The abject failure of the ‘war on terror’

Last Updated: November 23, 2015By

With David Cameron working hard to convince voters that more public money should be wasted on ineffectual bombing of innocent foreigners (in the hope that some of them might be jihadis), it is worth examining how the war that we have been waging since 2001 has cut the number of deaths caused by terrorists.

Here’s a graph:

151123terrorism

Wait – that can’t be right, can it?

The number of deaths since 2001 has increased nearly fivefold?

Well, yes. The graph is from The Economist and the figures have a verifiable source.

Notice also that deaths in western countries have been negligible since 2002.

The places suffering the most are – apart from Nigeria – exactly the places David Cameron wants to bomb.

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7 Comments

  1. amnesiaclinic November 24, 2015 at 9:38 am - Reply

    2003 was the illegal war on Iraq – and look at exactly what has happened since then.
    There is also the huge migration into Europe which leaves a lot of space in the Middle East. Recently Netanyahu announced in an interview on American tv that Israel could take over Iraq, Libya and Yemen!
    Now, wasn’t that convenient of the west?

    • Mike Sivier November 24, 2015 at 12:35 pm - Reply

      Yes indeed.
      It’s impossible to blame people for migrating out of the Middle East when there are so many deaths in that region at the moment.

  2. perry525 November 24, 2015 at 12:21 pm - Reply

    America has run their bombing campaign with one arm tied behind their back – not being able to bomb in situations that may cause civilian casualties. A waste of time and money. We only started to win the last war when we bombed railways, bridges and roads, thereby preventing the movement of troops and stores. This time we need all of that, plus knocking out their internet service from Turkey. And all of their oil tankers that run oil to the black market in Turkey. Removing their electricity supply and water will soon bring things to a close.

    • Mike Sivier November 24, 2015 at 12:32 pm - Reply

      In my experience, collateral damage was never much of an issue for the American military. Look at the number of ‘friendly fire’ incidents in which UK armed forces were shot by Americans.
      Bombing railways, bridges and roads would not harm civilians in any case, because the raids could be timed and located to ensure that nobody was on them.
      There are plenty of ways to persuade Turkey not to supply an internet service to the terrorists that don’t involve “knocking” it “out”.
      Removing the terrorists’ funding will soon bring their “jihad” to an end, too.

      • hawaii November 25, 2015 at 2:21 am - Reply

        I might be the only person who does not understand how Isis are funded by our country and so many others (as Putin proved it seems) I don’t mean how morally I mean literally what happened? Anyone kind enough to briefly tell me thanks. I do read the papers but cant find the mechanics of it there.

    • mohandeer November 24, 2015 at 6:59 pm - Reply

      There has been ample opportunity for the US to take out two mile long convoys of black clad ISIS flag waving terrorists on their desert trek to refuel with US jets flying low(as witnessed by Syrians themselves) doing nothing to impede their progress. These convoys which are run every week take hours to travel the 4oo miles they traverse and yet no-one intercepted them for over a year until Russia took them out with it’s war on terror. The US war OF terror has enabled the Assad opposition terrorists to entrench their positions which have always been known in Washington. That’s why when Russia and Syria started shelling Raqqa the US went ballistic(coloquially speaking only) because that was the ISIS stronghold and base of operations and supplies.

  3. Noreen November 25, 2015 at 2:34 am - Reply

    Bombing is a tempting option of course but ground troops would be more accurate and not kill the thousands of civilians that bombs, which can never be accurate, do. The civilian casualties for years are enormous but the bombing goes on. When will sanity prevail and the gung ho bombing of the MIddle East stop? This is a deadly game with the boys in charge of the (very expensive) toys. Cameron has been desperate to Bomb Syria even before Paris was attacked and he is thrilled he now has an excuse. Corbyn is insulted for his pacifism but at least he wants to think before he kills people and wastes millions of taxpayers money.

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