Full Version: Our war in Iraq has some strange mathematics
Somehow the numbers just don't add up. Apparently we are killing more Al Qaeda than our intelligence says are there. Putting aside the humor, doesn't it seem like an awful lot of human and resource investment, not to mention the horrific destruction generated by the occupation, to be tied down by so few foreign Jihadists?
http://www.progressivedailybeacon.com/more...ion&id=1585
-200 represents the lowest part of the range of Al Qaeda ghosts in 4 months. The high side would be -3200 if you want to crunch the numbers. I've used up my quota of quotes but the conclusion is obvious. We are not for the most part killing foreign jihadists but rather accumulating our body count against Sunnis and Shiites involved in a civil war.
Questions for discussion:
Why are we in Iraq? Try to make your answer relate to the numbers above.
Considering the small numbers actually killed, are we making the best use of our resources in engaging Al Qaeda and if not what would be a better course to follow?
Considering how few have tied down so many at so high a cost can you honestly say that our invasion and occupation of Iraq has hurt Al Qaeda and its terrorist agenda more than helped them? Either way you answer that question, please explain your reasons.
Do you think we are in fact principally the middleman in a civil conflict and if so do you think American interests are served by continuing to play that role? Why or why not?
http://www.progressivedailybeacon.com/more...ion&id=1585
QUOTE
Of that 25 million people, the best intelligence estimates -- both U.S. and international agencies -- place the number of Iraq's insurgent forces at approximately 20,000 combatants. Every -- not some, not a few, not most...every -- domestic and international intelligence analysis has determined that the 20,000-strong Iraq insurgency is comprised of approximately two-to-five percent of foreign fighters.
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The point is this: Two-to-five percent of 20,000 means that at any onetime, there have only ever been between 400 and 1,000 foreign fighters in Iraq. Realistically speaking, most of the foreigners fighting in Iraq probably migrated there on their own. That is to say, they're just a bunch of guys with hopes of finally getting their chance to take some shots at Americans. But, giving the Bush administration and the new military command, Petraeus et al, the benefit of the doubt, let's consider all 400 to 1,000 foreigners in Iraq to be part of al Qaeda.
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Mister Bush's latest 'surge' plan is into its fifth month. Again, giving the benefit of the doubt to the Republican President, let's only count four-months-worth of days. That'd be about 120 days. Everyday for those 120 days, the U.S. military command has claimed to have killed or captured between 10 and 30 members of so-called al Qaeda in Mesopotamia
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Okay, the high end of all estimates of the number of foreign fighters in Iraq was 1,000. So, 1,000 less 1,200 captured or killed to date, equals...huh...sigh...well, that equals minus 200 (1,000 - 1,200 = -200).
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The point is this: Two-to-five percent of 20,000 means that at any onetime, there have only ever been between 400 and 1,000 foreign fighters in Iraq. Realistically speaking, most of the foreigners fighting in Iraq probably migrated there on their own. That is to say, they're just a bunch of guys with hopes of finally getting their chance to take some shots at Americans. But, giving the Bush administration and the new military command, Petraeus et al, the benefit of the doubt, let's consider all 400 to 1,000 foreigners in Iraq to be part of al Qaeda.
-----------------------------------------------------
Mister Bush's latest 'surge' plan is into its fifth month. Again, giving the benefit of the doubt to the Republican President, let's only count four-months-worth of days. That'd be about 120 days. Everyday for those 120 days, the U.S. military command has claimed to have killed or captured between 10 and 30 members of so-called al Qaeda in Mesopotamia
-----------------------------------------------------
Okay, the high end of all estimates of the number of foreign fighters in Iraq was 1,000. So, 1,000 less 1,200 captured or killed to date, equals...huh...sigh...well, that equals minus 200 (1,000 - 1,200 = -200).
-200 represents the lowest part of the range of Al Qaeda ghosts in 4 months. The high side would be -3200 if you want to crunch the numbers. I've used up my quota of quotes but the conclusion is obvious. We are not for the most part killing foreign jihadists but rather accumulating our body count against Sunnis and Shiites involved in a civil war.
Questions for discussion:
Why are we in Iraq? Try to make your answer relate to the numbers above.
