Well duh, it only makes sense that soldiers would be more likely to die if they are you know, fighting terrorists?
But that fighting might be preventing the next 9/11.
Evidence? There is none one way or the other. If you want to cite deaths, I’ve already pointed out the obvious: less Americans have died in 2002 and 2003 than in 2001.
Memo to President of the United States: When you claim to be trying to distract terrorists, please do not hold a press conference in which you announce that you are trying to distract the terrorists. It might distract them from the distraction. End communication.
Are you kidding?
I used to be a fan of Krugman’s work.
I am not a fan of Bush’s work, though any way Saddam ends up out of power is fine by me.
But Krugman has gone off the deep end in his neverending knee jerk obsession with Bush.
Actually, what you said before was that there were less terrorist attacks in 2002 than 2001 (no mention of any parameters concerning who were attacked and number of deaths).
Of course 2001 did see a very large single attack which claimed the lives of several thousand Americans (which now appears to be your measure) in one go. This might be skewing your figures a bit? Could you elaborate on the figures you are using and, perhaps, include years previous to 2001 to provide a more accurate snapshot?
I’m just throwing out a meaningless statistic, just as far born did. A citing of American military casualties is not an indication of whether we are safer or not. We were obviously safer in 1944 than in 1942, despite the fact that Americans were dying at high rates, for example.
There is no collection of stats that I know of that can prove whether or not we are safer as a result of the war on Iraq or even the war on terror overall. We won’t know that for sure for at least another ten years.
US forces aren’t fighting an armed force,they’re receiving guerilla attacks and invading civilian areas hoping to get individuals and groups. It’s a police action with a lot of doors broken in. Al Queda is the one group that organized under Bin Laden and moved out of Saudi Arabias discontent. But erasing Al Queda has nothing to do with holding together the major social elements in Iraq that the soldiers are battling.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49227-2004Jan2.html
There are terrorist acts occuring in Iraq, there are terrorists in Iraq. But the A+B=C logic that says “we were under terrorist attack,we’re attacking terrorist in Iraq” is stupid in the extreme.
The thing I wonder is how much responsibility the “architects” of the war have in it’s reconstruction.
I’m part way through a book by former CIA director/former amabassador to Iran Richard Helms,in it he says something to the affect “our job was to carry out the presidents orders, it’s up to the State Dept. to rebuild the gov’ts.”
So back to the original question: in the realm of threats one can argue how safe we were or vulnerable we are and never have anything happen.
This means nothing.
Canada’s murder rate is three times lower than that of the US. In 2001, there were a grand total of 554 murders in the entire country. In New York City the following year, there were 587 murders.
Well, the problem here is that you are making an analogy to a conventional war against a conventional enemy. All because the President and others have chosen to call this a “war” on terrorism does not mean it is a war in the conventional sense. So, it is unclear how effective it is to be fighting a conventional war against an unconventional enemy. I would argue that it is even less clear how effective it is to be fighting a conventional war against a nation that is only very tangentially connected to our unconventional enemy!
You mean the social order which was destroyed by the invasion. How nice.
I do not think the US is any safer but this is impossible to measure and is subjective. Actual deaths do not mean that much but if we are going to count deaths I do not understand why 9/11 counts and US casualties in Iraq don’t. I would have to count them all and in that sense the picture ain’t good.
Still, I do not think it is a valid measurement of safety. What is obvious to me is that the invasion of Iraq has exarcerbated anti-American sentiment and there are more terrorists trying harder. The recent cancellation of flights is an indication of this. The US government is spending considerably more effort in prevention.
The fact that due to neighborhood crime I have decided not to leave the house at night and to only go out during the day with an armed bodyguard does not mean the neighborhood is safer it just means I am safer at the cost of restricting my activities and spending effort and money.
IMHO the invasion of Iraq did not make the US or the world a safer place, on the contrary, it has raised tensions and made matters worse. Very especially for the Iraqi civilian victims and the US soldiers who are dying for no good cause.
The claim that we are now safer here is one of those very politically useful ones that can never be disproven. No matter what happens, they can say it would have been worse if we hadn’t invaded Iraq.
Very nice indeed. At least 500,000 Iragis would probably think it nice.
That is, if they were alive today and hadn’t been tortured, murdered and then buried en mass in shallow graves beneight hot desert sands by the Saddam Hussien social order that the colition Occupation with great sacrifice replaced.
Erm, I think that was the original point. It hasn’t been replaced, not yet anyway.
Actually they are fighting a fair number of Iraqi insurgents who have taken on terrorist tactics due to losing a war that we umm happened to initiate. No Iraqi war, no Iraqi terrorists. If you follow my drift.
