Saturday April 30, 2005

I've Been Thinking:

This week the US State Department released terror figures worldwide for 2004.

Major terror attacks are up 30% in Iraq, 6% in Israel, and 4% in Afghanistan compared to the figures for 2003.

But really, the figures and these studies are misleading and silly.
They show just how little the people in charge know, and how cockeyedly bureaucrats look at numbers.

Using their logic, 2001 was a good year.
There were very few attacks.
But 3 of those attacks were on 9-11!

Numbers are not what is important.
One can get a much better understanding of the terror threat anecdotally.
Where and how severe was the attack? How bold was the target? How much planning was needed? How big an operation was needed? How many attacks were prevented?

Weigh each incident.
Devise a sliding severity scale.
Then analyze and compare.
Headway is slowly but truly being made in the battle against terror.
That needs to be part of the equation.