The flypaper war justification

[Vympel]

Reasons for IraqWar? We Got a Million of ’Em

by James Pinkerton

August 28, 2003


What are we doing in Iraq? The latest explanation is the so-called flypaper thesis. That is, it's a good thing that we have 140,000 troops in Iraq, because the terrorists are going after our men and women there, lured like flies to flypaper.

As President George W. Bush said on Tuesday, "Our military is confronting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan and in other places so our people will not have to confront terrorist violence in New York, or St. Louis or Los Angeles."

Of all the rationales for the Iraq War, this one might have the most staying power, because it can be used, indefinitely, to justify our continuing casualties. That is, the more Americans fight in Iraq, the more that fighting can be taken as "proof" that such violence pre-empted, in effect, violence in the United States. It's an infinitely looping figure-eight of logic: The more we are attacked in Iraq, the better off we are at home. So bring 'em on.

This argument is dubious, however, for three reasons.

First, terrorism isn't fungible. As a practical matter, it is easier for, say, a Saudi Arabian to cross the border into Iraq than it is for him to get to the United States. Like crime, terrorism is a function of motive plus means; that is, plenty of crime is derailed or deterred by the impregnability or inaccessibility of the target.

Second, the "flypaper" argument was refuted by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz less than four months ago. In an interview for the June issue of Vanity Fair, the Pentagon man said that one benefit of Operation Iraqi Freedom "has gone almost unnoticed." And what was that? "By complete mutual agreement between the U.S. and the Saudi government we can now remove almost all of our forces from Saudi Arabia." And why was that good, to remove the Americans? Because, Wolfowitz continued, "Their presence there over the last 12 years has been a source of enormous difficulty for a friendly government. It's been a huge recruiting device for al-Qaida."

In other words, according to an interview transcript on May 9, the "flypaper" argument had yet to fly. Wolfowitz's point was that we had done ourselves a favor by taking over Iraq, so that we could withdraw our troops from Saudi Arabia where they were, according to Wolfowitz, not only attracting flies, but actually generating flies. As he said, the American presence was causing the number of al-Qaida recruits to swell.

Which brings us to the third flaw in the flypaper argument. As Wolfowitz argued, the number of terrorists isn't eternally fixed and predetermined; terrorism is, in part, a function of circumstance - and thus the argument that it was good to leave Saudi Arabia. That was Wolfowitz's thinking in May, when he argued that it was good to leave Saudi Arabia.

So how about Iraq? Are we not hatching more flies there? By putting American men and women - great fighters, but ill-trained for post-war "nation-building" and illiterate in local language and customs - into a country of 24 million, we have, in effect, spawned an unknown number of new enemies who might otherwise have never done anything more dangerous than shake their fist at a TV screen.

In fact, throughout history, invasions have had a way of rousing otherwise dormant opposition. As William Pitt, surveying the American Revolution from his London vantage point, declared in 1777, "If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country I never would lay down my arms - never! never! never!"

The "flypaper" line seems to be working with the American public right now, but if the Iraqis continue to go from mad to worse, don't be surprised if the Bush administration argument shifts yet again, in the service of a new set of objectives. Someday soon, the neo-Wolfowitzian line might go as follows: "America's presence in Iraq is a 'huge recruiting device' for the terrorists. So that's why we must now shift our forces - and 'regime change' our way into Iran, Syria or Saudi Arabia."

Could the Pentagon's armchair warriors get away with such a bleed-and-switch? Why not? They've ginned up and used up so many reasons for war that it should be no trouble for them to invent a few more.

I'm actually surprised by this article, because James Pinkerton is a journalist who talks on some Fox News show every week (the only show FNC show I watch without routinely placing my hand on my forehead and groaning)- he doesn't seem to enunciate these views on FNC, though (though I don't watch it nearly enough to tell).

[Xenophobe3691]

Well, time to kick out Bush...

[BoredShirtless]

Well, time to kick out Bush...

It's been that time for at least as long as he's been President.