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New Depths Discovered
The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.That's Jonathan Landay reporting for Knight-Ridder. And it really does seem to be as simple as that. According to Landay's sources, the administration only wants reports showing that terrorism is going down, and if the State Departments methods don't produce that result, then there report just won't be done. Lovely.
April 16, 2005 | Permalink
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» The Bush Clown Show Continues from Brad DeLong's Website
Matthew Yglesias reports: Matthew Yglesias: New Depths Discovered: The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks ... [Read More]
Tracked on Apr 16, 2005 3:22:44 PM
» Terrorism Numbers, We Don’t Need No Stinking Terrorism Numbers from Ehavoc's Solipsistic Universe
This year, in order they can guarantee That the amount of terrorism will decline The Department of State won’t be Publishing anything that would define The incidents of terror to any degree And show the War On Terror isn’t just [Read More]
Tracked on Apr 16, 2005 6:07:18 PM
» Oh, Condi, Say it Ain't So . . . from i'm just waiting for the robot invasion
Noise about this has been making the rounds all weekend - and I had kinda hoped for some independent verification before talking about it much, but as Big Media Matt has so kindly provided the link I was to lazy to go look for myself, here goes. Taking... [Read More]
Tracked on Apr 18, 2005 11:04:16 AM
Comments
Now if we could just stop publishing the annual budget deficit figure, we could really improve the nation's fiscal health.
Posted by: Petey | Apr 16, 2005 10:21:41 AM
I think BushCo is on to something here. Why stop with the terror report and budget deficit figures? Why report any bad news?
Posted by: jon s | Apr 16, 2005 10:24:29 AM
Go over to Johnson on the counterterrorism blog for a stringent analysis of this latest embarassment. Someone more tech savvy than me can provide the link.
Posted by: JohnFH | Apr 16, 2005 10:40:13 AM
...if I can take the country to war based on hype and lies, conduct the war with incompetence,loot the treasury, and still get re-elected....I can do anything...ANYTHING I TELL YOU!!!! Send Bolton to the UN!! Repeal the Social Security Act! Give Tenet the medal of freedom!! What? One of my agencies issues reports critical of my grandeur? I command them, stop!
Posted by: Dwight | Apr 16, 2005 11:05:02 AM
The terrorists were distorting Bush's message of success through what he calls the "filter" of their attacks, so he had no choice but to ignore them and take his message directly to the people.
Posted by: kenbeaux | Apr 16, 2005 11:38:05 AM
Aaah, Knight "Al Jazeera in America" Ridder. Reliably wrong on National Security. Remember February's "Insurgent attacks fuel fears of rising violence in Iraq"? *snicker*
Posted by: Al | Apr 16, 2005 11:40:38 AM
Al, for one, welcomes our new ant-overlords.
Posted by: Kent Brockman | Apr 16, 2005 11:51:19 AM
"Send Bolton to the UN!! Repeal the Social Security Act! Give Tenet the medal of freedom!!"
Well, one out of three ain't bad.
(Mustache Johnny is going down! Colin Powell finally wins a battle after losing oh, so many.)
Posted by: Petey | Apr 16, 2005 12:02:35 PM
I guess the "make shit up" strategy isn't that viable a second time around.
"Fool me twice... won't get fooled again" and all.
Posted by: Gryn | Apr 16, 2005 12:11:59 PM
1) Al, your comments about Knight-Ridder are embarrassingly ill-informed. As Michael Massing documents in his 2004 study of the media's coverage of pre-war intelligence, "Now They Tell Us", this wire service consistently provided a depth and *balance* of coverage of relevant issues unparalleled by its peers (with the partial exception, one might add, of the Wall Street Journal news operation). Furthermore, if you believe there was not grounds for pessimism, let alone mere concern, this past February, given the occupation's long record of corruption, arbitrary detention and killing of noncombatants, and the poll-documented hostility of Iraqis to the coalition presence, you are not thinking very clearly.
2) JohnFH, could you provide a URL for the counterterrorism blog you mention?
