By Demosophist

I'm doing some "post-coding" of the terrorist attack data that was so controversial just last week. Armed Liberal on Winds of Change sent me the data (provided by T.M. Lutas), and I've been reading the narratives in an attempt to put together some sort of measures of magnitude and quality of terrorist attacks, in addition to mere quantity. There are several interisting patterns, though the work is not yet done. First of all, far fewer civilians were killed in terrorist attacks over the entire globe during the entire year of 2004 than died on one day on 9/11. Furthermore the cummulative score in terms of the number of people killed or injured, the success or failure of the attack (whether its objectives were achieved) and a measure of the skill level, indicates that the total cummulative score for all attacks carried out in all countries during 2004 amounts to about two-thirds the score for 9/11. Ultimately I'll post more on what I think this means, but it's another way of gauging the success or failure of the War on Terror without looking at the trend (which is confounded by changes in method and reporting protocols) and without a measure or metric of the counter-terrorism effort. (How well are we doing compared to how well they're doing?)

But there's one rather ominous pattern that no one else in the blogosphere has discussed so far, with regard to terrorist activity in Kashmir. So far it appears (though I'll have to verify this impression empirically when the task is completed) that roughly half of the terrorist attacks in Kashmir were home invasions! [After a brief check on my "impression" it appears that it's more like 20% than 50%. Still pretty large though.] There are a few home invasions in Iraq, and a smattering in a few other places... but Kashmir is the world capital for home invasions. You're less secure in your home in the Beautiful Vale, than anywhere else on earch of comparable size and population density. And that suggests that Glenn Reynold's idea that Condi Rice start promoting the "right to bear" as a global or universal right to self-protection might actually get some traction in, of all places, India! It also suggests that this form of terrorist assault might be gestating in India, preparing infect other locales, which don't have the US's benighted traditions about arms-bearing and the right of self-protection. Think UK, for instance.

Update: The 50% estimate was much too large for the percentage of attacks in Kashmir that are home invasions. That's the problem with doing things impressionistically. The actual proportion is more like 20%.

Posted by: Demosophist at 03:55 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 436 words, total size 3 kb.