Is it just me or has the news gotten very repetitious lately? Is it just me or has the news gotten very repetitious lately? Is it just me or has the news gotten very repetitious lately? Okay, I’ll stop. I actually thought about doing that through half of the story.

The US State Department has released their annual Country Reports on Terrorism, which confirmed what we’ve all known for years – that the “War on Terror” is counterproductive. The total number of people killed around the world by terrorism rose by 40 percent last year. Fatalities went from 14,618 in 2005 to 20,498 in 2006. The bulk of those deaths (13,000) occurred in Iraq.

The number of “terror” attacks also jumped to 749 from 491 in Afghanistan, where US, Nato and other forces are fighting a revived Taliban offensive more than five years after US-led forces ousted the Taliban from power.

The figures did not include attacks on US troops in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The report listed the five countries that the US describes as state sponsors of terrorism - Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. Venezuela was not added to the list but remained the only other country deemed as “not fully co-operating” with the global fight against terrorism.

It singled out Iran as the “most active state sponsor” of terror, accusing Iran of helping plan and foment attacks to destabilise Iraq and derail Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.

So, the Iraq War is responsible for more terror, yet countries which have nothing to do with the war are to blame? If the US-led war is causing more terrorism then wouldn’t it follow that the United States is really the largest supporter of terrorism worldwide? Secondly, if these other states are really sponsoring terrorism then why doesn’t the United States simply take it up with an international authority like the ICC or ICJ? Well, because there’s absolutely no evidence of it, and because we’d be tried for the very crimes we accuse them of and possibly forced to pay reparations.

The report further contradicts its claim that this rise in terror is state sponsored by saying the insurgency is not tied to any state. “A deeper trend is the shift in the nature of terrorism, from traditional international terrorism of the late 20th century into a new form of transnational non-state warfare that resembles a form of global insurgency.”

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