The fallacy of the so-called flypaper theory.

[Brian Sweat]

First, the terrorist leaders are not stupid. They know that fighting a guerrilla war against the United States military is a tremendous waste of resources and is far less effective than strikes like 9-11, the U.S.S. Cole and the embassy bombings.

Second, what the flypaper is really trapping is U.S. Intelligence resources that might otherwise be used to fight terrorism.

The flypaper theory is bogus anyway. It was just an idea thought up after the fact to help justify the invasion. As a working idea, it is counter productive. Instead of protecting Americans from terrorist attacks, it increases our exposure.

[htuttle]

1. Oh, Iraq is flypaper all right

But the real question is, who's caught in it?

[Maple]

3. I agree

flypaper is sticky on more than one side.

Something the 'brain trust' at the WH appears to have forgotten.

[damnraddem]

10. There are some maggots in the White House.

Who have discovered that Iraqi flypaper can catch them, just when they think they've really begun to fly.

[Palacsinta]

2. You're right

Good points

[Beetwasher]

4. Yup. I predicted months ago that they would use this excuse

The reason it doesn't fly and won't work is that by invading Iraq they might to some degree draw many would be terrorists to the country to fight the US, however, they've increased recruits to terrorist organizations by several orders of magnitude. These organizations can afford to fight a guerrilla war in Iraq using cannon fodder, while training for and preparing and planning deadly terror attacks in the US. Because their top recruiter (Bush) is doing such a great job for them, they now have a hell of a lot more resources (bodies) to fight a guerrilla war AND stage terrorist attacks...

[acerbic]

5. A further, rather obvious point:

The theory assumes that there's a limited supply of terrorists and if they're going to Iraq, it means less terrorists everywhere else.
:dunce: :crazy: :silly:

[Brian Sweat]

6. You are correct

[library_max]

8. Yeah, exactly.

It also starts to edge toward turning this into a global war of the U.S. vs. Islam. Okay, for accuracy's sake, it starts to edge toward honesty in making this a global war of the U.S. against Islam.

:nuke:

[Cocoa]

7. "after the fact" is the key

Here's an interesting take on the mission creep


Mission Creep

2002:

"We are fighting that enemy in Afghanistan so that we do not meet him again on our streets, in our own cities."

2003:

"We are fighting that enemy in Afghanistan and Iraq so that we do not meet him again on our streets, in our own cities."

2004:

"We are fighting that enemy in Afghanistan and Iraq and Saudi Arabia so that we do not meet him again on our streets, in our own cities."

2005:

"We are fighting that enemy in Afghanistan and Iraq and Saudi Arabia and Syria and Lebanon and Yeman and Algeria and the West Bank, so that we do not meet him again on our streets, in our own cities."

2006:

"We are fighting that enemy in the streets of America, in our own cities."

Update 9/7 9:05 PM ET

Short form George Bush: "Iraq is now the central front in the global war against absolute evil, but it's not so important that we have to roll back any of my tax cuts, send more U.S. troops to Iraq or do anything else that might make swing voters slightly less likely to vote for me next year. Thank you and God Bless America."

[K-W]

9. It also assumes

that the terrorists on the ground in Iraq are from the same pool of terrorists who carry out attacks in the US. I think its rather sillly to think that international cells are just getting on planes and flying to iraq to run a car into a checkpoint. I think the terrorists in Iraq come from a pool of local islamic fighters, who were more likely to hit isreal than ever touch us soil and new recruits fired up by our attack.

Ugh I hate using the word terrorist in the context. We invade thier country, they fight back the only way tehy can, and we lable them terrorists as if they are the evil ones.