'Global War on Terror' Coincides with Dramatic Increase of Terrorism

[newthinking]

'Global War on Terror' Coincides with Dramatic Increase of Terrorism

Terrorism index shows nine-fold increase since 2000
by Tharanga Yakupitiyage
CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/11/26/global-war-terror-coincides-dramatic-increase-terrorism

In 2014, the number of lives lost to terrorism around the world increased by 80 percent, the highest level ever. The majority of such terrorist activity occurred in the largest refugee-producing nations, a Global Terrorism Index (GTI) showed.

The GTI, developed by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), comprehensively studies the patterns and impacts of terrorism globally.

The 2015 GTI, released on 17 Nov, has recorded the rise in terrorism, with a nine-fold increase in terrorism-related deaths since 2000. In total, 32,658 people were killed in terrorist attacks in 67 countries in 2014.

Even in the wake of the 13 Nov Paris attacks, the majority of terrorism-related deaths do not occur in the West. Most of these deaths, over 78 percent, transpired in just five countries: Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria.

In Nigeria alone, deaths by terrorism increased over 300 percent to 7,512, the largest increase ever recorded by any country. This has allowed Boko Haram to surpass the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to become the deadliest terrorist group in the world. The index also highlighted the link between countries with terrorist activity and levels of internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/11/26/global-war-terror-coincides-dramatic-increase-terrorism

[mike_c]

1. this is one reason we need genuine alternative leadership visions in the U.S.

For the last couple of decades at least, the two major political parties have produced presidential candidates who are different sides of the same crappy coin. They offer variously tweaked versions of the same policies, especially foreign policies, but spin them to appeal to different bases. Obama, for example, has achieved several significant policy changes, but has nonetheless done virtually nothing to change the fundamental direction of political leadership. Under his leadership, the U.S. still exports more military violence and weaponry than civilian manufactured goods. We still genuflect when Wall Street demands it. Obama's signature domestic policy achievement, the Affordable Care Act, still enshrines short term insurance company profits instead of the long term best interests of all Americans.

I'm reminded of John Kerry's abject failure to articulate any real differences between his proposed foreign policies and Dubya's in 2004. He wasn't going to end the WoT, even though that was what we really needed most-- he was just going to direct it better.

We need sweeping changes in national leadership, not policy tweaks and more of the same. I think that sentiment is part of the motivation for tea partiers as well-- on the other side of the party divide, they too perceive the failures of establishment politicians to move the country in a different direction. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results, then the lunatics are thoroughly in charge of the asylum in Washington, D.C.

[dreamnightwind]

4. +1, excellent post

They aren't lunatics though, they're coldly calculating corporatists who are operating at the nexus of war and industry. Mega-profits for a few, top-down authoritarian regimes in place for the occupied nations (they can sometimes have a democracy so long as they don't elect anyone who threatens corporate profits, pretty much the same as here).

We absolutely need to end this. The American people, and those in western European nations, are blamed for it the world over, empire and colonialism. The citizens of those countries then become the target of terrorist attacks.

I used to think we were mostly blameless but had lost control of larger forces who have seized control of our country. While there is a lot of truth to that, I now see how many of us vigorously defend the same old system when a viable alternative is presented to them.

[niyad]

2. nss

[4139]

3. Have to remember the late 60s and 70s... IRA, Baader-meinhof, FALN, palestians, ...

The KKK was real back then... Japanese Red Army

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lod_Airport_massacre

[forest444]

5. And perhaps the most pernicious of all at the time:

Operation Gladio, the NATO/CIA campaign to deliberately promote a wave of terrorism across Western Europe (but primarily in Italy) in order to discredit the European left through guilt by association. Gladio peaked in 1978 - Italy's 'Year of the Gun' - and culminated with the Bologna Train Station bombing in 1980, at which point it was largely curtailed.

By then, up to 1,000 civilians had been killed, including numerous children in school buses.

Gladio's existence was first revealed by testimony in 1984 from a fascist terrorist in its employ. Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, another participant (in a political capacity), confirmed it in 1990. None of the 622 people listed as Gladio participants by declassified Italian files has ever been brought to trial.