Hmm, it does certainly occur to me what the most instant response from the "lalala, I can't hear you" crowd will be: the Bushies control the state department so the report must be all lies.

Mostly, they won't bother reading it. That way they don't have to see for themselves that it's not written by political appointees, and that the data they're using is publicly-available sources, and that you can just read it to see how they arrive at their results.

Dean, are you saying that the White House had no influence whatsoever on the report?

Let me ask you a counter-question, Don: Are you suggesting that most or all state department reports are automatically to be dismissed because of whoever's in the White House?

Typically, the White House has very little input on reports like this one, since they're compiled by career (i.e. non-political) employees based on congressional mandates going back a long way. Thus, anyone suggesting that the White House--ANY White House--tampered with it would be required to prove it. The assumption going in is that they didn't---and if you think they did, you should go read the report and show us why we should believe that.

My suggestion is that anyone who instantly scoffs simply because of who's in the White House is simply not a serious-minded person, and is instead merely an irrational partisan. Such an insinuation is hugely inflammatory, and calls into question the honesty of ANY and EVERY government report on ANY subject, and so is very serious.

Why don't you go look at the report, examine the sources and data presented, and draw your own conclusions?

The only thing that may have remotely been influenced is the decision not to count military casualties in Iraq as terrorist attacks, but I happen to agree with that decision.

Also, BBC in February 2004: Iraq war 'increased terror threat'

And now... begrudgingly... BBC says: Terror attacks 'at 30-year low', but note the intro:

US government figures suggest that terrorist attacks have fallen to the lowest level for more than 30 years.
(emphasis mine)

Mark J,

I agree as well - its never terrorism when terrorists decide to commit collective suicide by attacking, say, a Marine regiment...stupidity, sure; but not terrorism. And this, of course, is why we have these superbly trained and equipped (and overwhelmingly brave and magnificent) troops to begin with.

What is unfortunate is that so much of the terms of debate has been framed by fossilized catch-words, first dreamed up, if you follow it back, to old left-wing propaganda. What, after all, is a "war monger"? The accusation is tossed about quite a bit - but has anyone really monged a war? What, also, is a "militarist"? Additionally, what on earth is a "peace process"? Meaningless words and phrases designed to paralyze action and cut-off debate - favor fighting the enemy? Then you're a militarist war-monger who is harming the peace process - garbage; but it does prevent us from having a rational debate...a debate which would take as its first point the fact that since we started fighting back, the enemy has proven continuously less capable of carrying out terrorist attacks.

The new talking-point shall be "yes there are fewer *attacks* but they are becoming more deadly". Count on it.

The New York Times (AP article, couldn't find it elsewhere): U.S. Says Terrorism Down, but Not in Iraq

It's like watching a crappy magic show at a carnival. I don't think it counts as misdirection when it is so blatantly obvious.

My own personal definition of terrorism is any attack on civilians or non-maneuvering military units....(there's more, but I don't want to bore you).
Meaning that if you attack a maneuvering military unit patrolling the streets, it's a guerrilla attack...but if you smash through the gates and blow them up when they are in skivvies in the barracks, it's terrorism.
Hmmm, perhaps an even simpler way to put it is: if it is an attack on someone equipped to defend themselves, it is war; if they are not so equipped, it is terrorism.
From that point of view, the bomb attack on the Marine Corps barracks and the attack on Khobar Towers were both terrorism, but a bomb going off against one of our convoys in Iraq isn't. Makes sense to me.
[shrug]
In any case, it is difficult to define terrorism...From what I understand the UK defines teens throwing rocks at soldiers to be terrorism...but Israel doesn't. Obviously, you're going to get different counts based on standards. Throwing rocks at troops to provoke a violent response is certainly one technique used by terrorist groups in the past, but is every thrown rock a terrorist attack...? Probably not.

So my impulse would be to define terror attacks as anything resulting in death or hospitalization being one attack, cross indexed to the number of deaths/hospitalizations in those attacks. That may make it easier to get a handle on the question, dunno

I would have absolutely no trouble characterizing all the suicide car bombings in Iraq as terrorism. The military style confrontations in Iraq (e.g. in Fallujah) can rightly be called war, or guerilla action, not terrorism). I would also classify all the attacks on civilians, including contractors or lightly armed security guards and lightly armed Iraqi Police as terrorism even if done with conventional weapons rather than bombs. The exception is fighting between militias or with well-armed Iraqi police.

