War on terror still going; Gitmo still growing.

[Dinner]

Time Magazine is reporting that Pakistani Intelligence has scored another big round up of Al-Qaeda terrorists. Last week they tracked a flat bed truck all the way from Pakistan's tribal areas down to the port city of Karachi; inside the truck was 330 pounds of explosives, several AK-47, and a great deal of ammo all of which was concealed under bags of patatos.

The Pakistanis waited until the truck reached a warehouse and then seized the truck, searched the warehouse (where they found another 700-800lbs of explosives), and arrested several suspects. Amoung those arrested was Saudi national Ali Abd al-Aziz the man who funneled more the $120,000 to the 9/11 terrorists and a Yemani named Waleed Muhammad bin Attash. Five Pakistani men were also arrested. It has not yet been confirmed but it is suspected some or all of these men will so be sent to the U.S.'s detention facility in southern Cuba.

So what do you folks think? Did the war agaisnt Saddam really set back the war against terror or was Bush able to juggle two balls at one time?

[Dinner]

Supposedly, Al-Qaeda was planning to load the explosives into a small plane and then fly the plane into the U.S. embassy in Pakistan. What is it with these guys and flying planes into things? Wouldn't a old fashioned car bomb work just as well?

[Lefty Scaevola]

Although statistics do not show show causation, terror acts have droped dramaticly since the beggining of the war on terror.
2002 vs 2001 shows a 44% drop world wide in terror acts, and a 65% drop against USA targets. I will have to hunt down a link; I saw it as a quote from an AP story a week ago.

[Edan]

Here is an article that mentions those stats:

Big Drop In Terror Attacks In 2002

In 2002, there were 199 terror attacks worldwide, a drop of 44 percent from the 355 attacks recorded in 2001. A total of 725 people were killed last year, far below the 3,295 — including thousands in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania — who died in 2001.

[Sava]

well, if you don't count 9-11 (as it was a highly significant and improbable event that did happen) terrorism has remained relatively stagnant. There had never been a terroract in the US on the scale of 9-11 before. And hopefully never again.

[gsmoove23]

Terror statistics going down in the course of a couple of years are ridiculous. Of course they went down we killed alot of people and spent alot of money. The smart ones are lying low until things calm down. I think you'll find that anti-americanism and terrorism recruitment are up though.

[Edan]

Originally posted by Sava
well, if you don't count 9-11 (as it was a highly significant and improbable event that did happen) terrorism has remained relatively stagnant. There had never been a terroract in the US on the scale of 9-11 before. And hopefully never again.

First of all, 9-11 did happen. You can't just wave a magic wand and pretend that it doesn't affect the statistics.

But even if you try to do so, you'll note that the number of terror attacks dropped from ~350 to 199. That's still a significant drop.

[DanS]

This is good news. However, if I have one criticism of Pakistan it is that they don't have control over their own tribal areas. You would think that the central government could bring them to heel. Even the US has better control over the tribal areas in Afghanistan.

[C0ckney]

well i supposed it's really a case of 'what's in it for us'. pakistan wouldn't gain a huge amount by exerting more control over the tribal areas, and could give themselves a major headache trying to do so.

[Dinner]

Here's a Newsweek article on the same event. There is little new news though.

[DanS]

pakistan wouldn't gain a huge amount by exerting more control over the tribal areas, and could give themselves a major headache trying to do so.

Actually, they already have major headaches regarding these areas. For instance, there's a major natural gas pipeline that keeps getting blown up in the tribal areas.

[Chemical Ollie]

"Gitmo" growing? They said on the news today that 15 or so people would get released. Perhaps to make room for the newcomers?

[Dis]

hilarious stuff.

yeah lets just assume 9/11 never happened

If it was so improbable why did it happen? hmm?

yes they did just release more people from gitmo. But if they picked up more that could exceed the number released.

sounds like pakistand is doing most of the work. That's fine with me. We ereased $1 billion of debt they owed us. And they are requesting we erase another $1.8 billion in debt. If pakistan keeps bringing in the terrorists it may be worth it.

[PLATO]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
I think you'll find that anti-americanism and terrorism recruitment are up though.

Interesting. On what are you basing this?

[gsmoove23]

anti-americanism or opposition to american policies is quite clearly increased worldwide. Middle Eastern states have been complaining about fundamentalism and fundamentalist terrorists gaining popularity in their countries for a couple of years now. No new news.