U.S. Doubles Its Count of 2003 Terrorism Casualties

[Chewbacca]

I wonder if the first flawed report was deemed "clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight" by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, does the heavily revised and corrected report and it's grimmer figures mean that we are actually losing ground?

Perhaps the some of the actions commited in the "name" of the War on terror (mainly the Iraq invasion) have backfired and caused even more terrorism.

Or maybe it is a case of thing are going to get worst before they get better.

I'm going to stick to my assessment made before the Iraq war, that it has caused more terrorism, both in Iraq and abroad. Sadly, it may cause even more terrorism, not only in the near future, but for years, maybe even generations to come. I hope I am wrong on this last point.


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Link
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Tuesday more than doubled its count of people killed and injured by international terrorism in 2003 as it revised a faulty report used to argue it was winning the war on terror.

The administration said international terrorism killed 625 people last year, up from the 307 it reported on April 29 but below 2002's 725 fatalities. It found 3,646 were wounded last year, above the 1,593 initially cited and the 2,013 in 2002.

The errors in the State Department's "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report embarrassed the administration and dented its claim to be prevailing in the war on terrorism, a key part of President Bush's re-election strategy.

Secretary of State Colin Powell blamed "computational and accounting errors."

Other officials said they failed to count many terrorist attacks in November and December, double-counted others and misclassified still others as they were fed into an antiquated, 10-year old database system that then miscounted the totals.

The original tally omitted a Nov. 9 car bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia that killed at least 17 people and bombings in Istanbul that killed at least 61 people on Nov. 15 and Nov. 20.

The number of international terrorist attacks last year was revised up to 208 from the 190 the State Department initially reported, and the number of 2002 attacks was also revised up to 205 from the 198 originally reported. Officials said they were reviewing the 2002 death and injury figures, which might rise.

U.S. officials said the number of "significant" terrorist attacks -- those that kill or seriously injure someone, cause more than $10,000 in damage or attempt to do either of those things -- rose to 175 last year, the most since 1982.

The primary source of the errors was the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), an independent interagency group set up last year to address U.S. intelligence agencies' failure to prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"I assume personal responsibility for any shortcomings in TTIC's performance," said the center's director John Brennan. "I regret any embarrassment this issue has caused," he said.

TTIC inherited the job of compiling the terrorism numbers from the CIA last year and Brennan said the departure of a CIA official who oversaw contractors who tally the data contributed to the errors.

U.S. officials deny skewing the numbers for political gain amid this year's presidential election campaign, in which Bush has cast himself as a "war president" who has made the country safer.
When the report was released in April, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said it provided "clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight."

Bush appears to be losing ground on the terrorism issue amid growing public disenchantment with the Iraq war, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Monday.

The poll found 48 percent of Americans said they trusted Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry to do a better job of fighting terrorism, compared with 47 percent who favored Bush on the issue.

"They just don't know how to add," Kerry spokesman Mark Kitchens said of the flawed report. "It's further evidence why this president is exhausting his credibility with the American people."

Powell carefully avoided saying Washington was winning the terror war.

"We recognize that terrorism is a danger that is not going away soon," Powell said. "I'm aware of what Mr. Armitage said ... his characterization obviously was based on a report that had errors in it. I don't know how I can go beyond that."

Officials acknowledged the CIA and State Department failed to catch the errors in the flawed report.

[promethius9594]

the only way to stop terrorism, chewie, is if we simply appoint osama bin laden as the all powerful king of america and let him do whatever he wants. that, however, is just going to lead to genocide, as he begins to exterminate all the infidels.

if we want to FIGHT terrorism, and not give in to their demands, then yes, it is going to get worse for a time until we can get the upper hand and block them off from their access to new supplies and money. until supplies and money runs out, they're going to slug back to try and break that barrier. its like cutting japan off from oil pre wwII, which caused them to have to hit pearl harbor in order to open up the oil lines to keep their war machine going. does that mean we shouldnt have joined in wwII?

[Davros]

I DISAGREE (Sorry Cerek - I used your line )

Fighting terrorism is the way we all want to go Promethius, but there are many ways to do it, and some are fundamenatally smarter than others. For one thing, alienating allies and playing the "biggest kid in the class" card does as much to grow the supporter bases for terrorism as fast as we try and knock them down.

Do I advocate doing nothing - hell no. Do I believe in appeasement - hell no. Do I think the big stick approach is winning - hell no. There is a lot that is being done well, and that is the inroads that co-operation of intel organistaions across the world are making in eating into the terror networks.

People in the Bush administration want to maintain a high level of disinformation that the war on Iraq was part of the war on terror. What positive effects do you think came from it on the terror aspect? If it really was planned that way then it was one of the silliest things we have ever done. The invasion of Iraq and the mistreatment of detainees has generated a larger support base for terrorism across the muslim nations. The war on Iraq had other agenda's, and while the admin several times tried to link the two, each time they shied away through lack of evidence. The attempts though, still fostered the popular belief that is widely held to this day.

[Black Baron]

Davros, we need first of all to check our allies. Clearly, arab states (Jordan, Turkey and Egypt excluded) are not our allies, and the liberal way of "asking nice" that France purposes is not worth mentioning.

I must remind you that we had our time of "rising wave of terror" in israel. Now we have it redused almost to 0. Ruthlesness pays off!!

