Terrorist Attacks Over Time

Larry Johnson shows a graph showing the number of terrorist attacks around the world as a function of year:

He proceeds to draw several conclusions from this. The most notable thing, of course, is the big spike in 2004 and 2005. But what does this actually show? If I did a similar plot of US military deaths per year from 1932 through 1945, there would be a big spike in deaths in 1942, and an even bigger one in 1943 which would continue through 1945. Furthermore, the number of deaths between 1942 and 1945 would be a significantly higher than the period between 1932 and 1935. Why? Well, maybe you've heard of World War II. So seeing that spike in 1942 wouldn't mean much more than the fact that the nation was at war in 1942 and wasn't earlier.

The spike in Johnson's graph in 2004 is surely due to the rise of al Qaeda operations in Iraq and the fact that the US has become engaged in active, regular military confrontation with the enemy, which it wasn't in earlier years. So, of course, the number of attacks (which is the enemy's way of fighting) is going to go up. All this proves is that we are at war with al Qaeda, something we already knew.

I'm not defending the administration. I'm just questioning how this graph shows its incompetence.