Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Iraq figures distort terrorism statistics: study

La lotta al terrorismo registra ogni giorno nuovi successi.
Per terrorismo intendo la forsennata campagna mondiale di allarme 
lanciata dall'amministrazione neocon per giustificare le sue imprese 
aggressive, naturalmente.
Già il NIE di qualche mese fa ha dato un duro colpo alla strumentale 
diffusione di paranoia tesa a suscitare il necessario supporto per 
l'attacco all'Iran; ora c'è qualcuno che sfida il conformismo dei media 
e considera oggettivamente i dati.
Bene.
----------------------------------------
Iraq figures distort terrorism statistics: study
Wed May 21, 2008 1:14pm EDT
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A study released on Wednesday reports a 
decline in fatal attacks of terrorism worldwide and says U.S. think-tank 
data showing sharp increases were distorted due to the inclusion of 
killings in Iraq.
"Even if the Iraq 'terrorism' data are included, there has still been a 
substantial decline in the global terrorism toll," said the 2007 Human 
Security Brief, an annual report funded by the governments of Canada, 
Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and Britain.
For example, global terrorism fatalities declined by 40 percent between 
July and September 2007, driven by a 55 percent decline in the 
"terrorism" death toll in Iraq after the so-called surge of new U.S. 
troops and a cease-fire by the Shi'ite militant Mehdi Army, the brief said.
"We have concluded that the expert consensus (on terrorism) is probably 
misleading," Andrew Mack, director of the Human Security Report Project, 
told a news conference.
Despite apparent declines in terrorism deaths, many U.S. think-tanks 
continue to report sharp increases.
Data of the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), 
funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, points to more than 
a fourfold increase in worldwide deaths due to terrorism from 1998 to 
2006. The sharpest increase came after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 
2003.
Other institutes have reached similar conclusions, including the U.S. 
National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).
"The rising terrorist fatality toll revealed by MIPT and NCTC ..., 
coupled with the bleak assessments of Western security analysts and 
intelligence agencies appear to provide compelling support for the claim 
that both the incidence and the threat of global terrorism have indeed 
increased," the brief says.
The Human Security Brief says MIPT figures show "an extraordinary 79 
percent of global fatalities from terrorism were in Iraq" in 2006 alone.
DISTORTION
There are arguments for including the many attacks on civilians by 
so-called non-state groups -- insurgents and militants -- in Iraq.
Terrorism experts usually define terrorism as intentional, politically 
motivated violence against civilians and many of the fatalities in Iraq 
would qualify.
But even experts from MIPT and other institutes acknowledge that Iraq, 
where violence against civilians by militants is a daily occurrence five 
years after the invasion, is a special case not necessarily linked to 
any global trend.
"If you pulled (Iraq) out, terrorism was steady or maybe slightly 
lower," James Ellis, research and program director at MIPT, told 
Reuters. "It has had a distortion effect."
The Human Security Brief also points out an inconsistency in the 
calculation methods of the institutes. Although they include attacks on 
civilians in what it describes as Iraq's civil war, they include few 
similar deaths from African wars.
Mack said this was a "U.S.-centric" view of terrorism.
But MIPT and other institutes say they exclude thousands of annual 
killings of civilians in Sudan's war-racked Darfur region because they 
see them as the result of government-backed genocide, not terrorism.
(Editing by Anthony Boadle)
© Thomson Reuters 2008 All rights reserved.
-- 
[namib] Posso legalmente inneggiare al comunismo, ma non al fascismo.
L'una appartenenza e' appunto *criminale*, l'altra no.
[tonibaruch] Purtroppo abbiamo questa legge idiota, e vero.
http://groups.google.it/group/it.politica.internazionale/tree/browse_frm/thread/3f0249225d16ae1d/2bd6035e5baa68b5

 La lotta al terrorismo registra ogni giorno nuovi successi.
Vero.
Proprio stamattina sentivo alla rassegna stampa internazionale che il 
numero di attentati nel mondo e le conseguenti vittime sono 
drammaticamente scesi, contrariamente alla percezione comune.
Purtroppo la mia mattina è sempre piuttosto convulsa, quindi non ho 
mentalmenta annotato da dove provenisse l'articolo. Ricordo però che era 
la relazione dello studio di una università canadese.
Tb
-- 
Il dubbio è il padre della pigrizia [shadal]

 drammaticamente scesi,
in compenso continuano ad aumentare le vittime civili irachene e
palestinesi per mano di USA e Israele.
-- 
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