Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Webb's Response to the State of the Union Address
In Senator Webb’s response to the State of the Union Address, Webb states that “Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary, that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism, and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable in the most violent and turbulent corner of the world.” While it is obvious that Webb is against the war, there are still plans for more troops to be sent to Iraq. Do you feel this is a wise move to send more troops or a great opportunity to make America more vulnerable?
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17 comments:
I think that sending in the troops is an extremely bad move for the country, both because of the good of the country and because of the bad feelings a lot of people are going to have for those responsible.
I think that the best thing right now is to bring the troops home, or at least not send any more in.
The United States could only become more vulnerable by sending troops out of the country, regardless of where they are sent. It leaves our country somewhat defenseless. in the case of another terrorist attack (which is said to be coming sooner or later) or a severe natural disaster in which our troops are needed at home, we will have essentially no one to provide support during those times.
I'd tend to disagree there, Sam. There are cases in which this doesn't happen, but usually no more than half of the active duty Army and Marine Corps combat forces are deployed at once. (Usually much less for the Navy and Air Force.) Right now the standard for combat units is a rotation of 12 months deployed, 12 months not, repeat. They were trying to switch to 18 months off when I got out.) Plus, you have the coast guard, reserves, inactive reserves, National Guard (who tend to be the only ones used for stateside operations anyway), and military jobs that rarely or never get deployed, military police who have to secure bases year-round, etcetera (all these options either don't get deployed or do so less than the aforementioned group).
Conversely, I think while the US may never be 100% safe, we can decrease our own vulnerability to terrorist attacks by actions oversees. The current plan of denying Al-Qaeda favorable territory may or may not work, but for the short term it seems terrorist organizations are focusing their energy in trying to push another superpower out of the middle east (as Bin Laden's perceived victory over the Soviet Union is likely his crowning achievement). In my opinion, these efforts hurt Americans with much less efficiency, (far more than a dozen Al-Qaeda were killed in their second benchmark of 3,000 dead Americans), and thus "taking the fight to the enemy" has worked to some degree.
So many men and women have been sent to fight the war in iraq, and i believe enough is enough already. i believe it is not a wise move to send more troops in. sending more troops in iraq makes america vulnerable. If another country were to attack the U.S we would be caught off guard. all our troops are fighting an unnecessary war. if we get attacked how are we going to protecct america. America needs to be careful and think about the first terroist attack. Nicole Santiago
We have a lot of troops at home right now. I am one. We are also uping the troops (soldiers and Marines) to more than 92,000 more. This is a great thing. The troop surge will do some good. It is hard to know how much until you do it. But it has been well thought out and comes with much applause in the military. War is always changing and we need congress and America to be ready to react swiftly and allow our soldiers to change tactics. This time it calls for a troop increase. There cannot be any stipulations to how we win the war. That means, no deadlines for withdrawal or limitations on number of troops. Key word there is "dead".
What do any of you who disagree with the troop increase propose?
Are we to leave Iraq?
If we do, who do you think is going to run right into it?
Iran will. They are an extremely dangerous country and are continually defying the United Nations requests and constantly make a mockery of themselves. They are developing nuclear weapons. And one month ago their president, Ahmadinejad held a International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust. Denying the Holocaust? Come on.
We cannot leave Iraq until they can fully govern themselves. It is good for Americans in the long run and it is the right thing to do. This has always been a tough world. So toughen up and don't give up. That's the American way.
Dan, you are only including part of the information in your argument. What you say is logically correct if nothing else happened. But outside of what you have said, there is overwhelming evidence that there have been many more terrorists recruited than have been killed. Similarly, the evidence is clear that attacks by al-Qaeda worldwide have greatly increased in recent years.
Ryan, the 92,000 increase will be over time and depends, of course, upon recruiting, which has been in decline in recent years. Iran already has an influence in Iraq, since they have a direct line to al-Sadr and his official government representative Maliki.
ryan and dan, after reading what youve said i can see where youre coming from. i agree in some cases after thinking about it...i guess keeping our troops here cant really do much good against international terrorists.
the question is how much good is being done by sending them away, and whether the loss of life is worth it. i will admit i dont have the experience of being deployed overseas and i dont understand the area as much as i should. it just seems that the middle eastern region has been a volatile area for thousands of years, and for us to believe that we can fix it any time soon seems ridiculous.
just to clarify, i have the utmost respect for our troops and i am truly thankful for everything they do to allow us our freedom.
While I disagree with the war, I do respect the troops who fight for our freedom. But this problem doesn't seem possible to solve 100% becaue the Shi'ites, Sunnis, and Kurds have been fighting for too a long time. It's almost impossible for us to come in and try to make things right. Not only do they hate eachother almost all of them hate us too. If there was a straight forward answer I'm sure we would of done it by now, but I do think that bringing more troops over there isn't the best idea.
"there is overwhelming evidence that there have been many more terrorists recruited than have been killed. Similarly, the evidence is clear that attacks by al-Qaeda worldwide have greatly increased in recent years."
I'm gonna have to call truth by declaration on that one. I'd like to see it if you can produce it... but I seriously doubt there's any way to prove how many terrorists are being recruited, how the war is affecting their recruitment, or even how many of the thousands upon thousands of people we killed were bona-fide terrorists. (If I had to wager guesses, we've done their organization some harm, but nothing short of full-scale invasions of several more countries is going to finish off all of them.) Similarly, attacks worldwide did increase at the start of the war, (conjecture has called them attempts to push other countries OUT of the war they wanted to push us INTO) but I believe they are way down now, at least in overall combined magnitude, in what I would call "recent years." Also, not to be overly callous, but American policy makers would probably breathe a sigh of relief if terrorist attacks increased worldwide at the expense of all successful attacks in the US. We aren't the world police, afterall.
>I'm gonna have to call truth by declaration on that one.
Nice try for extra credit, Dan, but I'm a trained scientist and I avoid making claims that I can't back up.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/26/AR2005042601623.html
"Overall, the number of what the U.S. government considers "significant" attacks grew to about 655 last year, up from the record of around 175 in 2003..."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/07/05/terror.site/index.html?section=cnn_latest
"The U.S. government Tuesday increased its 2004 estimate of terrorist attacks worldwide to 3,192 from 651 after changing to a broader definition of terrorism."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/28/AR2006042802181_pf.html
"The number of terrorist attacks worldwide increased nearly fourfold in 2005 to 11,111, with strikes in Iraq accounting for 30 percent of the total, according to statistics released by U.S. counterterrorism officials yesterday."
