Who is Larry C. Johnson?
I first heard of him when I read his article
The Declining Terrorist Threat,
which was published on
July 10, 2001 in the New York Times. I was fascinated that this man thought that Americans should feel safe in the
face of all his gathered information over the years. (please read link to understand Mr. Johnson's credentials)
They seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal. They are
likely to think that the United States is the most popular target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that extremist Islamic
groups cause most terrorism.
None of these beliefs are based in fact. While many crimes are committed against Americans abroad (as at home), politically inspired terrorism,
as opposed to more ordinary criminality motivated by simple greed, is not as common as most people may think.
At first glance, things do seem to be getting worse. International terrorist incidents, as reported by the State Department, increased to 423
in 2000 from 392 in 1999. Recently, Americans were shaken by Filipino rebels' kidnapping of Americans and the possible beheading of one hostage. But
the overall terrorist trend is down.
According to the Central Intelligence Agency, deaths from international terrorism fell to 2,527 in the decade
of the 1990's, from 4,833 in the 80's. 
Take notice of the Filipino rebels beheading of a hostage. I bet most people though Islamic Terrorists made that up.
Other terrorism against American interests is rare. There were three attacks on American diplomatic buildings in 2000, compared with 42 in
1988. No Americans were killed in these incidents, nor have there been any deaths in this sort of attack this year.
Remember who this quote is coming from (Larry C. Johnson - US Counter-terrorism specialist)
The greatest risk is clear: if you are drilling for oil in Colombia — or in nations like Ecuador, Nigeria or Indonesia — you should take
appropriate precautions;
otherwise Americans have little to fear.
Also...
"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from
the American public," charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert
who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.
Also note that this next quote from Mr. Johnson is from July, 2001.
I am not soft on terrorism; I believe strongly in remaining prepared to confront it. However,
when the threat of terrorism is used to
justify everything from building a missile defense to violating constitutional rights (as in the case of some Arab-Americans imprisoned without
charge), it is time to take a deep breath and reflect on why we are so fearful.
And the most revealing quote of them all...
Finally, there are bureaucracies in the military and in intelligence agencies that
are desperate to find an enemy to justify budget
growth. In the 1980's, when international terrorism was at its zenith, NATO and the United States European Command pooh-poohed the notion of
preparing to fight terrorists. They were too busy preparing to fight the Soviets. With the evil empire gone, they "discovered" terrorism as an
important priority.
Why did they eliminate it? Well, first it revealed that most terrorism was targeted at India and S. America prior to 9/11, and after the war on
terror the numbers went up. The Administration got tired of having to edit the report to add incidents left out (not before Bush used the original
version to boost his re-election campaign about terror on decline).
Last June, the administration was forced to issue a revised version of the report for 2003 that showed a higher
number of significant terrorist attacks and more than twice the number of fatalities than had been presented in
the original report two months earlier.
The snafu was embarrassing for the White House, which had used the original version to bolster President
Bush's election-campaign claim that the war in Iraq had advanced the fight against terrorism.
Last year, the number of incidents in 2003 was
undercounted, forcing a revision of the report,
"Patterns of Global Terrorism."
Finally, they discontinued the report, preventing anyone from acquiring the statistics that states that
The War on Terror has created more
terrorism than was previously in the world.
WASHINGTON - The State Department decided to
stop publishing an annual report on international
terrorism after the government's top terrorism center
concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in
2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the
publication covered.
But other current and former officials charged that
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office
ordered "Patterns of Global Terrorism" eliminated
several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics
raised disturbing questions about the Bush's
administration's frequent claims of progress in the
war against terrorism.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who was among the leading critics of last year's mix-up, reacted angrily to the
decision.
"This is the definitive report on the incidence of terrorism around the world. It should be unthinkable that there
would be an effort to withhold it - or any of the key data - from the public. The Bush administration should stop
playing politics with this critical report."
Now we must all remember what president bush has told us (over and over).
They
Hate our Freedoms!
I say nope.
We hate you.
AAC
[edit on 9-3-2008 by AnAbsoluteCreation]
