part of my point with this thread is to show that over time (say, if you ignore the giant peak in 2001), terrorism is on a decline. so any short term change is irrelevant.

besides, it has been on a decline. check #42.
and even if the number of acts of terror or the number of people killed by these incidents do increase, you need to take into consideration that USA is actively leading a war against terrorism. they declared islamic terrorists as the enemy and islamic countries as possible enemies. if that doesn't make you a target for terror, i dunno what will.

regarding that article: do you trust the official yearly report of the counterterrorism office of the US state of department, or do you trust an MSNBC journalist's report presented with no data, no background facts?

this smells like propaganda/misleading of the public in action!
my guess is this: they ended up with different stats than those of the bush administration because they operate with a different definition of terrorism. see, the US department of state has excluded all attacks on US military from the stats. logically, because those are actions of war. after all, they declared war on terrorists, and can't derive from that declaration. from the 2003 report:

"Most of the attacks that have occurred during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom do not meet the longstanding U.S. definition of international terrorism because they were directed at combatants, that is, U.S. and Coalition forces on duty. Attacks against noncombatants, that is, civilians and military personnel who at the time of the incident were unarmed and/or not on duty, are judged to be terrorist attacks."
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2003/33771.htm

terrorism is commonly defined as attacks on civilians, and definitely not wartime attacks. the NBC journalist operates with a whole other definition of terrorism, which goes against the official definition of the bush administration. that MSNBC article is propaganda - misleading the public with manipulated facts - and unfortunately most people will digest it raw.

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War is nothing but a campaign / Freedom is nothing but a brand name
-Promoe

The Impossible attracts me, because everything possible has been done and the world didn’t change.
-Sun Ra