I looked at the State Departments actual list and have drawn my own conclusions. The number of terrorist incidents are lower simply because the number of terrorist incidents in Latin America has dropped dramatically. That has little to do with our fight against Islamic terror --- Latin America is the one part of the world that has no Islamic terror. It is completely dishonest to refer to this as a sign that we're winning the war on terror.

The number of casualties owing to terror are quite high in any case. [ We don't have the horrendous number of 2001, but they're higher than in past years]

I think the report gives grounds for optimism, but is mixed. Clearly terrorism in Iraq has gone up. On the other hand, there have been no terrorist incidents at home, which is excellent news.

Anyone who thinks political considerations don't count in these State Department reports is dreaming.

Consider the fact that Pakistan was not cited as a terror supporting nation in previous years. But Pakistan was funding terrorists operating in Kashmir on its soil, training them and infiltrating them into India. Not until 2002-2003, under heavy Indian and American pressure and a near threat of nuclear war did Mushraff stop this. But for political reasons the US did not designate Pakistani as a terror supporting nation [ I won't even go into how they created the Taliban]

It's Flypaper. Iraq has to be included.

Dean: ah...Never answer an inconvienient question when you can simply change the subject with another, right?

But to nswer you, No---I don't dismiss anything that comes from the current regime in DC. But I remain very skeptical. After all, this regime has a longstanding record of changing data to fit the conclusion (read THE BOOK ON BUSH by Alterman and Green--available now wherever finer books are sold--for literally hundreds of shameful examples of this)

Don,
After all, this regime has a longstanding record of changing data to fit the conclusion

Don't all administrations do things like that?

You can't allow one [D] a pass and another [R] a crucification -- simply because of a letter.

BTW, using the word "regime" makes you sound Limbaugh-ish.

Dean: ah...Never answer an inconvienient question when you can simply change the subject with another, right?

He answered you, Don. Look in the second paragraph of his response to you. What happened did your eyes glaze over?

It makes me sound Limbaugh-ish? Damn. I was going for Chomsky-ish. This blogging shit is hader than it looks!

Personally I've never given the Dems a pass, which is one of the reasons I won't register as one. I had a lot of problems with the Clinton reg...er, with Cliton. He supported the homophobic Jim Crow of the DOMA, pushed a million children beneath the poverty line when he rolled over on Newt's draconian welfare restructuring, fumbled the ball on health care, and made NO progress on third world debt relief.

On the other hand, I have no problem with him having consensual oral sex. More power to him.

You've only known me since there was a Republican in the White House, oh Queen. Wait until Jan 2005 and watch me tear Pres. Kerry a new one.

My motto: "In 2004, vote for Kerry, In 2008, vote for a LIBERAL!"

Don,

After granting you that Clinton's betrayal of the millions of homosexuals who worked hard to get him elected was horrible, I'll dispute you on the consensual sex...there is something absolutely disgusting about a 50-ish, married man diddling with a chit of a girl...perhaps I'm just too much of a stuffed-shirt, but it seems to me that when a man reaches a certain age, he supposed to start thinking with his larger head. That he didn't shows a glaring character flaw, entirely disqualifying him from being trusted with a burnt-out match, let alone the most powerful position on earth.

State Department terrorism figures are meaningless in general, without any connection to who's in the White House.

Assume it's accurate. Notice that the drop is because of an enormous decrease in terrorism in Latin America. I think that refers to sabotage in Colombia by that Marxist group. Great if true, but who cares? Africa has also improved as has Western Europe which apparently had 85 terrorist attacks in 1999 (Who did that anyway? ETA?). The reductions are in terrorism that nobody (in the US) normally ever cares about.

Now about accuracy. The Middle East has relatively little terrorism, only slightly more than Western Europe. Ha Ha. 37 attacks the whole year, although the section on Israel mentions over 150 attacks. I'm sure they have a nifty explanation why the large majority of terror attacks in Israel could not be counted as terror attacks (actually I'm not, but I'll be generous), but why should anybody care then about the final figures? What do they really represent?
(The number of terror attacks in Israel did decrease this year, but it's still pretty high)

It's completely relevant that terrorism is down in places like Latin America. Because we know that many terrorist groups work have ties to each other. Latin American groups, the Irish Republican Army, Chechen terrorists, and Middle Eastern terrorist groups are all known to have ties to each other. They are also all known to depend on many of the same sources for arms and funding. The Global War On Terror has clamped down on two major terrorist-sponsoring regimes and has also included massive clampdowns on the international arms trade and on illicit money laundering operations that many of these groups depend upon.