Also from this same article:
"On the positive side, the report noted that al-Qaeda's leadership is "scattered and on the run," with its finances and logistics disrupted and its organizational networks increasingly decentralized."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3756650.stm
"It says that al-Qaeda was forced to disperse after the invasion of Afghanistan but remained "a viable and effective 'network of networks' ". "It is probable that recruitment generally has accelerated on account of Iraq," the report concludes."
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20040525-093748-8557r.htm
"Far from being crippled by the U.S.-led war on terror, al Qaeda has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling its ranks, a report said yesterday."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0718/dailyUpdate.html
Two new studies, one by the Saudi government and one by an Israeli think tank, which "painstakingly analyzed the backgrounds and motivations of hundreds of foreigners entering Iraq to fight the United States" have found that most foreign fighters in Iraq were not terrorists before the Iraq war, but were "radicalized by the war itself."
You could also just do a search for "al qaeda recruiting" and you'll see article after article about stepped up al-Qaeda recruiting activities worldwide.
>but I seriously doubt there's any way to prove how many terrorists are being recruited
There's no way to come up with an exact number, but you can certainly come to some kind of conclusion based on evidence. If you want to know the intricacies of how this is done, I suggest some classes in advanced statistical analysis.
>at least in overall combined magnitude
They are down in magnitude, but how could they not be after 9/11, the highest magnitude terrorist attack in history? More people are dying overall, though, at that's what matters.
>Also, not to be overly callous, but American policy makers would probably breathe a sigh of relief if terrorist attacks increased worldwide at the expense of all successful attacks in the US.
You are probably right, but to save ourselves at the expense of our allies would not only be immoral, it would also be illegal under numerous parts of our law, particularly if those increased attacks were caused by our actions (which they may or may not be).
Articles 1,2,3- Articles 1 and 2 were about the 2003-2004 stats, (not necessarily recent enough to talk about any affects Iraq may have had), which only article 2 has the balance to note that the US changed to a broader definition of what was counted. By definition broadening the definition will always yield a higher number. They also do not mention the status of Al-Qaeda, just terrorists in general (there's been lots of terrorist activity in southeast Asia and Chechenya/Russia long before this that we certainly aren't in Iraq to stop). Also, as the third article points out the majority of the deaths involved in the attacks are within Iraq! (And Afghanistan added it's fair share to the numbers)... we certainly didn't invade Iraq or Afghanistan to reduce terrorists attacks THERE, we "took the fight to the enemy" so that any attacks that did take place happened far away from American civilians, and with the US military nearby to respond. The third article is probably more on my side if you analyze the data; aside from the positive remark you posted it also suggests that Al-Qaeda "is not the organization it was" and that Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri are "frustrated" with their lack of international operability. Most importantly, it included the figure when you look at the world outside of Iraq- DOWN from 2004-2005. These statistics may have some use in a different argument, but for trying to prove your claim that "the evidence is clear that attacks by al-Qaeda worldwide have greatly increased" I'd say even if you crossed out "by Al-Qaeda" and "greatly" you'd still have just "foggy" evidence. Ergo, non-sequitur.
4th article- "It is probable" "according to a report from leading Western think-tank"... ... ... I can't believe that was it. No empirical evidence of any sort to back that up; what I just quoted were the only words used to try to convince me. No numbers, not even a description of who is in this "think tank" or what it is called. I'm guessing they think the words "think tank" will impress British readers... argument from authority on BBC.
5th article- "LONDON-..." "the study by the independent think tank said" Hmm, this sounds a lot like the last one.
"Up to 1,000 foreign Islamic fighters have infiltrated Iraqi territory, where they are cooperating with Iraqi insurgents."
This isn't the meat of my problem with this article, but it leads me to believe they really don't have the best idea of what they're talking about. I of course wouldn't be able to disclose an actual statistic if I had actually tried "counting" this, but I would be SHOCKED if the number was "up to 1000" and not "way way more than 1000". For example the last article, 300 all at one time and all from Saudi Arabia, a relatively minor contributor for the size of that group. These guys have not done their homework.
"The IISS said its estimate of 18,000 al Qaeda fighters was based on intelligence estimates that the group trained at least 20,000 fighters in its camps in Afghanistan before the United States and its allies ousted the Taliban regime. In the ensuing war on terror, some 2,000 al Qaeda fighters have been killed or captured, according to the survey."
Here's the real problem. Misunderstanding the nature of statistics. A minus B does not equal C if A is estimated and there are still D, E, F, G, H, and I to subtract before you get the real C. As there was no citation, I have no idea where they got the 2,000 figure from, but even Al-Qaeda claims they've lost 4,000. Knowing firsthand the claims they usually make in reference to the real truth, (IE, a helicopter crashes and they claim they shot it down using an 82mm mortar, an essentially impossible feat) I'd be inclined to multiply that by five and call it a day, but I'll play the think tank's little game instead. Let's just assume the 2,000 is the real number of confirmed dead Al-Qaeda, which would be BDA (battle damage assesment) on known targets. Firstly, Kills are rare. We arrest people in Iraq far more often than we shoot anyone, and when we do shoot someone, the general rule of combat is you wind up with many more wounded than killed. This might result in more prisoners, wounded enemies who laid low and avoided detection, and those who are carried away by their cohorts, which brings me to my next point- BDA is rare. Often getting BDA is harder than it sounds because we always use the largest and longest-range weapon at our disposal, and sometimes this means leaving absolutely nothing that can be identified as a body. Even when there is a body, Al-Qaeda standard operating procedure in many areas is to carry your dead allies away so the Americans won't capture the bodies (for religious or political reasons, I'm not sure). In areas that are close to national borders, this becomes extremely common as the enemy has a "safe zone" they can flee to that we aren't allowed to enter, or even fire into. Lastly, firing at someone whose name you know is EXTREMELY rare, as is identifying remains to a specific person so you can draw a confirmed link to Al-Qaeda. As a result, BDA is by far most often just considered ACM, or anti-coalition militia, a blanket name that covers all anti-coalition groups.
As a result of all that, I am certain the actual number is far far greater than what anyone could ever really confirm.
