The State Department's annual report on terrorism, formally known as the Country Reports on Terrorism, is due out this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday.
In contrast to the rhetoric on this issue that sometimes emanates from the White House, Capitol Hill and other quarters, the State Department report is generally seen as an even-handed, sober analysis of trends and developments in terrorism for the previous year. (Although there was that flap a few years ago, when the report understated the number of terror attacks, showing a decline when in fact there had been a large increase).
We don't have this year's full report yet, but we are reliably informed that it's expected to show no big increase or decrease in the number of terrorist attacks worldwide last year. (For 2006, the National Counterterrorism Center, which supplies the data to State, reported about 14,000 terrorist attacks worldwide).
The good news in 2007: A decline in attacks in Iraq. The bad news: An increase in Afghanistan.
Do you feel that there has been any reaction to Ian Lustick's recent attacks on the counter-terrorism industry?
http://independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2179
and
http://independent.org/store/policy_reports/detail.asp?id=28
It's not as if Lustick was a nonentity, after all - he's a CFR member.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | April 29, 2008 at 12:14 PM
Rowan - Thanks for the comment. I must admit I had not seen the Lustick commentary.
Provocative stuff. I'm glad you posted the link, and hope our readers will check it out and form their own opinion.
I'd merely say that, in my own reporting experience, there are scads of "terrorism analysts," a handful of them quite good, but a lot of them not...
Posted by: Warren Strobel | April 29, 2008 at 04:57 PM