Friday, April 29, 2005

The fruit of the GWOT: global terrorism increases

Any rightwingers want to comment on the terrorism statistics released Wednesday? 2003 saw 175 incidents that killed 625, whereas 2004 witnessed 651 such attacks that killed 1,907. Mission Accomplished!

Actually, it's not hard to guess the spin that the wingjobs will put on these facts. They'll argue two contradictory things. First, they'll argue that you can't really compare the two numbers because the methodology for counting terrorist attacks has changed. Second, they'll say that this proves we need to double-down on our current bets, that the need for a full-frontal assault on terrorist states is clearly greater than ever. Since they obviously would also have taken credit if the terror statistics had decreased, this is clearly nothing more than the usual heads-we-win-tails-you-lose intellectual style the pro-GWOTters have taught us to love.

But the fact is, global terror is on the rise on Bush's watch. There's the legacy, baby.

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