Hard to get money for your friend’s corporations to build military supplies and man private contractors/mercenary armies in Iraq and elsewhere if the ‘War on Terror’ doesn’t have anything to fight or are fighting the wrong ‘enemy.’
The bad news about the good news about terrorism
Terrorism, contrary to what you may think, isn’t what it used to be. So says Fareed Zakaria in his column in this week’s Newsweek. The proof, he contends, is in the statistics.
Zakaria hangs his argument on a new study from Canada’s Simon Fraser University that reviews the main terrorism databases. The report breaks down the data and observes that the annual double-digit increases in the death toll from terrorism that have made headlines in recent years are misleading because they include large numbers of fatalities in Iraq. “This makes no sense,” Zakaria writes. “Iraq is a war zone, and as in other war zones around the world, many of those killed are civilians.” We don’t count deaths in other civil wars, such as those in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Sierra Leone, as terrorism fatalities, so why in Iraq? Take away the Iraqi deaths, and the databases indicate either a decline in terrorism-related deaths or a flat line. Ergo, terrorism is not the threat that the great scare machine of the U.S. government, press, and terror experts make it out to be.
For those who believe, as I do, that there has been a relentless exploitation—read, scaremongering—of the terrorist threat for political advantage and a horrifying distortion of our foreign policy into a reckless global war on terror, this is an attractive argument. Zakaria, one of our smartest foreign-policy analysts, is not the only one making it. The problem is that even if the current administration has misused the issue—and John McCain, with his relentless talk of the “transcendent challenge of our time: the threat of radical Islamic terrorism,” is following in Bush’s footsteps—the focus on statistics is misplaced.
On an interesting, related note, a fatwa has been declared by Indian Muslims against terrorism.
I believe we have has this discussion before and this just reinforces my stance that the war on terrorism is mostly a tool for our government. They use it to take our rights and invade our privacy.
time for some false flag operations to convince the sheep that there are still wolves out there.
It really sucks to be a Republican right now. There are some real “nut Jobs” running things.
And with “Nice Guy” Obama looking to win things, it will swing back to the other extreme. I predict he will be a worse president than Carter and only last a single term also.
Don
Is that a cordless crystal ball, Don? Running Vista?
>>And with “Nice Guy” Obama looking to win
>>things, it will swing back to the other
>>extreme.
What’s the “other extreme” from Dumbya’s administration? Honest? Not cowardly? Working to do something for America, instead of his sleazy rat pack of war profiteers? Able to talk like a native speaker of English? IQ in the triple digits?
It all sounds good to me!
It seems like the Republican motto is: Fear is power. There is only one problem with that. At some point the adrenalin stops working and sanity returns. Time to face the music warmongers and profiteers.
#3 – Don – There are some real “nut Jobs” running things.
Who were voted into office by the fundamentalists. And they will try to do it again.
And with “Nice Guy” Obama looking to win things, it will swing back to the other extreme.
Obama is the only one of the three who will be able to restore the US reputation in the world. Bush destroyed the US reputation after September 11. The USA had the sympathies of the world on their side and had the golden chance of uniting the world against the terrorists… but oh, no… Either you’re with us, or you’re against us… no freaking gray here… and off he went on his crusade. The first stop was justified and got the backing of the world… and then he royally blew it by nailing Iraq for his personal and political reasons. Clinton and McCain doesn’t have what it takes to restore things.
#4 – moss – Is that a cordless crystal ball, Don? Running Vista?
#5 – Mister Mustard – IQ in the triple digits?
LOL! 😀
#4: Vista’s far more stable than WinXP, though it doesn’t support crystal balls.
I suppose Macs may have crystal balls as an accessory. Very New Agey and all…
If you read the whole article, the ACTUAL point is that the statistics may be misleadingly positive and tend to drive complacency. That is the exact OPPOSITE of what you have gleaned from it.
Misleadingly positive? So, the Repubs are right that suburban malls in the midwest will become terrorist targets if the Dems win?
As I suspected, the Iraq War has made us safer.
MikeN, you have, at times, a wonderful sense of ironic humor.
I wish I could clone Rachael Ray, one isn’t enough.