July-August 2006 
Year 12    No.117

Cover Story


‘If they do it it’s terrorism, if we do it, it’s fighting for freedom’

— Anthony Quainton, US Ambassador to Nicaragua, 1984, asked to explain
how such US actions as the mining of Nicaragua’s harbours and bombing of
airports differed from the acts of terrorism that the US condemned around the world.

‘Even-handed use of the "terrorist" label would mean sometimes affixing it directly on the US government. During the past decade, from Iraq to Sudan to Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan, Pentagon missiles have destroyed the lives of civilians just as innocent as those who perished on September 11, 2001. If journalists dare not call that "terrorism" then maybe the word should be retired from the media lexicon.’

Carl Boggs, professor of Political Science and well-known author

 

‘The United States, for generations, has sustained two parallel but opposed states of mind about military atrocities and human rights: one of US benevolence, generally held by the public, and the other of ends-justify-the-means brutality sponsored by counterinsurgency specialists. Normally the specialists carry out their actions in remote locations with little notice in the national press. That allows the public to sustain its faith in a just America while hard-nosed security and economic interests are still protected in secret.’

Robert Parry, investigative reporter and author

 

‘Whether the attackers are acting on their own or on the orders of their governments, whether they are regulars or irregulars, if the attack is against civilians then they must be considered as terrorists.’

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia, Organisation of the Islamic Conference
(OIC) meeting, March 2002

 

‘Terrorism is the intentional use of, or threat to use violence against civilians or against civilian targets in order to attain political aims.’

Boaz Ganor, writer


As there is no international consensus on the definition of terrorism, it is difficult to quantify it. For example, western information sources have long been giving totally skewed information on terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir for, according to them, extremist groups active in the state were not terrorists but those fighting for the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination. Similarly, the targeting of civilian people and infrastructure by the American forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, or by Israel in Palestine or Lebanon, are not considered acts of "state terrorism" by the American/Israeli establishment and its apologists.

Therefore, statistics on the number of incidents and its victims is always a subject of controversy. While we must bear this in mind, the latest information on incidents and victims of terror put out by the US government’s National Counterterrorism Centre in the last week of April 2006 is of some significance.

Here are a few highlights:

1. The basics: 11,000 terrorist attacks occurred in 2005, resulting in 14,500 deaths.

2. Top five countries by fatality: Iraq, India, Columbia, Afghanistan, Thailand.

3. What about Iraq? It accounted for 30 per cent of the worldwide attacks and 55 per cent of the fatalities – about 8,300 people died from terrorist attacks in Iraq last year. Attacks on non-combatants in Iraq increased "significantly" in 2005. "High fatality" terrorist attacks in Iraq more than doubled from 2004 to 2005.

4. One of the most striking features of 2005 was Muslim-on-Muslim terrorist action: Of the approximately 40,000 people worldwide who were either killed or wounded in terrorist attacks, at least 10-15,000 were Muslims, most in Iraq. In addition, 80 mosques were attacked last year, most by Islamic terrorists.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/488


RELEASE ‘EM
The US State department plays games with terrorism stats

By Andrew C. McCarthy
National Public Radio, US

April 28, 2005

Terrorist attacks globally are up sharply. Perhaps by well over 300 percent. That’s bad. But it’s a fact. Given that international terrorism is the defining national-security issue of this era, shouldn’t we know the facts? In detail?

The State Department says no. Foggy Bottom is unable to avoid making an annual report on terrorism to Congress. It’s the law. But in a mind-boggling two-step, a top State official who briefed key committees at the Capitol on Monday contended that the underlying statistics for the report — which, State grudgingly admits, relates a "dramatic uptick" in terrorist incidents worldwide — are somehow not "relevant" to the report itself. Not surprisingly, Rep. Henry Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, has fired off a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, calling that contention "ludicrous."

This is self-inflicted damage with a history. In 2003, State issued a rosy report on global trends, braying that decreases in terror incidents provided, as then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage put it, "clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight" against international terrorism. This claim turned out to be undermined by the data, which actually showed that terror incidents had spiked…to record highs.

The fallout was disastrous. There was the embarrassing mea culpa from then-Secretary of State Colin Powell — or, more accurately, an apology from Powell for what was insisted to be the culpa of others. And some Democrats understandably claimed the administration had politicized the report during the heat of an election campaign...

(http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/14383)

 

 

 


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