrorism seems to be very popular in Iraq (they beat out India, and that's quite the accomplishment). No surprise, it's a war zone.
As for the rest of the world, if it's really going down, then that's great. But I'm wondering about those statistics. Terrorist incidents in Sri Lanka have certainly increased, as they have in Thailand, Turkey, and India. I've never been to Sri Lanka (too much terrorism), but I've been to Turkey, Thailand, and India. And their situations regarding terrorism are decidedly worse since 2001. The reactions of the three countries I've visited are remarkably different. Thailand has approached the situation with reasonable security controls and attempts to negotiate secretly. India puts any valuable structure on military lockdown (I got six prison-style pat downs going into the Golden Temple- and had to surrender my ball point pen) and reflexively blames Pakistan for any incident. Turkey believes that Allah will protect them but hedges their bet by attacking the PKK in northern Iraq. From what I've seen, none of these approaches is working.
As far as I'm concerned, the likelihood of being killed in a terrorist attack is very small, so I'll continue to travel to places with lots of terrorism (but Sri Lanka is going too far). The only time I came close to being killed was when a bomb that went off in Kusadasi, Turkey. It was made from US-issued C-4 from our current war in Iraq. I'm a big fan of irony, but being killed in a terrorist attack with weapons made by my own government is pushing it a little too far. But that incident shouldn't surprise anyone. Plenty of weapons get traded on the black market and there are plenty of people who want to use them.
This seems to be the money graf to me:
" Using the same data to chart casualties while omitting Iraq, the study shows a sharp decline after the peak in 2001 and then holding relatively steady."
In other words, since after 9-11, deaths-by-terrorism have pretty much stayed the same. W has certainly not been bragging about that.
And what happened shortly after 9/11?