Terrorist attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan account for most of this, but even if they are discounted, the incidence of terror attacks in the rest of the world has increased by one-third since the invasion.
Study/article here.
Recent interview with co-author Paul Cruickshank here.
Post hoc does not always mean propter hoc, of course. What do you think would be the current level of global terrorism, if there had been no invasion of Iraq? Why?
See the graph on page what, 5 or so? where they subtract out attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan.
An increase from prewar to postinvasion from 30 to 40 or so attacks a year doesn’t strike me as a huge deal.
What? The “War on Terror” actually increased terrorism? That’s crazy. The next thing you’ll be telling me is that the “War on Drugs” increased the use of drugs… 
a 30% increase doesn’t strike you as a big deal in face of the fact that there was no “Global war against terra” before?
The numbers are too small to strike me as a big deal.
If there’d been a change from 600 to 900, sure, but there’s going to noise in the year by year data. In a world as big as the one we inhabit, I can easily see that noise accounting for a variation of 20 attacks a year.
Looking at the bottom of the three graphs which extracts out the Iraq and Afghanistan attacks, there is very little difference pre and post invasion. Both are regrettably high.
A monthly/yearly chart of attacks incorporating the number of fatalities per month/year would be better. A simple count of “attacks” is not very meaningful by itself.
As it stands there’s not much that can be gleaned from the figures except a slight upward trend and no end in sight.
If we went from 2 to 6 attacks that would be an increase of 300%. But it would not be significant.
My view is that 9/11 and Afghanistan were the big ones
Iraq was just plain dumb, it is a pity that Saddam did not understand the Western mindset.
Indeed. All that drunken glory he derived by going “N’yah N’yah” for years played very well to his nationalistic domestic audience, but it sure painted him into a corner, which the West (primarily the United States) finally called him on.
Although to be fair, there are suggestions that no small part of his reasoning was to keep his neighbours (especially Iran) guessing as to just how potent his armed forces had remained after the '91 Gulf War. Still, if there’s truth in that hypothesis, it was pretty high stakes poker - and clearly, Saddam was The Mother of all Bad Poker Players.
I reckon he did not understand the mindset of Bush et al, and had no problem understanding his neighbours.
I’m currently reading a book about Oppenheimer, it looks as if he simply did not know how to communicate with morons like Truman, Lewis Strauss or Baruch. He could persuade and be persuaded by people with two grey cells, but was at a loss with close minded hicks who could not adapt their views.
Saddam knew how to play to his neighbours, but he did not understand that the West had changed - and a bit of namecalling justified (in USA eyes) percussion bombs.
Sadly Iran has replaced Saddam as the regional idiots.
It is a bit like the New Zealand rugby team performing their dance and getting mown down with a hail of lead.
Given the number of New Zealand citizens living and working in Australia, and given the number of THEM who constantly harp on about how much better things are back home, and given the number of THEM who just love boring me shitless every time the All Blacks play Rugby, you’ve got no idea how long I’ve waited all my life for such a deliscous analagy to throw their way. Thank you.
When coupled with a program introduced to reduce these attacks, it would be. Especially when no such program existed prior to the increase. It means that the program is a resounding failure. If there was no introduction of a ‘war on terror’, then yes, I would agree with you that it wasn’t significant. But if you’re trying to look at the effectiveness of program or strategy, even slight (sustained) increases are important.
Why should we remove the figures from Iraq and Afghanistan? The leaders of our government and our military all say those places are the hubs of the war on terrorism. If we hadn’t generously provided thousands of American targets over there, we’d be fighting them here, right? :dubious:
Along similar lines, prior to when the Federal Government declared it’s foolish “War on Japan”, Japanese attacks on Americans had killed only a few hundred, mostly in a single spectacular attack. Of course, within only a few years of that stupid declaration, tens of thousands of Americans had been killed in hundreds of Japanese attacks and bombings, in direct retribution for that foolish, foolish declaration.
Obviously, FDR had the brains of a chimp and only his powerful corporate oil backers in mind when he made his “Day of Infamy” speech.
In fact Japan declared war on the US, although the declaration was only handed over after the attack. FDR didn’t have a great deal of choice there.
You could argue that Al Qaeda declared war on the US, even though it’s not a nation state. And, indeed, the US did go hunting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, with general international support, and some success.
The analogy would be better if, after being attacked by Japan, FDR had declared war on “surprise attacks”, and had then invaded China on the off-chance that China might have plans to attack the US, instead of concentrating on Japan.
5 years after the “Day of Infamy” speech, we weren’t still fighting the Japanese either.
The point is that the War on Terror is supposed to LOWER the amount of terrorist acts, not keep them the same. Especially in the light of the fact that thousands of innocents and hundreds of brave soldiers have died because of it.
Significant is in the eye of the beholder, say 300% of the Twin Towers fell. That’s only 6 towers.
And the award for Most Fatuous and Disingenuous Nonsequitur goes to – John!
Maybe terrorism would have increased by %600 if we didn’t invade Iraq
Who does? And does Bush understand, truly, the mindset of anybody he doesn’t agree with, much less an Arab dictator? His disdain for even making the attempt has cost somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of lives so far, after all.
And isn’t the converse true as well? Does being a scientific genius give one special insight into humanity and politics and history, or does it simply help reinforce the arrogance that lets one pretend not to have one’s own blind spots?
You don’t get to be that powerful if you’re an idiot. Perhaps other forces are at work, things you yourself would rather dismiss as idiocy than try to actually understand? Just maybe?
Bricker, if *that * argument represents the lengths you have to go to now to muster a defense for your pro bono client in DC, you do have my pity - of a sort.