Posted by: inip | Apr 16, 2005 12:50:05 PM
Maybe they pulled the reports because terrorists have just given up. Have you noticed that since Bush was re-elected in November we haven't had any terror alerts? We had them on the previous Thanksgiving and Christmases, but not last year. And for a while there in 2004 they were coming every couple of weeks, coincidentally when the adminstration needed some political cover.
Perhaps terrorists were demoralized by Bush's election. I know roughly 50% of voters were.
Posted by: kenbeaux | Apr 16, 2005 1:06:00 PM
Didn't someone tell us (over and over and over again right before last November) that Bush and his steroid-dripping mid-east policies were winning the "war on terror"?
If a State Department report indicates that he is not doing his job in the one area that got him re-elected (the one area that mystifyingly keeps his job approval numbers above 30%)... well, then kill the report.
I know this question is beating a dead horse... but how did this nimrod get re-elected?
Posted by: Soup | Apr 16, 2005 1:43:02 PM
I just checked in purely to see what Al would say, and he did not disappoint!
Guys, Fake Al aaside, doesn't Al seem to be showing signs of desperation? He was swinging wildly that time.
I fear that one morning he'll be found in the throes of uncontrollable snickering and snorting which can only be managed with large doses of Haldol. Perhaps his family and friends should stage an intervention before it's too late.
Posted by: John Emerson | Apr 16, 2005 1:49:18 PM
Talking about terror: this guy is scary. Watched it on c-span today and it looks a lot like escalation of anti-Iran war-mongering, same template as 3 years ago: mushroom cloud, etc. The atrocity is apparently planned for this summer.
Posted by: abb1 | Apr 16, 2005 2:28:06 PM
Here's where to get more background on this story:
http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/
Posted by: JohnFH | Apr 16, 2005 3:27:57 PM
I fear that one morning he'll be found in the throes of uncontrollable snickering and snorting which can only be managed with large doses of Haldol. Perhaps his family and friends should stage an intervention before it's too late.
Or he could just ship the fuck out to Iraq, to disprove those Knight-Ridder pinkos once and for all.
Posted by: ahem | Apr 16, 2005 9:16:26 PM
Furthermore, if you believe there was not grounds for pessimism, let alone mere concern, this past February
Pessimism in February? THIS February? Right after the enormously successful and heartening elections? Are you joking?
Posted by: Al | Apr 16, 2005 9:37:42 PM
Using google and Iraqbodycount.net I tried to come up with a rough figure of attacks in February. I gave up counting when I reached 80 separate attacks for the month, making it nothing special except a focus for the Kool-Aid drinkers and their magical election fantasies. Included among the scores of attacks were the following spectacular offensives:
40 killed as violence rages in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Feb 18: At least 40 people were killed in violence in Iraq on Friday and Thursday night. Twenty of the dead were victims of suicide bombings at two mosques.
In the deadliest incident, 17 people died and at least 25 were wounded when a man wearing an explosives belt blew himself up in a Shia mosque in the southern Baghdad district of Dura. "The attack was carried out by a suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt at the Kazimain mosque in Abu Dishr, near Dura," a police official said.
Twin suicide bombers killed three people and wounded more than 15 at the capital's Ali al Baya mosque, another Shia place of worship in Baghdad, as the faithful were about to leave after Friday prayers.
In the third incident, three people, including a child, were killed and five wounded in a blast apparently targeting a police station but struck outside a cafe in north western Baghdad's predominantly Shia Shula district.
Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and four civilians wounded in a suicide attack targeting pilgrims waiting at an army checkpoint between Mahmudiyah and Latifiyah, south of Baghdad.
http://www.dawn.com/2005/02/19/top14.htm
Presently there is estimated to be sixty hostages in Madaen, after a week of bloody attacks in which not only were scores of people killed, but dozens were killed at a time.
Posted by: glitter | Apr 16, 2005 10:07:51 PM
Remember February's "Insurgent attacks fuel fears of rising violence in Iraq"? *snicker*
Right after the enormously successful and heartening elections? Are you joking?