The first source I've that specified this claimed between 127,000 and 238,000 Iraqis have been killed by the US military. It's from an anti-war POV so it could be exaggerated, but that's not a number I intend to argue over, as all can agree it's a huge number. Personally, a statistic that would convince me easier would be one that takes this larger number and works downward, as the previous method offered no balanced way to add the other Al-Qaeda casualties. To support the article's claim starting with this number, you'd have to assume (for example) that we kill half as many innocents as we do enemy combatants, and at the same time that Al-Qaeda makes up only 1 66th of the enemy combatants in Iraq. Both of those assumptions would be extremely hard for me to swallow.
6th article- Well, at least this one had some empirical evidence:
"interrogations of nearly 300 Saudis captured while trying to sneak into Iraq" Simply unreliable. Criminal survey statistics are tricky enough, but TERRORIST surveys? They have a vested interest in giving the anti-war crowd what they want to hear; that's how insurgencies are won, the occupying force loses it's resolve.
"show that most were heeding the calls from clerics and activists to drive infidels out of Arab land" Doesn't even suggest anything, they just sugar-coated a description of Osama Bin Laden. Al-Qaeda has been using the "drive out the infidels/zionists" technique of recruitment long before Iraq. A few ships or marine barracks was enough for them to see a need to "drive us out," especially considering past naval support of Israeli military... and then there's the fact that Israelis can be considered infidels to, and they've been there quite a while.
"A separate Israeli analysis [by Global Research in International Affairs] of 154 foreign fighters compiled by a leading terrorism researcher found that despite the presence of some senior Al Qaeda operatives who are organizing the volunteers, 'the vast majority of [non-Iraqi] Arabs killed in Iraq have never taken part in any terrorist activity prior to their arrival in Iraq."
Again, terrorist honesty could come into play here, but primarily there's a false dichotomy. The missing middle ground is: they were going to be a terrorist anyway, but their first (reported) job as Al-Qaeda was to fight in Iraq. Just because it's their first gig doesn't mean they only became terrorists because of Iraq.
Also, as the evidence given by articles 4,5, and 6 is clearly open to debate, I don't consider it "overwhelming." Either a non-sequitur or just exaggeration, I suppose.
I think you are wrong to suggest that comparing the stats from 2003 to those of 2004 isn't enough lag time to include the effects of Iraq. Why would someone enraged by the war wait several years to become a terrorist? I don't think it works that way. I read in more than one article about the change in the definition, but my understanding is that change doesn't account for all (or even most) of the increase. I'm not sure the al-Qaeda limitation you suggest is valid. If someone attacked the government of a country (or any other target) because of that country's support for the war and that group wasn't part of al-Qaeda, that would still be an increase in terrorism because of the war. And I'm not necessarily saying all of the increase in terrorism is directly attributable to the war -- I don't think we have the data to support that, but it is clear from the evidence that terrorism worldwide has increased since the war began.
>Also, as the third article points out the majority of the deaths involved in the attacks are within Iraq!
Majority doesn't mean all or even most, it means 50%+1, which still leaves an increase everywhere else. And, of course, there were no terrorist attacks in Iraq before the war, so the war certainly caused those attacks.
I don't think the American people approved of the war because we were taking the fight to the terrorists (they did with Afghanistan, but not Iraq). The people approved of the war in Iraq because of the fear of WMDs.
>Most importantly, it included the figure when you look at the world outside of Iraq- DOWN from 2004-2005.
Reread the article, I don't find this claim anywhere in it. What I find is "The number of "high fatality incidents" around the world, excluding Iraq, was among the few statistics in the report that decreased from 2004...." "High fatality incidents" is not the same as "all incidents." The overall number of attacks increased, while the highly-orchestrated 9/11-style attacks decreased.
>"It is probable" "according to a report from leading Western think-tank"... ... ... I can't believe that was it. No empirical evidence of any sort to back that up; what I just quoted were the only words used to try to convince me. No numbers, not even a description of who is in this "think tank" or what it is called.
You're way off on this one. The think tank is the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which is described as being in London and that the name of the report is "Military Balance." That's in the first paragraph of the article. The empirical evidence is in the actual report, not in the media article covering the report. Generally speaking, the media shies away from including empirical evidence, since newspapers and television stories are aimed at something like the eighth-grade level of reading and knowledge. Eighth graders don't understand empirical evidence, so it isn't included. More sophisticated readers know to actually go to the report itself for more information.
>"LONDON-..." "the study by the independent think tank said" Hmm, this sounds a lot like the last one.
This article also includes the name of the group.
>This isn't the meat of my problem with this article, but it leads me to believe they really don't have the best idea of what they're talking about.
Make sure you check the date, which is 2004, so the study was discussing an earlier period, wherein the 1000 number is much more likely to be valid. Beyond that, the number is not in quotes, so the article could be misquoting or misrepresenting the report itself.
>I of course wouldn't be able to disclose an actual statistic if I had actually tried "counting" this, but I would be SHOCKED if the number was "up to 1000" and not "way way more than 1000".
I would agree with certainly NOW, I'm not sure I'd agree with you if the data is from 2003 or early 2004. Besides, the fact that you would be personally shocked by a number has nothing to do with whether it is true or not.
>As there was no citation, I have no idea where they got the 2,000 figure from, but even Al-Qaeda claims they've lost 4,000.
Newspaper/tv articles never have citations. They do, however, reference the "IISS," which tells you where the information comes from. I'm sure the 2000 number is explained in the actual report. I'm also not sure why anyone would cite al-Qaeda as a valid source. They aren't exactly known for their honesty and scientific research methods. I'm sure if you think about it for a few minutes, you could come up with a logical reason to publicly exaggerate the number of "believers" killed by the "infidels." Maybe something to do with recruiting. Also, you are leaving out the dates. When was the 2,000 number reported? When did al-Qaeda say they had lost 4000? If the latter was much after the former, then they could obviously bothe be correct.
>Knowing firsthand the claims they usually make in reference to the real truth, (IE, a helicopter crashes and they claim they shot it down using an 82mm mortar, an essentially impossible feat) I'd be inclined to multiply that by five and call it a day,
But this wouldn't be a scientifically valid thing to do.
>but I'll play the think tank's little game instead.
Ad hominem. Why do you assume they are playing a game? Is it because they don't agree with you? Not very valid analysis.
>which brings me to my next point- BDA is rare. Often getting BDA is harder than it sounds because we always use the largest and longest-range weapon at our disposal, and sometimes this means leaving absolutely nothing that can be identified as a body.
And all of the articles specified they were estimates. Don't assume that it is impossible to come up with approximately valid estimates, because the evidence would show you to be wrong in general, and maybe in this specific case, too.
