A new independent study shows that deaths from terrorism have actually declined by more than 40 percent since 2001. This flies in the face of the constant Democrat mantra that states the opposite, that terrorism has increased since Bush initiated the War on Terror. It is a mantra that the media have helpfully spread for their friends at the DNC.
We've heard it again and again from the left in this country; deaths by terror have increased under George W. Bush and his War on Terror has failed. Along with so many on the left side of the aisle in the U.S., Barack Obama has said this several times in the past, too. At the Democratic debate at Saint Anselm College on Jun 3, 2007, for instance, Obama said that Bush's war has failed. "We live in a more dangerous world," Obama said on that stage, "partly as a consequence of Bush's actions..."
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But the new study by Simon Fraser University in Canada tells a far different tale than the favorite lefty study.
First of all, they found a major flaw in past studies.
The reason that the NCTC, MIPT, and START global fatality tolls rise so dramatically after 2003 is because all three datasets are counting a large percentage of all civilian fatalities from intentional violence in Iraq’s civil war as deaths from“terrorism.†For example, NCTC’s estimate for fatalities from terrorism in Iraq in 2006 is 13,343. This is nearly 80 percent of the total Iraqi civilian fatality toll of 16,657 for that year as estimated by the independent US organization, icasualties.org.
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..But they are unusual because counting the intentional killing of civilians in civil wars as terrorism," as all three datasets do, is a sharp departure from customary practice. As Ohio State University’s John Mueller has noted: “When terrorism becomes really extensive in an area we generally no longer call it terrorism, but rather war or insurgency.†Moreover, as a July 2007 US Congressional Research Service report noted, NCTC’s Iraq data are “largely the product of sectarian violence, rampant criminal activity, and home-grown insurgency--[and therefore] grossly distort the global terrorism picture.â€
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/08/21/dem-mantra-more-deaths-terror-under-bush-disproven
