Updated in response to London bombings. Should it not be the goal of U.S. policy to reduce terrorist attacks? And should this attack, which merely punctuates the failure of current U.S. policy to reduce global terrorist acts, not be considered reason enough to consider a new anti-terrorism strategy?
We should call on our elected officials to put forth a new plan. We should stress that they should NOT blame our policy (the Iraq war) for these attacks -- that is a losing political position. Instead they should simply point to abject failures to stop terrorism (see original post, below) and put forth a new plan, including deploying a huge multinational force to Afghanistan to capture bin Laden.
Original Post:
The new U.S.
Terrorism Knowledge Database was launched today with updated figures for global terrorist acts in 2004. The
3,192 reported incidents is five times the 651 incidents quietly reported by the U.S. State Dept. in April, 2005.
Here's where the story gets good.
The Bush administration has intentionally redefined "terrorist acts" to make comparison to previous years' statistics impossible and irrelevant. Moreover, they have not clarified whether the old or new definition was used to tally the earlier statistic (651), a number that will simply fade into obscurity.
Clearly there is an alarming rise in the number of terrorist attacks around the world, but Bushco obfuscates and claims otherwise. Says interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center John Brennan, "There has in fact been an undercounting of international incidents prior to this year," he told a press briefing. The Terorrism Knowledge Database "represents a new statistical baseline for the phenomenon of worldwide terrorism."
The story is much more complex than this, including but not limited to:
- The release of a phonied up 2003 State Dept. report on global terrorism trumpeting a record low number of terrorist attacks, followed by
- The re-release of said report showing a 21-year high in the number of attacks
- Condoleeza Rice's initial snubbing of U.S. code in April, 2005, by refusing to release the 2004 report (scroll down req'd.), followed by
- State Dept.'s release of the 2004 figure (651 attacks) accompanied by a claim that terrorism was not on the increase, despite a nearly four-fold increase over 2003.
Confused yet? There's much more, but this is enough to digest whether or not you're familiar with the codified and newly redefined annual terrorism report.
Through all the rhetoric and obfuscation, Americans don't realize that Bushco's policies have the exact opposite effect of making the world safer.
It falls to us in this community, and our contacts with the progressive legislators, advocacy groups, think tanks, journalists, etc., to call a spade a spade and present a far better plan for reducing global terrorism.
Update: Fixed a spelling error.