Considering the small numbers actually killed, are we making the best use of our resources in engaging Al Qaeda and if not what would be a better course to follow?
Considering how few have tied down so many at so high a cost can you honestly say that our invasion and occupation of Iraq has hurt Al Qaeda and its terrorist agenda more than helped them? Either way you answer that question, please explain your reasons.
Do you think we are in fact principally the middleman in a civil conflict and if so do you think American interests are served by continuing to play that role? Why or why not?
It's sad that this thread gets no response at all from those who support the US' actions in the Middle East. It speaks volumes. Much like how the New York Times failed to mention the British memo which clearly stated the evidence against Iraq was "being fixed". Nope. No mention of that. Shameful, yet very typical of the average American.
Why are we in Iraq? Try to make your answer relate to the numbers above.
Considering the small numbers actually killed, are we making the best use of our resources in engaging Al Qaeda and if not what would be a better course to follow?
Do you think we are in fact principally the middleman in a civil conflict and if so do you think American interests are served by continuing to play that role? Why or why not?
What's crazier than these numbers? The rationale behind them.
The waning GOP war supporters (their names are "Joe" and "Lieberman") tend to focus on Al Qaeda as the reason we are in Iraq... so we can fight them over their instead of over here. (Because no Shia militias are or ever were trying to fight us in America...)
Now first of all, that logic assumes that 400-1000 terrorists can't dribble a basketball and talk at the same time. They can't attack us over there THEN attack us over here or do both simultaneously. Seems to me that Iraq has become a training ground for AQ to practice IED explosive manufacturing and other ventures in military design. How wonderful. Can't wait until they get to Manhattan.
Maybe I'm wrong. But somehow I don't buy the logic that 400-1000 anti-US terrorists are so caught up fighting us in Iraq that they have been rendered effectively harmless. I mean multi-tasking and division of labor are not biologically western abilities.
Now, getting back to the numbers, what's more striking is that, putting aside our responsibilities in mediating a civil war, we are in Iraq, spending billions of dollars almost daily, to catch 400 hundred people!!?
One.) Have we not recognized how hard is it to catch small numbers of people? We haven't caught Osama bin laden yet, and he has a price tag on his head that amounts to a sizable portion of the Pakistani GDP. How many Nazis escaped and were never caught? How many Taliban leaders became innocent civilians overnight? How many dictators whose faces were world famous escaped to asylum in Saudi Arabia and other middle eastern countries? So how are we going to catch 400 individuals nestled in civilian homes throughout Western Iraq? It's like at camp, where someone wallet is thieved and the counselors have to rummage through every single camper's trunk to find it, while the culprit just buries the wallet under a tree until the search is over. And in the mean time, everyone cries. What a terrific metaphor.
Two.) So let me get this straight. We are spending billions of dollars so that American soldiers can sit behind a green zone and play playstation, while their buddies patrol Baghdad markets set to explode momentarily, and the pentagon spends 80 billion dollars acquiring F-22s for the sole purpose of one-upping all the F-16s we sold to third world nations, while the road to and from the airport can't even be secured, and John McCain can't even go shopping without a helicopter escort, and American approval worldwide is at a new low, and Iraqis are fleeing their nation by the hundreds of thousands, and the entire middle east has been redrawn into such an instable shape that Israel is now surrounded by democratically elected quasi-governments that don't recognize its existence...
All because the gravest threat to our national security is 400-1,000 Iraqi transplants?
(F-22 stats: http://www.ciponline.org/oldiprarms.htm)
I'm sorry, on some level the Iraq war contains absolutely no rational benefits to our national interest. The proportion of threat-contained:cost is totally out of whack. It is obvious to me, as it should be anyone else, that we went into the nation for one reason, and are stuck there for a whole host of other reasons, many of which don't add up to sound US foreign policy.
And the same people who are totally offended by the idea that the federal government should help homeowners reconstruct their New Orleans houses seem to be OK with the utterly unimaginable amount of wasted capital we are burning in Iraq. Maybe we should pass the responsibility of waging war off to a private enterprise that would at least be theoretically interested in saving capital and getting the job done within a reasonable number of years. I nominate my plumber as the next White House secretary of defense.
