Report: Terrorism stats are skewed by Iraq attacks

[laststeamtrain]

Report: Terrorism stats are skewed by Iraq attacks

By LILY HINDY, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 37 minutes ago

Reports of an increase in terrorist violence around the world have been distorted by the high number of civilian casualties in Iraq, and omitting those deaths reveals a decline in terrorism, a research group argued in a new report Wednesday.

The Human Security Brief 2007 said that without the figures from Iraq, fatalities from terrorism have declined by some 40 percent since 2001.

Disputing claims that terrorist activity is on the rise, project director Andrew Mack said that "when we look a little bit more closely at this data, the incidence of terrorism is declining."

The study by the Human Security Report Project, a Canada-based research group, analyzed and compared data from three major U.S. government-funded terrorism research institutions.

It carried data showing that global terrorism fatalities between 1998 and 2006 peaked in 2001 with the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, declined until the 2003 American-led invasion of Iraq, and then rose steadily over the next three years.

Using the same data to chart casualties while omitting Iraq, the study shows a sharp decline after the peak in 2001 and then holding relatively steady.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080522/ap_on_re_ca/us_terrorism_data_report

[JeffR]

1. Whodathunkit?

We've been lied to yet again.

Thanks for the link. It makes me seethe, but I'm used to that in the Bush Era, God only knows, and I have a dogged need to keep exhaustively and exhaustedly informed.

[laststeamtrain]

2. Like Mr. Mack says: "when we look a little bit more closely at this data..."

I'm looking forward to an era when that is SOP rather than making political hay out of every lie & distortion the way the Bushistas have done.

[JeffR]

3. Yeah. I pray for that.

I worry that too many have become too conditioned to it and the media are too in love with these narratives to ever abandon them for real reporting. The country is in a very bad way.