>As a result of all that, I am certain the actual number is far far greater than what anyone could ever really confirm.
Maybe, but this is an assumption. I'm sure it's larger, but how much larger is something to be left to statistical analysis, not guesswork.
>To support the article's claim starting with this number, you'd have to assume (for example) that we kill half as many innocents as we do enemy combatants, and at the same time that Al-Qaeda makes up only 1 66th of the enemy combatants in Iraq. Both of those assumptions would be extremely hard for me to swallow.
Or, you'd have to check the dates of the claims to balance them out. You can't compare statistics from 2003 to those from 2006 and say that the ones from 2006 prove the previous ones were an undercount. Obviously, more people have died in the intervening years.
>Simply unreliable. Criminal survey statistics are tricky enough, but TERRORIST surveys? They have a vested interest in giving the anti-war crowd what they want to hear; that's how insurgencies are won, the occupying force loses it's resolve.
But in the absence of evidence to the contrary, you can't simply reject something because you don't like the source. You commit the truth by declaration and ad hominem fallacies when you do that. Besides, haven't we been repeatedly told that the interrogation techniques we use on these people are very successful? I also think the idea that terrorists are planning their activities around what the anti-war crowd wants as beyond reason and beyond any evidence.
>"show that most were heeding the calls from clerics and activists to drive infidels out of Arab land"
Not meant, I think, to prove an increase, just a motive, which is an obvious one, of course.
>Again, terrorist honesty could come into play here, but primarily there's a false dichotomy. The missing middle ground is: they were going to be a terrorist anyway, but their first (reported) job as Al-Qaeda was to fight in Iraq. Just because it's their first gig doesn't mean they only became terrorists because of Iraq.
I don't think anyone said they became terrorists because of Iraq, simply that their first gig was Iraq. They may or may not have become terrorists anyway, but that's irrelevant, since they did become terrorists in Iraq.
Evidence is only open to debate when there is evidence to refute it. This evidence is what I found in ten minutes of research, if I were to do an actual research paper on it, I would of course find more -- I've read more in the past, just didn't save it all to my computer or anything like that. But I would certainly say that the combined conclusions of the U.S. government, the Israeli government and independent researchers is overwhelming evidence. Any one of those would've been enough to come to a conclusion on this issue, but all three of them? Case closed until overwhelming evidence comes out to refute them.
Also, as the evidence given by articles 4,5, and 6 is clearly open to debate, I don't consider it "overwhelming." Either a non-sequitur or just exaggeration, I suppose.
>think you are wrong to suggest that comparing the stats from 2003 to those of 2004 isn't enough lag time to include the effects of Iraq. Why would someone enraged by the war wait several years to become a terrorist? I don't think it works that way.
As I've conceded from the beginning, several terrorist attacks of that time were direct retaliations for a given country's aid to the US in the middle east. And I don't think anyone ever claimed going to war will make the world immediately more peaceful, there's always a backlash but what's important is that you eventually illicit a change for the better.
>I read in more than one article about the change in the definition, but my understanding is that change doesn't account for all (or even most) of the increase
This is just one of many comments I made that indicates a skewed statistic in these first 2 articles. A bunch of relatively small changes can add up, to tip the scales entirely. All things considered it's not very solid evidence, and it's quantifiable evidence anyway- so even if the end result is "more than", to correctly analyze the importance of the study it has to be accurate as well, as a 5:1 ratio is certainly more pressing than a 1.05:1 ratio.
>I'm not sure the al-Qaeda limitation you suggest is valid.
I wouldn't think a limitation to al-qaeda would be valid either, I was at one point referring to your comment of "evidence is clear that attacks by al-qaeda", and at another bringing up that the articles mention high concentrations of attacks in southeast asia and russia/chechenya, that have nothing to do with Iraq.
>I'm not necessarily saying all of the increase in terrorism is directly attributable to the war
Fair enough, though that's the impression I got from it, following the bit about recruiting more terrorists than were killed.
>And, of course, there were no terrorist attacks in Iraq before the war, so the war certainly caused those attacks.
Clearly, and for Afghanistan's portion of the terrorism this is true as well, but I feel this has little relevance when talking about worldwide terrorism. Anybody could (and did) predict this kind of thing happening beforehand, on top of the fact that the US always has to accept that there will be collateral damage and deaths of innocents wherever we deploy our forces for combat operations (so if our concern was Iraqi civilians dying, we wouldn't be there) If one would argue that we should pull out of the war in Iraq because of the deaths in Iraq that would be one thing, and a completely different argument than worldwide terrorism.
>I don't think the American people approved of the war because we were taking the fight to the terrorists (they did with Afghanistan, but not Iraq). The people approved of the war in Iraq because of the fear of WMDs.
Actually, that was only one of three main reasons given at the time America had to "approve" of going or not (one of them involved al-qaeda and terrorism, I'm sure you know). And as much fun as it would be to harp on people for "getting us into this mess," being situationally flexible and looking to the future is our best bet in my opinion. So regardless of how we wound up in Iraq, I ask myself why we should stay. The biggest answer that pops up at me is the same that comes up if I think about pulling out of Afghanistan, and it's a good one.
>"High fatality incidents" is not the same as "all incidents." The overall number of attacks increased, while the highly-orchestrated 9/11-style attacks decreased.
Well firstly a site I found has similar statistics, and in it, it appears that "high fatality" really means only 10 or more, a relatively common type of attack, not simply the high-profile or highly-orchestrated. Also, this appears to be the only kind that was measured specifically outside of Iraq (that I can find), so it may be the best we can look to.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RL33600.pdf
"Some would argue, however, that NCTC data concerning Iraq casualties —
which are largely the product of sectarian violence, rampant criminal activity, and
home grown insurgency — grossly distort the global terrorism picture and perhaps
should not be attributed to terrorist activity. Looking at the data outside of Iraq,
according to the NCTC, the total number of incidents with ten or more deaths
remained at approximately the 2003-2004 level: 70 per year. This suggests that,
excluding Iraq, the number of higher casualty terror attacks remains relatively stable."
http://wits.nctc.gov/reports/crot2005nctcannexfinal.pdf
-very similar file, includes 2004-2005 (also around 70 per year), but mentions that deaths from those attacks dropped by half in that period. (Also explains why there was no count of attacks with less than 10 deaths in 2004- it's not an attempt to skew the statistics)
And here's what an article from your side of the fence, claiming "War is the Main Terrorism Generator" concedes...
http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2005/0709/arno/arnold_terror.html
"Terrorism in the majority of countries covered by the Center report is indigenous, centered on disputes between governments and out-groups that existed long before al Qai’da, and these cases are affected marginally, if at all, by the War on Terrorism. Nor is it likely that, if the War on Terrorism ended tomorrow, its passing would alter either the status or the prospects of those long-standing disputes."