Frankly, I don't know what we do about those 400-1,000 people. My guess is that tightened security at our borders -- maybe we should help Mexico tighten its airport security -- intelligence, and nuclear disarmament would be our best hope. But going after 400 people with the entire might of the US army is something only Elmer Fudd would try. And apparently, it doesn't work.
Brah, I am so tired of anti-US sentiment of this sort. The average American is against this war by over 60 percent in the latest polls. Bush is and has been for years, in the 30s. His only lasting achievement is that some people still conceive of the Average American as a Bush-luvin' heartlander.
Considering the small numbers actually killed, are we making the best use of our resources in engaging Al Qaeda and if not what would be a better course to follow?
Do you think we are in fact principally the middleman in a civil conflict and if so do you think American interests are served by continuing to play that role? Why or why not?
What's crazier than these numbers? The rationale behind them.
The waning GOP war supporters (their names are "Joe" and "Lieberman") tend to focus on Al Qaeda as the reason we are in Iraq... so we can fight them over their instead of over here. (Because no Shia militias are or ever were trying to fight us in America...)
Now first of all, that logic assumes that 400-1000 terrorists can't dribble a basketball and talk at the same time. They can't attack us over there THEN attack us over here or do both simultaneously. Seems to me that Iraq has become a training ground for AQ to practice IED explosive manufacturing and other ventures in military design. How wonderful. Can't wait until they get to Manhattan.
Maybe I'm wrong. But somehow I don't buy the logic that 400-1000 anti-US terrorists are so caught up fighting us in Iraq that they have been rendered effectively harmless. I mean multi-tasking and division of labor are not biologically western abilities.
Now, getting back to the numbers, what's more striking is that, putting aside our responsibilities in mediating a civil war, we are in Iraq, spending billions of dollars almost daily, to catch 400 hundred people!!?
One.) Have we not recognized how hard is it to catch small numbers of people? We haven't caught Osama bin laden yet, and he has a price tag on his head that amounts to a sizable portion of the Pakistani GDP. How many Nazis escaped and were never caught? How many Taliban leaders became innocent civilians overnight? How many dictators whose faces were world famous escaped to asylum in Saudi Arabia and other middle eastern countries? So how are we going to catch 400 individuals nestled in civilian homes throughout Western Iraq? It's like at camp, where someone wallet is thieved and the counselors have to rummage through every single camper's trunk to find it, while the culprit just buries the wallet under a tree until the search is over. And in the mean time, everyone cries. What a terrific metaphor.
Two.) So let me get this straight. We are spending billions of dollars so that American soldiers can sit behind a green zone and play playstation, while their buddies patrol Baghdad markets set to explode momentarily, and the pentagon spends 80 billion dollars acquiring F-22s for the sole purpose of one-upping all the F-16s we sold to third world nations, while the road to and from the airport can't even be secured, and John McCain can't even go shopping without a helicopter escort, and American approval worldwide is at a new low, and Iraqis are fleeing their nation by the hundreds of thousands, and the entire middle east has been redrawn into such an instable shape that Israel is now surrounded by democratically elected quasi-governments that don't recognize its existence...
All because the gravest threat to our national security is 400-1,000 Iraqi transplants?
(F-22 stats: http://www.ciponline.org/oldiprarms.htm)
I'm sorry, on some level the Iraq war contains absolutely no rational benefits to our national interest. The proportion of threat-contained:cost is totally out of whack. It is obvious to me, as it should be anyone else, that we went into the nation for one reason, and are stuck there for a whole host of other reasons, many of which don't add up to sound US foreign policy.
And the same people who are totally offended by the idea that the federal government should help homeowners reconstruct their New Orleans houses seem to be OK with the utterly unimaginable amount of wasted capital we are burning in Iraq. Maybe we should pass the responsibility of waging war off to a private enterprise that would at least be theoretically interested in saving capital and getting the job done within a reasonable number of years. I nominate my plumber as the next White House secretary of defense.
Frankly, I don't know what we do about those 400-1,000 people. My guess is that tightened security at our borders -- maybe we should help Mexico tighten its airport security -- intelligence, and nuclear disarmament would be our best hope. But going after 400 people with the entire might of the US army is something only Elmer Fudd would try. And apparently, it doesn't work.