Dammit, Fake Al, stop it! I never get anywhere whenever I try to use sarcasm here. Okay, granted, you actually enjoy suckering people into a negative response to an almost plausible idiotic Al posting, but my point remains...I forget.
Anyway, I'm actually not sure why the administration would bother killing the report. There are two other tried-and-true methods that have worked for them before:
(1) Fire career civil servants, or at the very least have your own partisan loyalists override their findings.
(2) Go ahead and let the damning evidence come out (e.g., the 9/11 Commission report), then watch while the MSM and the American people simply ignore it. Heck, this is even what happened with last year's version of the report in question.
Then again, I suppose we could consider this a recursive version of (2), where killing a potentially slightly embarrassing report is something that should provoke outrage, but won't.
Posted by: mds | Apr 16, 2005 10:11:32 PM
Praktike has a good post on this over at Political Animal.
Zach
Posted by: Zach | Apr 16, 2005 10:51:12 PM
Included among the scores of attacks were the following spectacular offensives
Is the plural of 'anecdote' really 'data'?
Posted by: Al | Apr 16, 2005 10:52:17 PM
In Iraq the plural of "anecdote" is usually "casualties," "seriously wounded," and often "corpses." It denotes people who've had limbs blown off and are crippled for life, parents whose children have been killed in front of them, and those who don't know if this is the last time they'll walk into a mosque or out of a restaurant.
It also connotes the idea of being "underreported," mainly due to the limitations on travel by reporters for safety reasons.
So please do go fuck yourself as relatives of friends of mine struggle to survive in a nightmare that hopeless morons like yourself mindlessly support. These are real people, not abstract memes used to obfuscate political discussions so you can feel like you're "winning" on a discussion board. Glibly questioning their suffering and death really shows off your lack of class and human concern. Nice job, ass.
Posted by: glitter | Apr 16, 2005 11:53:52 PM
It denotes people who've had limbs blown off and are crippled for life, parents whose children have been killed in front of them, and those who don't know if this is the last time they'll walk into a mosque or out of a restaurant.
Yes, and Saddam never would have done anything like that! *snicker*
Posted by: Al | Apr 17, 2005 2:21:00 AM
I think that fake and "real" Al may have merged.
Posted by: John Emerson | Apr 17, 2005 2:58:16 AM
Al,
1) Your effusive reaction to nascent democratic processes in Iraq is commendable, but your awareness of the case details appears lacking. It was Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani whose efforts pressured the coalition into supporting broad national elections, which had been delayed by previous U.S. attempts to impose less impactful regional referenda. Further, even the elections finally held Jan. 30 seem likely to leave in place many edicts of former administrator Paul Bremer, allowing (among other American-corporate-serving policies) foreign firms unfettered access to Iraqi markets outside the control of any new Iraqi government, limiting its sovereignty.
2) Your invocation of Saddam is a straw man. No, he would not have balked at the prospect of killing people to maintain power (or for any other reason), but using his record as a defense is like a carjacker's saying when pulled over in a stolen vehicle, "Hey, I once knew a guy who shot and killed people in the process of stealing cars. I just held them up at knifepoint. So what are you complaining about?" The U.S. military endures brutal conditions, to be sure, in the effort to implement an incoherent and misguided policy, and the efforts of American forces to build relationships and functioning institutions within Iraqi society have often been heroic. These facts do not excuse officer and policymaker mismanagement and neglect, often ideologically driven in the Bush administration's case, leading to American troop deaths and (not coincidentally) widespresad hostility to U.S. forces that persists to this day. The election was an assertion of nationalistic or pro-Iraqi sentiment, not of pro-Americanism -- quite the reverse, in the main. The media headlines about the existence of "elections" should not end your inquiry into political conditions under American-led occuption; you should read the stories that follow the headlines, if you want to be an informed participant in public debate about foreign policy.
Posted by: inip | Apr 17, 2005 1:14:21 PM
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