Are terrorists winning the war on terror?

[Pointedstick]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... g-sharply/

Last year saw the highest number of terrorist incidents since 2000, according to the latest Global Terrorism Index released by the Institute for Economics and Peace. Worldwide, the number of terrorist incidents increased from less than 1,500 in 2000 to nearly 10,000 in 2013. Sixty percent of attacks last year occurred in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria.

The report suggests that U.S. foreign policy has played a big role in making the problem worse: "The rise in terrorist activity coincided with the US invasion of Iraq," it concludes. "This created large power vacuums in the country allowing different factions to surface and become violent." Indeed, among the five countries accounting for the bulk of attacks, the U.S. has prosecuted lengthy ground wars in two (Iraq and Afghanistan), a drone campaign in one (Pakistan), and airstrikes in a fourth (Syria).

[...]

While we haven't suffered any major terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11, the Global Terrorism Index numbers cast considerable doubt on whether that money's been well-spent. And they give some credence to the notion that our ham-handed foreign policy is actually a destabilizing factor in world affairs.

In other news, the Obama administration recently approved doubling the number of troops we currently have on the ground in Iraq.

[Pointedstick]

Favorite comment:

same as the war on drugs now more drugs then ever and cheaper. war on poverty now there is more poverty being we import it by the tens of millions

[Mountaineer]

Favorite comment:

same as the war on drugs now more drugs then ever and cheaper. war on poverty now there is more poverty being we import it by the tens of millions

That social engineering stuff is really working out well ... next chapter - war on the legislative process, a.k.a. management by diktat.

... Mountaineer

[Benko]

Favorite comment:

war on poverty now there is more poverty being we import it by the tens of millions

Of course.  if one's constituency is poor people, you can't have them doing well, you have to have a constant supply of poor people to support you.

[MachineGhost]

Frackin' Bush!

I still maintain he, Cheney and Rumsfeld should be tried as war criminals.  Even Reub has slooowly come around to my way of thinking and that's saying a lot!  tee he

Obama is a bigger pussy than Carter was -- no news there to report.