World Terror Attacks Tripled in 2004 by U.S. Count

AQ was not present in Iraq till we invaded. You can also not assume that everyone we are fighting are AQ. If fact most of the insurgents are either Iraqis who don't want a puppet US government or else they are Arabs that don't thing Infidels should be invading an Islamic country. So you now have people who would not be supporting "true terrorist" allying themselves with AQ.

Violence begets violence. Not that there isn't a time and place. But it seems to that the invasion of Iraq was just too easy for this administration. War should be a last resort.

 

Let's say those overthrown Arab states became progressive (relatively) like Turkey and it's public is still fervently opposed to the US and Israel, like Turkey. The US would still oppose that bloc, and I'd safely bet that we'd promote instability once we find a candidate we can use. With all that oil wealth to spread among the people, the oil cartel would definitely change, for better or worse.

 

And? They are there now and are being engaged. That is a good thing. Better than having them skulk around in the shadows.

Actually most of the deadly violence (car bombs etc) are AQ and their ilk, not everyday Iraqis. Everyday Iraqis are not killing police, blowing up markets etc. What would be their motive to do that? There is undoubtably a portion of the Iraqi population that is anti-US intervention but they are attacking US troops and installations, not other Iraqis. There have been plenty of accounts of individual Iraqis who've had a relative, for instance, killed by the coalition forces, and who now actively oppose the coalition by taking up arms. That involves them chunking mortars etc at coalition troops, not blowing up Iraqis. They don't have any reason to kill other Iraqis so separate out the violence caused by AQ and that by the regular Iraqi taking up arms.

Don't recall anything about the US trying to destabalize Turkey. If your assumptions were true then that certainly would be the case, right? In fact, Turkey is considered a pretty big ally in the region despite some disagreements about the war in Iraq. They are in NATO and are trying to get in the EU. I'd say those would be great improvements in the Middle East if the Arab and other Islamic populated states followed suit.

 

War! huh-yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh

War! huh-yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it again y'all

War! huh good God
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me?

Ohhh? War! I despise
Because it means destruction?
Of innocent lives

War means tears
to thousands of mothers eyes
When their sons go to fight
and lose their lives

I said - War! Huh Good God y'all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it again

War! Whoa, Lord ...
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me?

War! It ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War! Friend only to the undertaker
War! It's an enemy to all mankind
The thought of war blows my mind

War has caused unrest in the younger generation
Induction then destruction-
Who wants to die?

Ohhh? War Good God y'all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it, Say it, Say it

War! Uh-huh Yeah - Huh!
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me?

War! It ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War! It's got one friend, that's the undertaker
War has shattered many a young mans dreams
Made him disabled bitter and mean
Life is much to precious to spend fighting wars these days
War can't give life, it can only take it away

War! Huh Good God y'all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it again

War! Whoa, Lord ...
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me?

War! It ain't nothing but a heartbreaker
War! Friend only to the undertaker
Peace Love and Understanding;
tell me, is there no place for them today?
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But Lord knows there's got to be a better way

War! Huh Good God y'all
What is it good for?
You tell me
Say it, Say it, Say it

War! Huh Good God y'all
What is it good for?
Stand up and shout it.
Nothing!

 

Everyday Iraqis are not killing police, blowing up markets etc. What would be their motive to do that?

Sunnis may have that motive. Weren't you paying attention to the WH propaganda wrt the initial insurgents?

 

I suspect that, if I were to attempt to remove a hornets nest from my garage, my chances of getting stung, and the amount of hornet activity around my house would increase -- in the short term. My chances of being stung, that afternoon, would be higher than if I let that nest be. So should I ignore the nest?

 

Of course they have reason to attack all aspects of the government that we are trying to install. Anyone, Iraqs included, realize that once the government has solitified it's grasp it is much harder to oppose.

Also you keep bringing up AQ attacks, yet back to the original thread, how can we dismiss those attacks as far as number of terrorist attacks. You can't have both ways. We have given them an easy target.

 

Is the hornets nest an imminent threat? Are there rogue evil-doing hornets lurking about waiting for an opportunity to do evil?

 

Alls I's saying...is it's no great surprise that terror attacks are up. It's rather a no-sh*t-sherlock statistic.

Doesn't mean the Iraq thing was right. Or wrong. (it was wrong, by the way ) Just that this really shouldn't be surprising news.

And hornets are evil little buggers that god must have created when he was seriously hung over and pissed at the world. -- and i'm looking for someone to convince me that it's ok to leave that nest in the garage...because i'm not looking forward to bashing it down this week-end .

 

No, I'm not dismissing these attacks. What I'm saying is that in the larger question of whether or not the 'world' is a safer place or not, the amount of attacks has not increased unless you include Iraq. I don't ignore Iraq but rather point out that it is a place where we are actively engaged with AQ - and as bnb points out and as I have said above - in this kind of action you are naturally going to see a short term increase in violence. So if you want to say 'the overall number of violent acts has increased from year to year' that is fine, but that skews the reality of the situation when you follow that with 'and hence the world overall is less safe than it was before.' Glynch provides the classic example of this fallacious thinking when he lumps in 'not being friends with the UN/EU, withdrawing from the ABM' etc as the cause of the violence increasing.

