It does matter when the 10% makes up 90% of the suicide bombers killing scores of innocent people. Thousands of foreign jihadis flooded into Iraq before and after OIF. We can disagree about the effectiveness of the foreign jihadis that caused such mayhem in Iraq, and that's fine.
You can research the numbers. I already did that a long time ago. We killed well over a thousand foreign fighters at objectives Moe, Larry and Curly on April 7th, 2003.
No, that just makes them the fonder, not those fighting. And 1000 fighters as compared to 100,000 civilians is nothing. And in fact, it is nothing by any measure, as these are people not associated with any terrorist group before we invaded Iraq. This means we did nothing to organizations as they were prior to invasion. We only took on new members, newbees, who would not have been otherwised part of the calulation.
And I know the numbers well.
The Weekly Standard is a very credible source. They are Conservative no doubt, but very objective. I’ve been reading both the WS and NR for years. Both were very critical of Bush and especially post OIF Iraq.
No, the WS is not a credible source. They got much wrong concerning Iraq. And they allowed inaccurate information, mostly from Hayes as I remember, to be printed with no consequences. This makes them a poor source. It isn't about being critical of Bush, or even bais, but about accuracy. I don't know what it takes to get that through the thinking on your side of the isle. Accuracy matters.
I don’t believe OBL’s statements about the reasons for his joining the jihadis, but I believe he thinks the people he’s trying to recruit will believe his crapola. That’s why he’s spewing it.
The fact remains OBL and his lieutenants’ repeatedly stated Iraq was their focus at the time. They also sent in thousands of foreign jihadis to attack innocent people. They were soundly defeated. I don’t understand how that equates to a recruiting bonanza for them.
Of course he does, so he says **** that will appealk to them. It calls everythign important, and calls on them, which is why you can't take his word as gospel. You ahve to judge his actions, and he did not invest heavily in Iraq. He wanted us hurt there, and that happened the second we invaded. Everything else, from his POV was gravy.
Iraqi’s who joined AQI for money and agreed to slaughter their own citizens are not the responsibility, nor a consequence of, the coalition nations liberating Iraq.
Speaking of Iraqi’s I’d rather focus on the hundreds of thousands who have decided to fight for their country instead of against it.
Actually they are, no matter their reasoning. We don't bring war there, this doesn't happen. You can't be reckless and not man up and be responsible. When and if Iraq is ever a strong and peaceful nation it will eb because Iraqis made it so. Our arrogance was in thinking we could make any country something we want them to be. And then to want prasie for for bringing war, death and misery to them, and all after we waited untill Saddam was done with his worse.
