Statistical Analysis of Terrorism

Harperdog sends in a Miller-McCune story about Aaron Clauset, a researcher whose studies on the statistics and patterns that arise from large numbers of terrorist attacks could help governments better prepare for such conflicts and reduce uncertainty about their frequency and magnitude. Quoting: "After mapping tens of thousands of global terrorism incidents, he and his collaborators have discovered that terrorism can be described by what mathematicians call a power law. ... Using this power law relationship — called 'scale invariance' — the risk of a large attack can be estimated by studying the frequency of small attacks. It’s a calculation that turns the usual thinking about terrorism on its head. 'The conventional viewpoint has been there is "little terrorism" and "big terrorism," and little terrorism doesn't tell you anything about big terrorism,' Clauset explains. 'The power law says that's not true.' Massive acts of violence, like 9/11 or the devastating 1995 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, obey the same statistical rules as a small-scale IED attack that kills no one, Clauset's work suggests. 'The power law form gives you a very simple extrapolation rule for statistically connecting the two,' he says."

Re:Analyse this !

[jaxtherat]

Source?

Also, even if your stats are true, globally 609 dead per month from terrorism in comparison to the global total of 4,680,652 (from http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/pcwe [census.gov]) is negligeble. Considering the number of average monthly deaths from smoking alone is over 410000 (http://www.quitsmokingsupport.com/global.htm), I'm not sure how you can justify your statement of "not "quite small"...

Re:Analyse this !

[Anonymous Coward]

The source would seem to be http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/ [thereligionofpeace.com] which seems rather unreliable, for instance, it counts incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan which are war zones without a functioning criminal justice system and also counts incidents like "policemen got shot" where you generally have no idea if that's just normal criminal activity.

Re:How about...

[cold fjord]

How about we just stop killing and otherwise pissing off brown-skinned people?

You don't understand what is actually happening. Read Bin Laden's Letter to America [guardian.co.uk]. You will see that the actual demand isn't to be "left alone". Bin Laden's first demand is:

(Q2) As for the second question that we want to answer: What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?

(1) The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.

Bin Laden demands that we convert to Islam. He follows that up with demands that we ditch the Constitution, implement Islamic Sharia law, and do away with the separation of church and state. Among other things we would have to start killing homosexuals and adulterers, end the charging of interest on bank loans, put an end to drug use, pornography, and alcohol use, amputating the hands of thieves, and many other things. Dressing "immodestly" could get you whipped, which probably means burkas for women. Men would have to grow their beards out, or face a whipping. Crucifixion may be a required punishment for some crimes [timesonline.co.uk]. Afghanistan under the Taliban was almost ideal to them. If we do not agree to this we can expect that his minions will continue to try to kill us.

It is not especially significant that Bin Laden issued that demand to the United States, in time every country will have to deal with it. Subduing the United States is just one step along their path, and they understand that it could take 500 years. Many countries have been attacked. Stockholm had a suicide bomber this weekend [economist.com]. (Thankfully it appears that one of the Stockholm terrorist's bombs blew prematurely and he couldn't get about five more planted - otherwise it might have been another Madrid, London 7/7, Bali, or similar bombing.)

What Do the Terrorists Want? [A Caliphate] [danielpipes.org]

In nearly all cases, the jihadi terrorists have a patently self-evident ambition: to establish a world dominated by Muslims, Islam, and Islamic law, the Shari'a. Or, again to cite the Daily Telegraph, their "real project is the extension of the Islamic territory across the globe, and the establishment of a worldwide 'caliphate' founded on Shari'a law."

Terrorists openly declare this goal. The Islamists who assassinated Anwar el-Sadat in 1981 decorated their holding cages with banners proclaiming the "caliphate or death." A biography of one of the most influential Islamist thinkers of recent times and an influence on Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam declares that his life "revolved around a single goal, namely the establishment of Allah's Rule on earth" and restoring the caliphate.

Bin Laden himself spoke of ensuring that "the pious caliphate will start from Afghanistan." His chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, also dreamed of re-establishing the caliphate, for then, he wrote, "history would make a new turn, God willing, in the opposite direction against the empire of the United States and the world's Jewish government." Another Al-Qaeda leader, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, publishes a magazine that has declared "Due to the blessings of jihad, America's countdown has begun. It will declare defeat soon," to be followed by the creation of a caliphate.

Good background here [telegraph.co.uk].

Ignoring them won't make them go away. They have their own goals - nothing we do other than covert to Islam or fight them will dissuade them. Trying to buy them off or deal with them only delays the inevitable. We are in for a long struggle that will be far bloodier for us if we aren't clear about it. Al Qaeda has a f

Re:How about...

[cold fjord]

How many terrorist attacks of any sort have taken place in Sweden or The Netherlands?

Sweden had its first suicide bombing [economist.com] this last weekend. The Netherlands have seen a number of killings [economist.com], perhaps to some disturbing views: Dutch Muslim: 'Murder is normal' [jihadwatch.org].

How many middle class persons of any country - people two or three times above that country's poverty line - have parked an explosives-laden truck next to a building and blown it up?

The middle class are strongly represented among terrorists and leaders of terrorist organizations. Here are just a few examples, there are many more:

“Doctor’s Plot” Trial Examines Unexpected Source for UK Terrorist Attacks [jamestown.org]
MOHAMMED ATTA [discoverthenetworks.org] - 9/11 Ring Leader
Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri (MD) - Al-Qaeda's theological leader [infoplease.com]

It might be easier if this was all about poverty and social safety nets, but that isn't the case. Increasing numbers of young Muslims born and raised in the West are taking up arms and bombs to kill in the name of what they call Jihad. They are being radicalized in Western Europe.

The poverty/terror myth [jihadwatch.org]