>london think tank
I thought I mentioned in my last post the lack of the included date in the articles about the London think tank, but I guess I deleted it. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction with the think tank name, since the first article left that blank and I scrolled to the statistics on the second one.
After looking at the source, I still found little empirical evidence to support the "probably"'s, http://www.iiss.org/index.asp?pgid=2752
But I am much happier with the 2,000 figure now- it was published June 2003. Us taking out 2,000 terrorists in three months sounds much closer to the truth than 2,000 to date. Thus the figure of 18,000 (as that was simply 20,000 - 2,000) you used to support al-qaeda size and recruitment, does not apply.
>But in the absence of evidence to the contrary, you can't simply reject something...
Maybe not "reject" but certainly "take with a grain of salt"... what terrorists have to say is simply not important to this conversation. It's akin to asking prisoners if they are innocent and thus coming to the conclusion that 99% of prisoners are innocent, and we can shut down most of our prisons.
>>...because you don't like the source
It's not that I don't like the source, it's that the source will say the same thing whether it's true or not. (Explained further down)
>Besides, haven't we been repeatedly told that the interrogation techniques we use on these people are very successful?
I'll assume that's true and we have, sure, but
A)this isn't necessarily *us*, it's the saudi government and other sources
B)This has nothing to do with the same interrogation you're talking about. US Military/Govt interrogators are paid to be important links in the intelligence chain, and will swallow whatever unimportant lies they need to to land on the lie that provides us with a name, location, or future operation. This is a survey more than likely not administered by an interrogator, and if it was they wouldn't bother pressuring the subject into a truthful answer.
>I also think the idea that terrorists are planning their activities around what the anti-war crowd wants as beyond reason and beyond any evidence.
Definately not beyond reason, if the terrorists have any knowledge of military history. Every similar conflict between a superpower and insurgents has come to an ending decided by one of two groups: the superpower (by winning), or the superpower's 'anti-war crowd' (or more accurately, the lack of popular support for the war). In Vietnam, the United States won every battle, and had an excellent enemy casualty to US casualty ratio. Yet we somehow "lost"... how? Lack of popular support. Due to public outcry we withdrew, even though *military* victory was probable/inevitable. The USSR drew a bad card when the US aided the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, but our support was limited and they had the military might to conquer the country 100 times over... yet they withdrew, and again the loss was political, not of military action. If the terrorists have any idea how to win an insurgency, they know that their biggest (by far) ally is popular support.
Many items of 'terrorist literature' have been recovered by coalition forces indicating demands for the insurgents to 'just hang in there' or even 'just don't get caught, the Americans will leave soon and we will declare victory'. I think this indicates important people in the insurgent network have indeed come to that conclusion. Also, Bin Laden's been there before, and comparing the current war to his last dance with the soviets isn't just conjecture, analysts have suggested that's his biggest motivation for attacking us was to force us into a war in the middle east. (If 'he' gets the US to pull out like 'he' did the Soviets, he claims victory and gains even more support for the Umma, and stands a higher chance of overthrowing the middle eastern governments he's targeting.)
>I don't think anyone said they became terrorists because of Iraq, simply that their first gig was Iraq.
You and the article brought it up referencing Iraq supposedly increasing terrorist recruiting.
>They may or may not have become terrorists anyway, but that's irrelevant, since they did become terrorists in Iraq.
How do you figure? The number of terrorists is about the most non-irrelevant thing we're talking about. Is becoming a terrorist in Iraq any worse than becoming a terrorist elsewhere? I'd actually rather there be terrorists in a country with an occupying military to hunt them down rather than one in which they can strike with near-impunity.
>Evidence is only open to debate when there is evidence to refute it.
Not true. I can only claim the opposite of what you claim with my own evidence (which I have some of in both posts anyway), but evidence can be open to debate simply by pointing out flaws. If what you say is true *my* evidence would also not be open to debate, but clearly we both have problems with eachother's evidence and thus consider some to have more weight than others.
>But I would certainly say that the combined conclusions of the U.S. government, the Israeli government and independent researchers is overwhelming evidence. Any one of those would've been enough to come to a conclusion on this issue, but all three of them?
Argument from authority. I could say that same thing about drawing a pre-war conclusion about the multitude of WMD's within Iraq, but would I have turned out to be right? No. Also, 'independent researchers' is not one huge group that has come to one single conclusion like the government examples.
>Case closed until overwhelming evidence comes out to refute them.
To me, the evidence you've shown has not successfully backed up your claim in the first place, so I believe the case would still be open had I not the new evidence included in this post. Primarily, the only comparison of terrorists recruited vs terrorists killed you've given has shown to be faulty, and if I were to subscribe to the oversimplified math the think tank used, I could claim that 32,000 Al-Qaeda have been killed in Iraq, a figure that is likely higher than anyone's best guess of recruitment.
>A bunch of relatively small changes can add up, to tip the scales entirely. All things considered it's not very solid evidence, and it's quantifiable evidence anyway- so even if the end result is "more than", to correctly analyze the importance of the study it has to be accurate as well, as a 5:1 ratio is certainly more pressing than a 1.05:1 ratio.
But the comments you make are assuming the opposite of what the best available evidene says. Without actual evidence to the contrary -- and by this I don't just mean logical argument, I mean actual evidence -- it makes no sense to believe the opposite of what the evidence we have says. Is the evidence perfect? No. No evidence is. Is the evidence compelling enough to convince a scientist or to win a court case? Yes.
>high concentrations of attacks in southeast asia and russia/chechenya, that have nothing to do with Iraq.
Many of the attacks in Southeast Asia are related to al-Qaeda, who is to say they aren't related to Iraq?
>I'm not necessarily saying all of the increase in terrorism is directly attributable to the war. >Fair enough, though that's the impression I got from it, following the bit about recruiting more terrorists than were killed.
You made a jump that I didn't. My reference was to overall terrorism. It may or may not be directly attributable to the war, but we don't yet have enough evidence to know. My comments were a counter to the widely stated claim that the war in Iraq is making the world a safer place. The world is not a safer place now than it was in 2002. It may be some day, but it isn't right now.
