Depends on What Your Definition of "Is" Is

The Island of Balta has some news that ought to have us all raising a glass of Victory Gin:

(from CNN) International acts of terror in 2003 were the fewest in more than 30 years, according to the U.S. State Department's annual terrorism report released Thursday.

The Patterns of Global Terrorism report said 190 acts of international terrorism occurred in 2003 -- a slight drop from 198 attacks the previous year and the lowest total since 1969.

The figure marked a 45 percent decrease in attacks since 2001, but it did not include most of the attacks in Iraq, because attacks against combatants did not fit the U.S. definition of international terrorism. (my italics)

As Balta points out, this should poke a nice-sized hole in the so-called flypaper strategy that was trotted out like a mid-season television replacement series when the ostensible reason(s) (WMD, liberation ideology) for the Iraq invasion flopped. And, as he also points out, there's no mention of whether or not Israeli actions against Palestinians make the list. Probably not. About the only useful thing about the State Department's report is that perhaps you could burn a paper copy for kindling if you needed to build a fire.

But if you're with the Bush team, don't bother with this report. There are plenty of paper copies of the Constitution that they apparently don't bother with anyway. Set a match to em.