US Terrorism Report: Selective Data, Wrong Lessons
by Ramzy Baroud
The data provided in the US State Department's annual terrorism report for 2007 points to some interesting if puzzling conclusions.
The much publicised document, made available 30 April via the State Department's website, makes no secret of the fact that Al-Qaeda is back, strong as ever. It also suggests that violence worldwide is nowhere near subsiding, despite President Bush's repeated assurances regarding the success of his "war on terror".
Will the report inspire serious reflection on the US's detrimental foreign policy and its role in the current situation?
Let's look at some of the data.
To start with, take Pakistan. Al-Qaeda or Al-Qaeda-inspired
attacks in the country more than doubled (from 375 to 877) between 2006
and 2007. These attacks have claimed the lives of 1,335 people,
compared to 335 in a previous report. That is a jump of almost 300 per
cent.
Then there's Afghanistan, which was supposedly
"liberated" shortly after 11 September 2001. The number of attacks
reported there increased a sharp 16 per cent in 2007. Some 1,127
violent incidents killing 1,966 people represent a significant surge in
violence compared to 2006's 1,257 deaths.
There have also been
many other violent incidents around the world, including but not
limited to North Africa, the terrorist bombings in Algeria in
particular.
But this is barely half the story -- or 40 per cent
of it, if we want to be as specific as the terrorism report. Iraq
accounted for 60 per cent of worldwide terrorism fatalities.
Considering
the fact that the horrifying violence currently witnessed in Iraq was
unheard of prior to the US invasion of 2003, will the Bush
administration take a moment to connect the dots?
Even a third grader
could figure this one out: the US occupation was a major, if not sole
factor, in Iraq's relentless bloodbath. In order to right the wrong in
Iraq, the US military should clearly just withdraw, and Bush -- or
whoever next claims the White House -- should stop fabricating pretexts
to justify a prolonged mission.
On 1 May 2003, President Bush
declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq. As he stood on the
deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln a huge banner behind
him bore the words "Mission Accomplished".
The New York Times then
wrote,
- "the Bush administration is planning to withdraw most United
States combat forces from Iraq over the next several months and wants
to shrink the American military presence to less than two divisions by
the fall."
Instead, more than five years after Bush's speech,
the administration seems determined to maintain a military surge,
having added 20,000 soldiers. Making no apologies for the war's
contribution to an increase in terrorist activities, Bush's officials
continue to rationalise the surge as a commonsense response to ongoing
violence, conveniently omitting the US's own part in this violence. The
State Department report doesn't classify any of the thousands of
innocent victims killed by US or coalition forces as victims of
terrorism.
Russ Travers, deputy director of the
Counterterrorism Centre, stated on the day the report was published,
"It's a fair statement that around the globe people are getting
increasingly efficient at killing other people." While Travers'
assertion is undoubtedly true, there seems to be no intention of
providing any context, no connection drawn to the US's direct
invasions, or indirect but equally devastating role in campaigns of
violence, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan.
But what the
State Department's terrorism report didn't fail to do was once again
identify Iran as the world's "most active" state sponsor of terrorism.
As reported in the Associated Press on 1 May, Iran was responsible for
"supporting Palestinian extremists and insurgents in Afghanistan and
Iraq, whereة elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps
continued to give militants weapons, training and funding."
The
irony is that the report further contributes to the US's long-touted
case for war against Iran; ironic because the report's findings, if
viewed responsibly, substantiate the claim that the Bush
administration's policies have only made the world more unsafe.
Wouldn't a war against Iran hike up the number of violent or terrorist
incidents?
It also remains unclear how powerful Al-Qaeda really
is, and how much of its capabilities were hyped in order to enable the
Bush administration to continue its mission. Consider the two occasions
Al-Qaeda was back in the news recently.
News media cited
official Afghani reports attributing the recent assassination attempt
on US-ally Afghani President Hamid Karzai to Al-Qaeda. In other
reports, the US rationalised its own assassination of a leading Somali
militia leader Aden Hashi Eyrow on 1 May as targeting a key Al-Qaeda
member. It's not the logic of the assassination that is key here, but
rather the fact that while Al-Qaeda has reached a position of strength
that can penetrate several layers of defences in Afghanistan, the US is
getting itself involved in a regional feud in Somalia. Why would the
Bush administration be chasing Al-Qaeda in Somalia, as in Iraq, if the
group is reportedly in the most powerful position in Afghanistan?
Moreover,
if Al-Qaeda indeed exists on such a large and influential scale in so
many countries, isn't it time to question the logic used by the Bush
administration's "war on terror" that was meant to weaken and destroy
Al- Qaeda in the first place?
It may be, of course, that
Al-Qaeda's power and outreach is inflated for political reasons, where
every conflict the US is involved in becomes immediately reduced to
those who support, shield or host Al-Qaeda or Al- Qaeda inspired
groups, thus justifying US military intervention anywhere.
Instead
of dealing with the obvious truths that the terrorism report
highlights, the authors of the report have resorted to another logic
that places blame squarely on external circumstance, never holding the
US government accountable for its actions.
Finally, is there
really a need for lengthy reports that cost large sums of money and
thousands of work hours if the lessons gleaned are always the wrong
ones, leading to more blunders that prompt more violence, and more
terrorism reports?
Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an
author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been
published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is
The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle
(Pluto Press, London).
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