Is it really five years since September 11th?

Today's Indy estimates that the "War on Terror" has killed 72,000 civillians, but this is in all likelihood an underestimate. Even if accurate, that's more than 24 times as many people as died on September 11 and we're clearly a long way from being able to declare "victory." The last five years have witnessed terrorist attacks by groups broadly within the Islamist umbrella in Britain, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Pakistan, Russia, Spain and Saudi Arabia, to say nothing of the ongoing insurgency in Iraq, the Palestinian struggle and Israel's conflict with Hezbollah.

To be fair, the "War on Terror" has acheived one of its objectives. In 2001, Afghanistan was widely considered to be the epicentre of Islamic terrorism. That's no longer the case. Not because of the country's "liberation" - which is looking increasingly shaky nowdays anyway - but because of the chaos that resulted from the invasion of Iraq. The New Iraq is almost textbook Holy War territory: a foreign infidel force, invading and occupying a Muslim country. Toss in the occupiers' failure to maintain law and order and the odd war crime and you've got yourself a recruitment boom for Islamic terrorism and the perfect testing ground too boot.

The most depressing thing about this post is that in all likelihood I'll be able to reel off something comparably bleak in a year's time. I only hope things haven't got too much worse.