>And, of course, there were no terrorist attacks in Iraq before the war, so the war certainly caused those attacks. >Clearly, and for Afghanistan's portion of the terrorism this is true as well, but I feel this has little relevance when talking about worldwide terrorism.
But the statistics clearly show a rise in terrorist attacks outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, too.
>I don't think the American people approved of the war because we were taking the fight to the terrorists (they did with Afghanistan, but not Iraq). The people approved of the war in Iraq because of the fear of WMDs. >Actually, that was only one of three main reasons given at the time America had to "approve" of going or not (one of them involved al-qaeda and terrorism, I'm sure you know).
That Saddam had ties to terrorism was one of the arguments for going after Saddam. The argument in late 2002, early 2003 had nothing to do with invading Iraq in order to take it to the terrorists. That argument came out later. It may or may not be valid (that's a different discussion altogether), but it isn't what the American people approved of. Flexibility is important, but so is public approval of war in a democracy.
>Well firstly a site I found has similar statistics, and in it, it appears that "high fatality" really means only 10 or more, a relatively common type of attack, not simply the high-profile or highly-orchestrated.
But that doesn't mean the other study used the same definition. I agree that there isn't an increase in major terrorist attacks, I specifically said that. There has been an increase, though in all terrorist attacks, including the small ones.
Be careful when you say "my side of the fence," since I haven't said what side of the fence I'm on. I just argued that certain claims fly in the face of evidence and logic. Like, for instance the claim that "War is the Main Terrorism Generator." I would disagree with that statement because the evidence clearly suggests otherwise (unless you refer specifically to terrorist violence in Iraq).
>Thanks for pointing me in the right direction with the think tank name, since the first article left that blank and I scrolled to the statistics on the second one.
Again, the first article didn't leave it blank, it specifically said it in the first sentence.
>After looking at the source, I still found little empirical evidence to support the "probably"'s,
That's an article in their newsletter, not the actual report. Look to the report itself for the empirical evidence.
>Maybe not "reject" but certainly "take with a grain of salt"
Take everything with a grain of salt.
>... what terrorists have to say is simply not important to this conversation. It's akin to asking prisoners if they are innocent and thus coming to the conclusion that 99% of prisoners are innocent, and we can shut down most of our prisons.
Except that we've been told that our methods of interrogating these prisoners is accurate and provided us with valuable information. Either it does or it doesn't. And you are assuming you know by whom and how the interrogations were taken without any reason to know that.
>In Vietnam, the United States won every battle, and had an excellent enemy casualty to US casualty ratio. Yet we somehow "lost"... how? Lack of popular support.
Speaking as a historian who has studied the Vietnam War specifically, this is revisionist history. The reason we lost was that there were no definable goals and poor civilian leadership. Having read hundreds upon hundreds of accounts from soldiers and their leadership on the ground in Vietnam, they regularly got conflicting orders, were sent on pointless missions and had no overall objective. The war was also based on a completely nonsense argument anyway, the "Domino" theory that was clearly proven wrong by subsequent events. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a war in history that was won when based on a bad premise and poorly managed from the top.
>Due to public outcry we withdrew, even though *military* victory was probable/inevitable.
I'm not sure there is any evidence for this. To win, all the Vietnamese forces had to do was not die. I'm not sure what we could've done to win.
>The USSR drew a bad card when the US aided the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, but our support was limited and they had the military might to conquer the country 100 times over... yet they withdrew, and again the loss was political, not of military action.
Again, I'm not sure I buy this argument. The Soviets lost because they had no definable goal that they were willing to pursue.
>Many items of 'terrorist literature' have been recovered by coalition forces indicating demands for the insurgents to 'just hang in there' or even 'just don't get caught, the Americans will leave soon and we will declare victory'. I think this indicates important people in the insurgent network have indeed come to that conclusion.
But that doesn't mean it has anything to do with popular support in America. It is simple logic. Few countries, if any, have ever remained permanently in an occupied territory.
>If 'he' gets the US to pull out like 'he' did the Soviets, he claims victory and gains even more support for the Umma, and stands a higher chance of overthrowing the middle eastern governments he's targeting.
I agree with all this but still fail to see how it has anything to do with popular support in the U.S.
>I don't think anyone said they became terrorists because of Iraq, simply that their first gig was Iraq. >You and the article brought it up referencing Iraq supposedly increasing terrorist recruiting.
Which could easily mean that someone who already sympathized with the terrorist cause decided to go to Iraq to join up.
>They may or may not have become terrorists anyway, but that's irrelevant, since they did become terrorists in Iraq. >How do you figure? The number of terrorists is about the most non-irrelevant thing we're talking about. Is becoming a terrorist in Iraq any worse than becoming a terrorist elsewhere?
No, I'm saying the might have/might not have become terrorist argument is irrelevant since they are now terrorists.
>I'd actually rather there be terrorists in a country with an occupying military to hunt them down rather than one in which they can strike with near-impunity.
I'd agree, I just think this is a false dichotomy, there are other things in between that are possible as well.
>but evidence can be open to debate simply by pointing out flaws.
Flawed evidence still wins over no evidence. All evidence, of course, is flawed anyway.
>But I would certainly say that the combined conclusions of the U.S. government, the Israeli government and independent researchers is overwhelming evidence. Any one of those would've been enough to come to a conclusion on this issue, but all three of them? >Argument from authority.
No, I'm not saying it's correct because of who they are. I'm saying it's correct because these organizations have the evidence to back up what they are saying.
>I could say that same thing about drawing a pre-war conclusion about the multitude of WMD's within Iraq, but would I have turned out to be right? No.
Except that this isn't accurate. The only organization that had been on the ground in Iraq, the weapons inspectors of the IAEA, specifically said there were no WMDs.
>Also, 'independent researchers' is not one huge group that has come to one single conclusion like the government examples.
I didn't say "all independent researchers," I was referring to the specific researchers we previously discussed, who are independent of the government agencies mentioned.
>Case closed until overwhelming evidence comes out to refute them.
>To me, the evidence you've shown has not successfully backed up your claim in the first place, so I believe the case would still be open had I not the new evidence included in this post.
But you seem to reject the evidence simply because you don't want to believe it. You've pointed out a few minor flaws in the evidence -- flaws that exist in all evidence -- and provided no valid alternative evidence.
>Primarily, the only comparison of terrorists recruited vs terrorists killed you've given has shown to be faulty
I've seen nothing you've provided to show that it is faulty.