Thus, we should EXPECT terrorism to go down in Latin America, in the pacific rim, in Europe, and everywhere else.

Which is exactly what we're seeing. It's hardly irrelevant.

BTW, The State Department says that Israeli efforts have apparently reduced terrorism! The State Department!!!
What happened to all the claims that this just helps the terrorists gain support? Take that, NYT editorial board!

Well sure.

Although we should remember that Saddam was one of the major sponsors of terrorism toward Israel. Which means taking him out would (and clearly has) cut back on the terrorist attacks the Israelis have to put up with.

This sort of stuff doesn't seem obvious when yet another successful attack is perpetrated. Because of course we remember the attacks that do happen, and not the ones that don't.

"It's completely relevant that terrorism is down in places like Latin America. Because we know that many terrorist groups work have ties to each other. Latin American groups, the Irish Republican Army, Chechen terrorists, and Middle Eastern terrorist groups are all known to have ties to each other."

You may know this, but most peopld doesn't think so. I've yet to see any respected analyst on terror who believes that there are any sort of solid links between narco-terrorists in Columbia, Shining Path guerrillas in Peru, Catholic terrorists in Ireland, secular Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and various stripes of Islamic militants. Nor is there any sort of political link at all -- historically, the US has had no role (on either side) in Sri Lanka. The US has actually urged Britain to negotiate with the political wing of the IRA (Sinn Fein).

Now you can probably make a stronger claim that Islamic terrorists have links to each other -- Al Qaeda and Chechen groups, Kasmiri groups etc., but that is not what you were claiming.

"Thus, we should EXPECT terrorism to go down in Latin America, in the pacific rim, in Europe, and everywhere else.

Which is exactly what we're seeing. It's hardly irrelevant."

This is a clear example of being taken in by your own propoganda. The major reason the number of incidents have done down is that oil field attacks in Columba have gone down. This is clearly good news for that unhappy country, its even good news for the US in its long attempt to get rid of narcotic lords in Columbia, but it has little to nothing to do with the overall war on terror. Ditto for Sri Lanka, which also calmed down somewhat.

But no one in their right minds would claim that Afghanistan had any links to Sri Lankan terror or Columbian narco-terrorists. Nor are they now, or ever a major focus of US policy.

So its blatantly and completely dishonest to drag in rag-tag groups with no ideological affliliation, funding sources etc, in common with our enemies and claim that we're winning some sort of victory because Columbian politicians manage to payoff "rebels".

I should point out incidentally, that the reason the IRA started tamping down its operations was the deal (brokered by Clinton) between Sinn Fein and the english government, and widespread revulsion over the Omagh bomb a few years back (whcih a splinter group called the real IRA set).

I think we are making headway in the war on terror, especially in Afghanistan. I don't think we are making headway in Iraq, and we also need to put into place a political strategy, especially in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Saddam was not a "major sponsor of terrorism" towards Israel. He did provide money to families of suicide bombers and praised terrorist groups like Hamas. But in terms of actual operational links -- again, there seem to have been none to Hamas or Islamic Jihad. (If there were, how come we've seen none revealed ?).

His links, such as they were, were to older Palesntianin terror groups that had more or less died out. So he was certainly not an innocent bystander, he encouraged violence against Israel, but he was by no means a major sponsor of anti-Israeli terrorism. There was also a long-standing enimity between him and Shiite anti-Israeli grounds such as Hezbollah.

As for the claim that getting rid of Saddam reduced anti-Israeli terror, what then explains
the number of suicide bombings last year around July or so when the new peace plan was advanced ?

I would take arguments for the war in Iraq much more seriously if they weren't often so dishonest.

Re : Colombia.

Colombia has an ongoing complicated civil war, with left wing FARC, right wring parmailitary groups and narcotic groups. The US has intermittently provided help to Colombia, but the actual record has historically been mixed. The country is typically ravaged by brutal civil wars. After Septemember 11, the US has provided more aid, and the President of COlombia tried to strike some deals with the FARC groups. Very much a work in progress.

I would certainly classify Colombia as being largely irrelevant to the War on Terror. Maybe it is relevant to the war on drugs ..

All the report really shows is that terror is down in Colombia. That's nice but it probably results from reasons other than the War on Terror, which admittedly would be expected to help a bit. But it hardly shows that the War on Terror is working. Also it's fairly obvious the report is cherry picking, because why should the statistics be dominated by Colombia?