QUOTE
Shameful, yet very typical of the average American.
Brah, I am so tired of anti-US sentiment of this sort. The average American is against this war by over 60 percent in the latest polls. Bush is and has been for years, in the 30s. His only lasting achievement is that some people still conceive of the Average American as a Bush-luvin' heartlander.
Some great comments. I'm glad this thread was rescued from hospice so to speak. 
I think the critical link points to a kind of 'Emperors New Clothes' mentality associated with the driving ideology and perhaps narrow self-interest that is sustaining this war. If one simply addresses the matter in terms of practicality and broad American foreign and domestic policy interests, leaving out left-right considerations, this war makes absolutely no sense from just about any angle and the arguments for them are simply laughable.
Strange how typical just such a premise of multi-tasking disability is when arguments for the war are made.
Let me take a crack at my questions.
Questions for discussion:
Why are we in Iraq? Try to make your answer relate to the numbers above.
My impression is we first invaded Iraq for a number of overlapping reasons and unlike more cynical folks I think there was at least some idealism that came with the package.
1. WMDs
2. Terrorist connections.
3. Wrapping up unfinished business from the previous Gulf War.
4. Securing our oil interests.
5. Creating an Israel friendly Arab world.
6. Providing a ME model and launching point for further influencing regional politics in a proAmerican, anti-terrorist, hopefully democratic direction. Iran was a country of particular interest in this regard.
7. Terminal naivete + arrogance.
Having had virtually all our reasons collapse before our very eyes we remain there because to leave means defeat and defeat particularly in the eyes of Al Qaeda and Iran, despite the fact that both elements have good reasons to want us to hang around and continue to bleed. We remain also because of oil, Iraqi oil. The "win" argument appears to be the most political viable. You just call the timetable put forward by the democrats the announcement of the surrender date and you have wimped out the democrats and can continue your multibullion dollar campaign against a handful of terrorists and somehow not acknowledge it.
The last stand that I can find by anyone with a moral sensibility is simply pointing out AQ atrocities, as a good military reporter and prowar advocate Michael Yon is desperately trying to get out. But then the question is who invited them in and how much viability do they have once their excuse for being there is removed by our withdrawal.
Considering the small numbers actually killed, are we making the best use of our resources in engaging Al Qaeda and if not what would be a better course to follow?
No and I think there are two obvious better courses.
1. Switch to a policing mode rather than a military one. That's how we caught most of the supposed Al Qaeda folks that are presently residing in Guantanamo I understand. Khalid Sheik Muhammed, the mastermind of 911, would be an example. It would be far more cost effective and would reduce the negative collateral fallout.
2. Imagine if we had spent the major portion of that half trillion we have thrown away in Iraq on developing domestic energy solutions. We would be well on our way to being energy independent and no longer having a policy of oil dependency dictating so many of our actions in that region.
Considering how few have tied down so many at so high a cost can you honestly say that our invasion and occupation of Iraq has hurt Al Qaeda and its terrorist agenda more than helped them? Either way you answer that question, please explain your reasons.
Unquestionably we have helped Al Qaeda. We have offered them a training ground nearby, thrown lots of resources into the area which they can then skim off and we have removed the power of Saddam Hussein and his Bathist party who had kept Iraq virtually Al Qaeda free. And of course our presence has supplied many additional recruits and enhanced jihadism all over the globe. We've encouraged jihadists enormously by demonstrating at how little cost they can bleed this country for 100s of billions.
Muslims don't like Al Qaeda for the most part but they do like the way they stand up to the colonialist west and so our presence continues to be a necessity to their success and franchising McDonald's style all over the world. As to the desire for a continued American presence in Iraq we have an Al Qaeda letter testifying to that fact.
Do you think we are in fact principally the middleman in a civil conflict and if so do you think American interests are served by continuing to play that role? Why or why not?
Yeah, we've been caught in the middle of a sectarian conflict and I see no advantage to our remaining stuck there. I think we should do everything we can to bring the UN directly into the picture, particularly with the participation of other Muslim countries. Unilaterally we appear to evoke little trust as most Iraqis think we are in there for the oil according to polls and so we need a time table to get out and at least not make us the default solver of a problem that everyone knows we catalyzed.
