War supporter Fareed Zakaria, pictured above with manicial skull stare, writes that us silly libtards have it all wrong terrorism isn't on the rise it's declining.
You know that we are living in scary times. Terrorist groups are metastasizing all over the globe. Al Qaeda has re-established its bases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Hizbullah, Hamas and other radical Islamic groups are gaining strength. You hear this stuff all the time, on television and on the campaign trail. Amid the din, it's hard to figure out the facts. Well, finally we have a well-researched, independent analysis of the data relating to terrorism, released last week by Canada's Simon Fraser University. Its findings will surprise you.No, I really don't think they will. Let me guess, terrorist attacks are down, because we aren't including Iraq and we are going to reclassify what a terrorist attack is.
The Simon Fraser study points out that all three of these data sets [NCTC,MIPT,START] have a common problem. They count civilian casualties from the war in Iraq as deaths caused by terrorism. This makes no sense. Iraq is a war zone, and as in other war zones around the world, many of those killed are civilians... ...Including Iraq massively skews the analysis.I would imagine.
Look, jackass, may I call you jackass? I am not the least bit surprised that terrorist attacks are down everywhere except Iraq. We are focusing on counter-terrorism. Banks and financial organizations are helping watch the flow of money and law enforcement is coordinating globally. Immigration officials aren't simply rubber stamping visas. We managed to track down some of the ring leaders in spite of the Bush administrations best efforts to antagonize everyone one on the planet, running terrorist cells is still something left to a small core group of very unhappy people and we caught a bunch of them.
None of this surprises me.
Why have you not heard about studies like this or the one from Simon Fraser, which was done by highly regarded scholars, released at the United Nations and widely discussed in many countries around the world—from Canada to Australia? Because it does not fit into the narrative of fear that we have all accepted far too easily.A narrative of fear you helped spread, a narrative you helped form in order to scare people into supporting the Iraq war. Now you use Newsweek to set up your straw man that everybody is saying terrorism is on the rise. If memory serves, the Bush administration's talking points are that Bush has been keeping us safer, and we are fighting them over there [Iraq] so we don't have to fight them over here. It's unclear what the long term impact on terrorism the Iraq war is going to have, in fact it's impossible to know that now. So I am not sure who you think is running around saying terrorism is on the rise. All this is about is trying to justify your war, trying to say that we stopped terrorism through our bold stance against the brown man. It's you trying to get back into the party by pretending you are so serious a person, analyzing terrorism, and letting us rubes know what's going on. Sorry Fareed, that spot doesn't go away.
Out, damn'd spot! out, I say!Do me a favor Fareed, stop trying to pretend that you understand anything about terrorism, or foreign policy. You are just one more pro-war propagandist who doesn't know shit. Certainly doesn't understand the impact of your asinine scribblings.
—One; two: why, then 'tis time to do't.
—Hell is murky.—Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our pow'r to accompt?
—Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
Look, Fareed, what's your point? Terrorism is down? Okay. There is at least 1/4 million dead in Iraq. The middle east itself is a much more violent place than it's ever been. We are running our own torture gulags and we are burning through 3 trillion dollars, but terrorism is down. Great, thanks, keep those updates coming. Stupid motherfucker. There's more...