>and if I were to subscribe to the oversimplified math the think tank used, I could claim that 32,000 Al-Qaeda have been killed in Iraq, a figure that is likely higher than anyone's best guess of recruitment.
No, you couldn't claim that, since the overwhelming majority of those killed in Iraq have nothing to do with al-Qaeda.
>But the statistics clearly show a rise in terrorist attacks outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, too.
Not so. The only "outside of Iraq" figures we've come to (AFAIK) are the ones that involve attacks of 10 or more casualties. (They decreased or stayed the same.) My last source (which looks like it was the source for most of the other similar articles) included information as to why a broader count was not taken.
>That's an article in their newsletter, not the actual report. Look to the report itself for the empirical evidence.
I did, and that's what led to the comments about the date on the 2,000 figure.
>Except that we've been told that our methods of interrogating these prisoners is accurate and provided us with valuable information. Either it does or it doesn't. And you are assuming you know by whom and how the interrogations were taken without any reason to know that.
They cited the information as a survey, and gave no suggestion that it was a formal interrogation (and most of this could not have came from "our methods" anyway, because it was another country's survey). Burden of proof is not on me, but on anyone who wishes to claim a link between this survey and formal interrogation techniques.
>The reason we lost [Vietnam] was that there were no definable goals and poor civilian leadership.
>The war was also based on a completely nonsense argument anyway, the "Domino" theory that was clearly proven wrong by subsequent events.
I couldn't agree more. What you don't see here is military losses, it's political mistakes.
>I'm not sure there is any evidence for this. To win, all the Vietnamese forces had to do was not die. I'm not sure what we could've done to win.
Not any evidence for what, public outcry, or the US military's success rate? And the North Vietnamese actually won when they finished off they conquered the South Vietnamese, not when they just didn't die out. If the American public continued to think that stopping communism was so important that it was worth the American lives and money, there is no doubt we could have supported the South Vietnamese for long enough that eventually they could hold their own. The public didn't, and I can't say I blame them, but it's not as if an insurgency managed to defeat a superpower militarily.
>Again, I'm not sure I buy this argument. The Soviets lost because they had no definable goal that they were willing to pursue.
We agree again- not driven out by a mystically powerful insurgency, but simply decided it was no longer worth the hassle.
>But that doesn't mean it has anything to do with popular support in America.
It does- they realize they aren't going to win by killing so many of us we can't sustain an occupation force. How are they planning to win, then? They are depending on us to give up, and decide it's not worth it anymore, as in Vietnam. Certainly it can be assumed low support for the war among Americans will potentially make the US government give up quicker.
>Few countries, if any, have ever remained permanently in an occupied territory.
This is true, but only because "occupied territory" is a status that usually changes when an occupier wins. In both world wars and Korea, for example, we occupied countries, a pro-US government was able to assume a status of 'self-reliant,' and thus "occupied territory" became "friendly territory", we left, and the host country was able to take care of itself.
>I agree with all this but still fail to see how it has anything to do with popular support in the U.S.
Popular support in the U.S. (or lack thereof) can lead to the U.S. pulling out, which is the first link in the logic chain you agreed with. Thus an Al-Qaeda insurgent paying no attention to US public opinion would be foolish and historically ignorant.
>I don't think anyone said they became terrorists because of Iraq, simply that their first gig was Iraq
>Which could easily mean that someone who already sympathized with the terrorist cause decided to go to Iraq to join up.
Inconsistent. 'Became terrorists' = 'decided to join up'.
>No, I'm saying the might have/might not have become terrorist argument is irrelevant since they are now terrorists.
Irrelevant, yet you brought it up! To suggest that the US going to Iraq increased their recruiting drive, is to suggest that they "might not" have if we *didn't* go to Iraq.
>>I'd actually rather there be terrorists in a country with an occupying military to hunt them down rather than one in which they can strike with near-impunity. >I'd agree, I just think this is a false dichotomy, there are other things in between that are possible as well.
I wasn't using this as a suggestion for what US policy should be, I was comparing a terrorist in Iraq to a terrorist elsewhere. You seemed to put some importance in the fact that a terrorist who would have been a terrorist elsewhere, became a terrorist in Iraq instead, as if it were a bad thing. I suggested it's actually a good thing.
>Flawed evidence still wins over no evidence.
But flawed evidence does not successfully make the burden of proof change hands.
>No, I'm not saying it's correct because of who they are. I'm saying it's correct because these organizations have the evidence to back up what they are saying.
>But you seem to reject the evidence simply because you don't want to believe it.
That's not true, I've given you valid reasons why the evidence fails to support the claim.
>You've pointed out a few minor flaws in the evidence -- flaws that exist in all evidence --
Not minor at all in my book, if it causes the evidence to fail the claim it was used to support (not saying some of it couldn't be used for other claims), and not universal. For example, not all surveys are given to groups with a clear personal motive to vote one way or the other; the results may contain some lies or mistakes, but the lack of a clear reason to lie leads us to put a little faith in the idea that the numbers are somewhat accurate.
> and provided no valid alternative evidence.
So you declare your evidence 'valid' and mine not? Speaking of 'minor flaws', that's a phrase that can be attributed to my statistics of 'outside Iraq' terrorist attacks. They do have a flaw, they don't include attacks with 9 or less deaths, but they are more valid than yours that include Iraq, at least for this discussion. Statistics that included both 'outside Iraq' (or even outside Iraq and Afghanistan) and 'including 9 or less deaths' would be nice to have, but until I see that I'm going to lean towards the best evidence we do have, and it indicates a negligible difference.
>>Primarily, the only comparison of terrorists recruited vs terrorists killed you've given has shown to be faulty >I've seen nothing you've provided to show that it is faulty.
The only one you gave was arrived at by taking an estimated 20,000 Al-Qaeda trained before the war, and subtracting 2,000 Al-Qaeda killed in Iraq, leaving 18,000 left. And the figure of 2,000 Al-Qaeda killed in Iraq was from JUNE 2003, roughly 3 months after the invasion began. Clearly this ignores the latest 44 months of the conflict, as well as a plethora of other reasons a member of Al-Qaeda may cease to be a terrorist.
>No, you couldn't claim that, since the overwhelming majority of those killed in Iraq have nothing to do with al-Qaeda.