I think the critical link points to a kind of 'Emperors New Clothes' mentality associated with the driving ideology and perhaps narrow self-interest that is sustaining this war. If one simply addresses the matter in terms of practicality and broad American foreign and domestic policy interests, leaving out left-right considerations, this war makes absolutely no sense from just about any angle and the arguments for them are simply laughable. QUOTE
dyt. Maybe I'm wrong. But somehow I don't buy the logic that 400-1000 anti-US terrorists are so caught up fighting us in Iraq that they have been rendered effectively harmless. I mean multi-tasking and division of labor are not biologically western abilities.
Strange how typical just such a premise of multi-tasking disability is when arguments for the war are made.
Let me take a crack at my questions.
Questions for discussion:
Why are we in Iraq? Try to make your answer relate to the numbers above.
My impression is we first invaded Iraq for a number of overlapping reasons and unlike more cynical folks I think there was at least some idealism that came with the package.
1. WMDs
2. Terrorist connections.
3. Wrapping up unfinished business from the previous Gulf War.
4. Securing our oil interests.
5. Creating an Israel friendly Arab world.
6. Providing a ME model and launching point for further influencing regional politics in a proAmerican, anti-terrorist, hopefully democratic direction. Iran was a country of particular interest in this regard.
7. Terminal naivete + arrogance.
Having had virtually all our reasons collapse before our very eyes we remain there because to leave means defeat and defeat particularly in the eyes of Al Qaeda and Iran, despite the fact that both elements have good reasons to want us to hang around and continue to bleed. We remain also because of oil, Iraqi oil. The "win" argument appears to be the most political viable. You just call the timetable put forward by the democrats the announcement of the surrender date and you have wimped out the democrats and can continue your multibullion dollar campaign against a handful of terrorists and somehow not acknowledge it.
The last stand that I can find by anyone with a moral sensibility is simply pointing out AQ atrocities, as a good military reporter and prowar advocate Michael Yon is desperately trying to get out. But then the question is who invited them in and how much viability do they have once their excuse for being there is removed by our withdrawal.
Considering the small numbers actually killed, are we making the best use of our resources in engaging Al Qaeda and if not what would be a better course to follow?
No and I think there are two obvious better courses.
1. Switch to a policing mode rather than a military one. That's how we caught most of the supposed Al Qaeda folks that are presently residing in Guantanamo I understand. Khalid Sheik Muhammed, the mastermind of 911, would be an example. It would be far more cost effective and would reduce the negative collateral fallout.
2. Imagine if we had spent the major portion of that half trillion we have thrown away in Iraq on developing domestic energy solutions. We would be well on our way to being energy independent and no longer having a policy of oil dependency dictating so many of our actions in that region.
Considering how few have tied down so many at so high a cost can you honestly say that our invasion and occupation of Iraq has hurt Al Qaeda and its terrorist agenda more than helped them? Either way you answer that question, please explain your reasons.
Unquestionably we have helped Al Qaeda. We have offered them a training ground nearby, thrown lots of resources into the area which they can then skim off and we have removed the power of Saddam Hussein and his Bathist party who had kept Iraq virtually Al Qaeda free. And of course our presence has supplied many additional recruits and enhanced jihadism all over the globe. We've encouraged jihadists enormously by demonstrating at how little cost they can bleed this country for 100s of billions.
Muslims don't like Al Qaeda for the most part but they do like the way they stand up to the colonialist west and so our presence continues to be a necessity to their success and franchising McDonald's style all over the world. As to the desire for a continued American presence in Iraq we have an Al Qaeda letter testifying to that fact.
Do you think we are in fact principally the middleman in a civil conflict and if so do you think American interests are served by continuing to play that role? Why or why not?
Yeah, we've been caught in the middle of a sectarian conflict and I see no advantage to our remaining stuck there. I think we should do everything we can to bring the UN directly into the picture, particularly with the participation of other Muslim countries. Unilaterally we appear to evoke little trust as most Iraqis think we are in there for the oil according to polls and so we need a time table to get out and at least not make us the default solver of a problem that everyone knows we catalyzed.
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