Panic As Policy

Last week’s arrests of 24 British citizens accused of planning massive suicide missions against U.S.-bound airplanes unleashed widespread chaos and delays in airports around the world. In the aftermath of the arrests, amid the ensuing code red alerts, panic levels across Europe and the U.S. spiked. Hours after the plot was revealed, President George W. Bush boasted that, "This country is safer than it was prior to 9/11." While the plot’s disruption may have averted a catastrophe, there is little evidence to support the president’s claim.

Bush's Iraq policy polls poorly, yet the president enjoys significant public support for his counterterrorism strategies. Talking "tough on terror" has proved to be popular with the public and last week’s disruption of the apparent suicide attacks will certainly play to this strength. Lost in the rhetoric is the fact that this plot was beaten by good old-fashioned police work, international cooperation and patience, rather than by fighting a “Global War on Terror.”

Despite Bush's insistence that the nation is safer thanks to the “war on terror,” there has been a significant increase in terrorist attacks past few years, and the death toll resulting from these attacks has also grown. In 2005 the State Department and National Counterterrorism Center counted worldwide 11,111 terrorist attacks, 14,602 people killed as a result of terrorism, and 74,087 people killed, injured, or kidnapped as a result of terrorism. In contrast, the center reported that in 2004 there were 3,192 terrorist attacks that left 28,433 people killed, injured or kidnapped.

And while the Bush administration’s open-ended “war on terror” wages on, the forgotten ringleader of al-Qaida— Osama bin Laden—remains at large. Widespread fighting continues in Iraq even after the U.S. succeeded in killing al-Qaida's top man there, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, months ago.

The British plot underscores the weakness in Bush's counterterrorism strategy of "Taking the fight to the terrorists abroad, so we don't have to face them here at home." Reports note that all of those arrested in connection to the plot were British citizens. Even though many of the suspects appear to be of Pakistani descent, this operation was launched from within the country, just like 9/11.

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