If your idea of fighting the war on terror is creating new terrorists just to fight them, I don’t see any way you can win that war.
If you would like to assert that these terrorists attacks would have happened without the Iraq war, well I’d like to see your proof.
But you have no way to relate Iraq with the decrease in terror related deaths. The association would be purely speculation. I suppose I might as well credit that horseshoe I hung over my door.
OTOH, the deaths due to terrorist and guerilla tactics directly resulting from the war in Iraq are easily measurable.
And those thousands killed by the coalition and by the conditions the invasion created would definitely prefer the USA had stayed home. What’s your point?
Well, the problem here is that you are making an analogy to a conventional war against a conventional enemy. All because the President and others have chosen to call this a “war” on terrorism does not mean it is a war in the conventional sense. So, it is unclear how effective it is to be fighting a conventional war against an unconventional enemy. I would argue that it is even less clear how effective it is to be fighting a conventional war against a nation that is only very tangentially connected to our unconventional enemy!
Let’s set Iraq aside from the overall war on terror, since we will likely disagree on Iraq’s role in that war.
You can’t defeat terrorism without defeating the states that sponsor it. Terrorists are just like soldiers, they just don’t wear a uniform. Just like soldiers, you can’t just win a war by killing them, but by taking out the government that sent them to attack you. You have to take out their government, or at least make their government decide its better not to send soldiers or terrorists or what have you over to attack. If all you do is kill their soldiers, they’ll just go get more. There are differences in tactics between a terrorist war and a conventional war, but on a grand strategic level there isn’t that much seperating them.
**Actually they are fighting a fair number of Iraqi insurgents who have taken on terrorist tactics due to losing a war that we umm happened to initiate. No Iraqi war, no Iraqi terrorists. If you follow my drift.
**
Supposedly Al Qaeda is fighting with them. If so, that’s a good thing. We want them fighting us in conventional battles, not attacking our civilians. That was the whole point of invading Afghanistan was to fight them and destroy them. If they are obliging us in Iraq as well, that’s a good thing.
The Iraqi insurgents who are not Al Qaeda are most likely Ba’athist diehards.
A while back, I saw someone - on these boards, I think - suggest that if there IS an Al Qaeda presence in Iraq, it’s probably not a huge one. Made sense to me: it’s an easy spot for terrorists to slip into and cause problems, so they could be there, but they won’t bet the farm on Iraq. There are too many other battlefields, including the US. There would be trouble in Iraq even if it was just Saddam loyalists, which the resistance is for the most part anyway, so Al Qaeda wouldn’t need to get heavily involved if they’re involved at all.
Given the way terrorism works - if you pull it off, it’s kind of a low-risk, high-reward thing (such as a little money and training plus 19 deaths kills 3000 enemies) - I don’t think the US can be made safer by ‘distracting’ terrorists in Iraq or elsewhere. Whatever is going on in Iraq, there’s no way they’re not planning attacks on the USA and elsewhere at the same time.
I would think we wouldn’t want Al Quaeda attacking us to begin with. Three soldiers died yesterday. If it was Al Quaeda attacking us then that’s a good thing?
Now I don’t claim to answers for terrorism, but I don’t see how Iraq has helped matters at all.
Just because Al Quaeda might be involved, that doesn’t mean they are expending their resources or risking their lives.
The only evidence of their involvement we have so far that I know of, are these tapes and training materials. This suggests to me that they are actually gaining new recruits or their training materials have simply been co-opted by the Iraqi resistance. Either way, it seems we actually have more terrorists to deal with now than before.
If you’ll throw in Senator Clinton I’ll think about it.
**I would think we wouldn’t want Al Quaeda attacking us to begin with. Three soldiers died yesterday. If it was Al Quaeda attacking us then that’s a good thing?
**
Since Al Qaeda will attack us whether we want them to or not, isn’t it better for them to take on those who can fight back?
Planting a roadside bomb, even if it happens to be targeting soldiers, or driving a car bomb into a hotel or police station doesn’t fit my definition of “taking on those who can fight back.” Al Qaeda isn’t going to take on the US Army. (Again, not saying that Al Qaeda is necessarily behind any particular attacks.) They can’t do it, and that’s not what terrorism is.
Anyway, if the Iraq war was helping us by distracting terrorists, then the next thing to do might be invade a whole bunch more countries in order to leave the terrorists a lot more tantalizing targets and distract them. But I don’t think that makes any sense, and I don’t think anyone would support that course of action (at least not for that reason). Soldiers are not the only targets in Iraq, and Iraq would not be the only target for Al Qaeda.