I think bnb's analogy is a good one. Similar to 'There was more violence in Europe after D-Day.' Does that mean the world was less safe after D-Day? I don't think so.

 

What a shocker, a Muslim author skewing the stats to portray the Bush Administration in a negative light.


next....

 

So you agree that for the time being the world is a more dangerous place. There will always be ebbs and flows.

I think the problem arises when the administration says the world is a safer place. This shows that to be false. It might change tomorrow or it might not, but right now the world is not a safer place.

In addition the world didn't have to become a more dangerous place. We could have not invaded Iraq. Thus we find that the action of invading Iraq did make the world a more dangerous place. That is the here and now. It may or may not be the future.

 

Please tell us how the skewing you allege took place.

 

Anything that puts the current administration in a bad light is "skewing" because they can't possibly do anything wrong!

 

Terrorist cannot do anything to us without our permission.

And they are not successful because they are brilliant, have extreme forms of communicationa and expertise, and have us baffled as to what to do about terrorism.

We as a superpower with a super intelligence advantage and overwhelming military, covert and tactical capabilities play chess and make moves on both sides.

Without the CIA , Al Queda could not have survived the war against the Russians, the war in Bosnia or any other battleground.

We have the technology, the assets and the economics to use them as we see fit.

You just won't here much about Al Queda doing any damage as they rest in Pakistan and Afganistan and where ever else we let them.

Too many people here see the CIA as impotent and the terrorists as brilliant rogues.

They are rogues but they are far inferior to our CIA. The CIA is the most dangerous covert agency on the face of the earth.

 

No, in fact its that exact assertion that I'm contending. Iraq is more dangerous in terms of its terrorist violence. Is it more dangerous than when Saddam was in power? Not sure that's the case. Is the world at large more dangerous? No. The statistics point out that the world at large is pretty much the same in terms of terrorist outbreaks except for Iraq.

I think the world at large is a safer place with AQ being engaged in Iraq instead of hatching plots in other places.

No, you are asserting that you know what would have happened absent the intervention in Iraq. Do you propose that Zarquawi would have been sitting around idle absent the Iraq intervention? I beg to differ and find any such assertion ridiculous. It goes to show my point exactly - that when you take a specific numerical conclusion (the number of incidents has gone up) and draw a general conclusion (the Iraq intervention made the world less safe) you are fallaciously getting to your conclusion.

 

The Turks aren't predominantly Arab and Turkey doesn't export significant amounts of oil. For some reason, the pan-Arab ideal has been fractured for 50 years. The blame isn't entirely upon the West, but the West has benefitted from their division.

My point is that the US would be conditional upon the terms.

In your first reply, you asked the loaded question of which one would I want when my assumption wasn't mutually exclusive. The US fears the rise of fundamentalism because it reminds them of Iran's revolution, but it's because the US meddled directly with Iran that that mess happened in the first place. That action would hint that as long as the US disapproves the oil rich country's actions, it wouldn't matter if it's fundamentalist or democratic.

If we were seriously bent on creating permanent democracies in the ME, then fundamentalism couldn't assume total control as easily because there would be mechanisms to vote them out and because there would be open opposing factions who cater to other public interests. Terrorist cells spawns from different ideals, but to sustain those groups they have to exploit conditions of inequality to sell to the populace.

Our current interests are mainly to preserve the oil standard and mitigate whatever damage incurred from terrorism. It's different than the NeoCon ideal.

 

Turkey was your example, not mine, lol. If these states were to become like Turkey (you said), the US would still oppose them. I said no, they don't oppose Turkey.

 

Iraq is part of the world and the world is a more a more dangerous place.

Iraq definitely had less death and destruction under Saddam than they have now, and in that sense it was safer. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Iraqis were better off under Saddam, just safer.

Zarquawi wasn't in Saddam's area of Iraq. Iraq was hemmed in and Zarquawi operated on a much smaller scale prior to the invasion. Iraq was hemmed in and not a threat to anyone else. The power vaccum in Iraq allowed Zarqawi freedom to operate and thus he became more active since the invasion. In addition we can't prove that terrorists helping Zarq increased due to the invasion, but something enabled him to arrange a lot more suicide bombings, and have the bombers to fullfill all those jobs, kidnap folks, and all the other stuff.

I also don't know that your contention that the suicide bombings are all AQ. I know that some of the attacks on Shiite mosques, and population centers have been credited to Iraqi Sunni groups. So it isn't just AQ we are fighting. We are also dealing with Sunni groups that weren't a threat under Saddam, and now are.

 

Can anyone on this board tell me how removing Saddam from power reduced the threat of terrorist activities in the world?

He was a ruthless ruler... there are many in this world that are the same... WMD?? well none there....its obvious that was not the main reason.... so please someone explain to me why the war took place..................you guys argue with a patriotic view... you don't want to disrespect or go against your home team... the soldiers must be supported...etc.....though if you look as an outsider the situation looks foggy.


i think the war was illegal under the UN law.... if anyone here follows the British elections...that is exactly what is burning Blair's a$$ on fire... i just think its sad to see that such actions can take place and many people can turn a blind eye towards it...