The State Department’s latest Country Report on Terrorism (formerly called Patterns of Global Terrorism) confirms that the rate of terrorist incidents increased by nearly 22 percent from 2005 to 2006. This is the first year, the department has had matching data, since it shifted to a “much broader definition of terrorism,” Russ Travers, deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said at a press briefing April 30. Most of the increase stems from incidents in Iraq. (Currently, State offers only a text version of the report.)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. still “believes” in his mantra of “Accelerate Change or Lose”—and indicated the doctrinal changes it produced when he was Air Force Chief of Staff played a role in the service’s recent response to Iran’s aerial assault on Israel, he…