Thursday, May 08, 2003

 

State Department's 2002 "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report

I was lead to this by an item in another Weblog touching on the basis for people's (American's) fear of terrorism. On April 30, 2003, the state department released its 2002 "Patterns of Global Terrorism" Annual Report. The briefing regarding the report was presented by Ambassador Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism. In it he stated:

“There were 199 international terrorist attacks during 2002. That represents a significant drop from the previous year – 44% fewer attacks. In fact, it is the lowest level of terrorism in more than 30 years. The last time the annual total fell below 200 attacks was in 1969, shortly after the advent of modern terrorism. This is a remarkable achievement.

There are several reasons for the decrease. First, there was a sharp drop in the number of oil pipeline bombings in Colombia. There were 41 such attacks last year, down from 178 the year before.

Second, there are increased security measures in place in virtually every nation. They are most noticeable at airports and at border crossings.

Third, a large number of terrorist suspects were not able to launch an attack last year because they are in prison. More than 3,000 of them are al-Qaida terrorists and they were arrested in over 100 countries.

Lastly, I would credit the overall post-9/11 worldwide security environment. Nations are on guard against terrorism. They are sharing intelligence and law enforcement information, they are arresting suspects, they are thwarting attacks. Governments and financial institutions are drying up the terrorist sources of revenue. Regional security organizations are steadily improving their counterterrorism capabilities.”

He credits actions as a result of 9/11 with aiding the reduction in attacks. I’m curious about the number of deaths as a result of terrorists acts and/or the damage caused. While it’s reassuring to hear that there are fewer attacks worldwide, does it mean that we (specifically Americans) are any safer? What are the numbers of terrorist attacks in the U.S. over the past decade? For that matter, how do these terrorist attacks break down per country. In his briefing, Ambassador Black notes that bombings in Colombia accounted for 41 of the 199 attacks (21%) in 2002 and 178 of 355 (50%) in 2001. That seems to indicate that there were a greater percentage of attacks in other parts of the world last year.

[Lightbulb moment - Note to self: You could actually look at the report.]

From the report’s Year in Review section:

“International terrorists conducted 199 attacks in 2002, a significant drop (44%) from the 355 attacks recorded during 2001. A total of 725 persons were killed in last year’s attacks, far fewer than the 3,295 persons killed the previous year, which included the thousands of fatalities resulting from the September 11 attacks in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.

A total of 2,013 persons were wounded by terrorists in 2002, down from the 2,283 persons wounded the year before.

The number of anti-US attacks was 77, down 65% from the previous year’s total of 219. The main reason for the decrease was the sharp drop in oil pipeline bombings in Colombia (41 last year, compared to 178 in 2001).”

But here’s the page I’m interested in, the Statistical Review from the report. From perusing the graphs one sees that in the last 6 years of the data, only 19 attacks have occurred in North America in only 3 of the 6 years (1997, 1999, & 2001.) That’s an insignificant percentage (4% in 1997, the year when most of the N. American attacks happened.) But N. America experienced a large amount of casualties as a result of only one attack on 9/11 (~4,091 casualties in 2001, 75% of the year’s total).

I guess my point is that it doesn't seem like we have a lot to worry about as far as terrorism goes, assuming that our intelligence and security agencies are on the ball. Which is a whole other discussion about the efficacy of those agencies and the social compromises involved in that. I fear that these numbers might be used to justify the strict security measures that the government is pushing for and wonder if it's realistically justified. Had I more time, I’d be interested to dig a little more into this but the report is interesting reading nonetheless.

</Aurelius> <!--11:09 AM-->

Wednesday, May 07, 2003

 

“Western democracy is based on versions of majority rule. But this presupposes that the majority can fluctuate and that the minority of the moment has a prospect of becoming a majority in due course. When the divisions are along tribal, ethnic, or religious lines, however, this equation does not hold. A group consigned to permanent minority status will not consider the political arrangement just."

– Henry Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy?, page 203, regarding bringing political structure to Africa.

This doesn't really pertain to anything besides the fact that it's an interesting observation from the book I'm reading. More current events later.

</Aurelius> <!--5:10 PM-->

Tuesday, May 06, 2003

 

I somehow have fallen behind events in the Middle East. Last week, the Bush administration published its Roadmap to Peace for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict developed by the United States in cooperation with Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations. It is essentially a performance-based plan that identifies three stages towards peace and outlines obligations that both Palestinians and Israelis need to perform to contribute. The end result being "an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors."

However, the news wires (via Salon.com) report today that, "Israel throws Mideast 'road map' in doubt" which reports that Israel has announced "the Palestinians must drop their demand for Arab refugees' 'right of return' to Israel if negotiations are to proceed." The "right of return" is a key point of Palestinian policy which involves 4 million Arabs who were displaced during Israel's creation. I'm not sure if Israel is completely against negotiations involving the displaced Palestinians or if they're looking for concessions on the Palestinian stance. The article implies a hard line by Israel.

Until I look further into these new events, I'm not sure what to think.

</Aurelius> <!--4:34 PM-->