That figure had nothing to do with the majority of people killed in Iraq, it was from the previous approximation of 2,000 Al-Qaeda killed. If I were to ignore tons of other variables like your source did, I would claim that since 3 months = 2,000 dead Al-Qaeda, four years = 32,000 dead Al-Qaeda.
>The only "outside of Iraq" figures we've come to (AFAIK) are the ones that involve attacks of 10 or more casualties.
No, that's the only evidence that you came to. You've shown nothing in any of the sources I provided that had this limitation or any other source that suggested the sources I used limited it this way. Your source defines things this way, but that doesn't mean other sources do.
As far as I can tell, there is little reason to believe that Saudi Arabia's methods of interrogation would be any less effective than our own. And it is almost certain that we would share effective techniques with them since they are our allies. Without any specific evidence to reject the report from the Saudi government, it is illogical to reject it. If you are claiming that a major governmental source is invalid, you are the one making the strange claim, therefore the burden of proof lies with you.
>Not any evidence for what, public outcry, or the US military's success rate?
No evidence that public outcry caused the loss of the war.
>And the North Vietnamese actually won when they finished off they conquered the South Vietnamese, not when they just didn't die out.
True in the same way that one football team beats another only when the last second ticks off the clock. We can know, though, long before the last tick who the winner is in many games. Similarly, once the American government began its withdrawal, the war was over and North Vietnam won.
>If the American public continued to think that stopping communism was so important that it was worth the American lives and money, there is no doubt we could have supported the South Vietnamese for long enough that eventually they could hold their own.
But the public did continue to think stopping Communism was important. They just didn't think that the Vietnam war was achieving that goal.
>The public didn't, and I can't say I blame them, but it's not as if an insurgency managed to defeat a superpower militarily.
Again, it depends on how you define "defeat." In a classic military sense, of course they didn't defeat us, such a thing wasn't even possible. But that wasn't the type of victory an insurgency aims for. In the type of victory they wanted -- repelling foreign occupiers -- they were extremely victorious.
>It does- they realize they aren't going to win by killing so many of us we can't sustain an occupation force. How are they planning to win, then? They are depending on us to give up, and decide it's not worth it anymore, as in Vietnam. Certainly it can be assumed low support for the war among Americans will potentially make the US government give up quicker.
Again, survival is a victory to an insurgent force. It's almost impossible to occupy someone permanently, so we have to leave eventually. Whenever that happens, the insurgents will claim victory, no matter what the conditions, as long as they still live. I don't think public support for the war will affect the outcome one way or the other. There is already about as low a level of support as is possible given partisanship and ideology and it has no impact on the administration's plans. I think a different president is the only thing that will have much impact.
>In both world wars and Korea, for example, we occupied countries, a pro-US government was able to assume a status of 'self-reliant,' and thus "occupied territory" became "friendly territory", we left, and the host country was able to take care of itself.
But that was because there was a public receptive to our plans. Does such a public exist in Iraq (outside of Kurdistan)?
>Thus an Al-Qaeda insurgent paying no attention to US public opinion would be foolish and historically ignorant.
Only if you buy the argument that public opinion caused one of these losses, something I've yet to see any compelling evidence for beyond logical argument.
>Inconsistent. 'Became terrorists' = 'decided to join up'.
No, one can become a terrorist without joining al-Qaeda or the Iraqi insurgency. Simply a matter of poor word choice, not inconsistency.
>Irrelevant, yet you brought it up! To suggest that the US going to Iraq increased their recruiting drive, is to suggest that they "might not" have if we *didn't* go to Iraq.
You read more into my words than is actually there. I presented a correlation and the possibility of a link, not a conclusion on the accuracy of that link. We got off on a tangent about whether or not these people might have become terrorists without our invasion of Iraq. That is irrelevant, since they are terrorists now.
>You seemed to put some importance in the fact that a terrorist who would have been a terrorist elsewhere, became a terrorist in Iraq instead, as if it were a bad thing.
I think my point was more to suggest that if someone became a terrorist in Iraq when they wouldn't have become one otherwise is a bad thing (if such a thing actually happened). Clearly, becoming a terrorist anywhere is a bad thing.
>But flawed evidence does not successfully make the burden of proof change hands.
No, but the burden of proof is not with people that disagree with you, it's with a claim that flies in the face of the preponderance of evidence. In this case, almost every source makes it clear that terrorism worldwide has increased since the beginning of the war. That places the burden of proof on anyone who rejects that claim.
>That's not true, I've given you valid reasons why the evidence fails to support the claim.
Not really. Most of the claims you made are unsupported by any actual evidence. Logical arguments, even if they make sense, are not proof of anything without evidence to back them up.
>For example, not all surveys are given to groups with a clear personal motive to vote one way or the other; the results may contain some lies or mistakes, but the lack of a clear reason to lie leads us to put a little faith in the idea that the numbers are somewhat accurate.
But you can't just assume that surveys are invalid, you have to have actual evidence to show that they are invalid, not just logical argument.
>So you declare your evidence 'valid' and mine not?
You provided two links to the same evidence that didn't even address the question at hand -- overall terrorist attacks -- they only dealt with terrorist attacks over a certain level. And you provided one link that talked about the "majority" of terrorist organizations being indigenous and existing before the war. That also has no real bearing on the question at hand. It is possible that such a statement is true and there was still an increase in terrorism overall, the two do not conflict.
I provided you with multiple sources from government agencies and think tanks that say that the number of terrorist attacks has increased worldwide. You provided no evidence to refute them and you stick with your argument? That's why I say you provided no evidence. Again, your personal theories and ideas are not evidence. Evidence can't come from your brain, it has to come from actual research. None of the research you provided deals directly with the question at hand.
>The only one you gave was arrived at by taking an estimated 20,000 Al-Qaeda trained before the war, and subtracting 2,000 Al-Qaeda killed in Iraq, leaving 18,000 left.
No, I provided multiple sources that claimed an increase in terrorist activity.
>That figure had nothing to do with the majority of people killed in Iraq, it was from the previous approximation of 2,000 Al-Qaeda killed. If I were to ignore tons of other variables like your source did, I would claim that since 3 months = 2,000 dead Al-Qaeda, four years = 32,000 dead Al-Qaeda.
That is horrible logic. This is something I talked about in class. You can't do statistical analysis like this. This is both anecdotal evidence and misunderstanding the nature of statistics. The 2,000 number is not, in any way, representative of other time periods. This is like suggesting that since on opening day a baseball player hit 3 home runs, that means he'd hit over 400 for the season. It isn't even remotely valid logic.
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