Positive effects of Desert gulf war part 2:
Saddam payed to terrorrists here 25000 for each suicide. He also trained terrorists and gave them sanctuary. Does he do it now? No. Therefore we have a positive effect.

Another point to ponder on: Do we care about "muslim nations"? I claim that we do not.
I further claim that we must do what we feel is necessary to do, and damn the "muslim nations" opinion. They have problems with Israel and USA? So they have. Ain't ours.

Appeasement has been tried time andtime again. It has proven to be a sure fire means to failure. The only way to win a war on terrorism is to kill all of the people willing to kill innocents in the name of some fanatical cause.

Wether they are IRish or Islamists they need to be rooted out and killed. There are no gaurentees that it will be cheap or easy and no one on the US side of this fight has claimed it would be. From the Day President Bush announced the War on Terror and in his state of the Union speaches he has reminded us that it is going to be costly (especially if our allies refuse to help in the war and sit idly by) and a long process. You cannot give these terrorists what they want, simply because what they want is to rule the world.

Thats my unsurprising take on the issue.

[Davros]

Originally posted by MagiK: Appeasement has been tried time andtime again. It has proven to be a sure fire means to failure.

I agree with this statement of yours - 100 percent. We just don't agree on the means by which the goals are reached. To me, pursuing actions that sustain or expand the supporter base for terrorism is at cross purposes to the main goal.

And Black Baron - let's be honest - in your mess with Palestine there are very few saints on either side. If anything, your conflict and the IRA conflict just go to show my point that hate begets hate, and that the brutal approach just entrenches both sets of combatants. This of coursejust puts an exclamation point behind the things I am putting forward.

[Morgeruat]

Originally posted by Black Baron: Davros, we need first of all to check our allies. Clearly, arab states (Jordan, Turkey and Egypt excluded) are not our allies, and the liberal way of "asking nice" that France purposes is not worth mentioning.

Part of Frances problem is that their largest minority population is muslim, 10% of the country, that's alot of voting power, and muslims tend to be more active about actually getting out and voting than most other groups, with radical Imam's (muslim clerics) moving into the country in droves, the chances that politicians in France will clean their own house before the piles of rubbish overtakes them is slim to nil. They've taken a few token measures (deporting two or three radical Imam's but their real efforts are negligible.

[Morgeruat]

Originally posted by Davros: And Black Baron - let's be honest - in your mess with Palestine there are very few saints on either side. If anything, your conflict and the IRA conflict just go to show my point that hate begets hate, and that the brutal approach just entrenches both sets of combatants. This of coursejust puts an exclamation point behind the things I am putting forward.

Davros, remind me again which side targets civilians delibrately to make it's cause work, which side responded to Israel's announcement to pull out of Gaza the very next day with promises to escalate their efforts. You will never convince me that Israel isn't the victim here.

It's not a problem with radical muslims, it's a problem with the way the "prophet" lived his life and set examples, he exiled, slaughtered, and enslaved three huge Jewish populations in Medina, and told his followers to destroy them whereever and whenever they're found, the terrorists are following Mohammed's example and lifestyle, he used assassins, targetted civilians, and beheaded his rivals.

The real radical Islam is the liberal side that believes in living peacefully with others as equals, not turning "people of the book" into Dhimmis, and Hindu's, Taoists, Animalists, etc into corpses for being infidels. That's the side we need to encourage to grow, and encourage to make waves in Muslim society and cause a renaissance within their religion. But that's unlikely to happen, since Mohammed said himself, "if anyone tries to change my words, kill them." Paraphrased, but still the essence of his words.

[ 06-23-2004, 08:57 AM: Message edited by: Morgeruat ]

Originally posted by Davros: quote: Originally posted by MagiK: Appeasement has been tried time andtime again. It has proven to be a sure fire means to failure.

I agree with this statement of yours - 100 percent. We just don't agree on the means by which the goals are reached. To me, pursuing actions that sustain or expand the supporter base for terrorism is at cross purposes to the main goal.

And Black Baron - let's be honest - in your mess with Palestine there are very few saints on either side. If anything, your conflict and the IRA conflict just go to show my point that hate begets hate, and that the brutal approach just entrenches both sets of combatants. This of coursejust puts an exclamation point behind the things I am putting forward. [/QUOTE]
I guess my point is born out of frustration, for the whole of my life there has been violence in Ireland, and in the middle east, nothing that has been tried has even slowed it down. Time and again the radical/nutjob/extremist element seems to win the day when it comes to inciting the slaughter of innocent people.

The only means I can see of stopping this, is the eradication of all the extremists....and the only way I can think to do that is the only thing I can think of that has not been tried...and that is extermination, ruthless concerted efforts by the entire free world to rid the regions of those with that kind of mind set so that they cannot pass it on to their children.

Im open to suggestions, but don't want to entertain previously failed strategies....these have already cost too many innocent people their lives.

I have to agree with Morgie here about the Israelis. It isn't them that purposely targets civilians...they do try to avoid civilian deaths to some extent and it was Hamas/Hezbollah that continually wipe oput any effort at trying to seek peace such as pulling out of the Gaza....

Israel faces a no win situation in the arena of public opinion. They aren't permitted to defend themselves from those who seek to "push them into the sea" to use their own words. It must really suck to be frowned on by the rest of the world simply because you refuse to bow to extermination of your race.