flypaper, iraq, and the sucking sound

A lot of blogpeople have posted this graph of terrorist attacks over the past decade (courtesy of BTC News). I will too. It's suggestive (the black bar is 2000, when W was selected; mauve represents 2004). Remember, one of the three hundred variations on some ten or so trumped up reasons for invading Iraq was that the country would draw in terrorists on non-American soil to do battle with the mighty US military in a winner takes all war on terror (WOT). Remember "bring it on"? Oops. What we have in Iraq is an insurgency supported by some non-Iraqi fundamentalist terrorists. In some cases the insurgency is comprised of religious fundamentalists, but in many cases it is comprised of anti-occupation nationalists. In the latter case, terrorism was created by occupation. Read the "Guantanamization" link below on Bush wanting to keep bases in other central Asian countries against their will and then think again about the occupation of Iraq....

London today is a terrible thing. As was Madrid, as was 9-11, as was Paris in the 80s, as was.... There is no doubting that. The question is about what to do to stop such attacks. This administration doesn't have a clue. This is a simple, pragmatic point: terrorist attacks have increased over the lifespan of this administration. Time for another approach. And, frankly, that's going to mean engaging in a much better understanding of who the terrorists are as well as a much better understanding of the countries the US presently occupies. Maybe it also means not invading and occupying countries? That would likely be quite helpful.

UPDATE:
Here is another graph courtesy of the very interesting Terrorism Knowledge Base. You can create graphs yourself using a number of different variables. The one at the link uses terrorist attacks, both domestic and international, for the period of 1998-2005. Apparently, domestic (internal to any country, not just the US) attacks were not counted until 1998. This particular graph may give a better picture of the rise in attacks than the previous one copied above. But you can also explore these for yourself and find other information and data on terrorism at this invaluable site.

UPDATE:
Oh well. The graph link above no longer works. It will take you to the page from which you can do your own, however.