Sunday, April 17, 2005

Defini-mi-tion... huh?

My partner's Grandad served his country in World War II. He once told me a story of when they finished their job in a particular theatre and jumped on ships to head for the next. A couple of hours into their journey, enemy bombers attacked. 8 ships sunk, hundreds, likely thousands, dead. The ship convoy turned around and returned to their original departure point to undertake repairs.

He managed to communicate to his wife back home, "I'm alright, survived the attack," he wrote.

Her response was that she was optimistic when hearing of the attack, local reports stated that no ships were sunk, lives lost minimal. Oblivious.

U.S. eliminates annual terrorism report

The Counter Terrorism Blog was there first with this post;

Goodbye patterns of Global Terrorism?

It is tough to argue we are winning the war on terrorism when the numbers in the official Government report will show the largest number of incidents ever recorded since the State Department started reporting on terrorist incidents. In the Secretary's defense, however, the sharp jump in numbers has more to do with a change in methodololgy of counting rather that an actual surge in Islamic extremist activity. In fact, if you take time to parse the numbers, the actual scope of terrorism by Islamic extremists in 2004 appeared to decline relative to the attacks during 2003 (except for Iraq). Rather than run from the numbers the State Department and the Intelligence Community should seize the opportunity to really get their hands around the issue and provide Congress and the American people with a clear, apolitical assessment about the reality of the terrorist threat we face.

The dumb c*nts just wouldn't understand and too much nuance would be required to convey the reality. Not a Bush Govt tactic, they've spent too much on 'simplifying' discussions and ridiculing political opponents who don't.

Seattle Times report via.