It Only Took 19

This is a follow up to my previous post, on the subject of Bush’s bragging about terrorist body counts.  I noticed that several bloggers, such as Hugh Hewitt, think that this kind of stat actually means something.  He wonders, ‘Will 10,000 Terrorists Killed Or Captured In Iraq In 2007 Lead The MSM News Tonight‘

On the surface, I can see where many would want to point to something like this as a sign that we’re actually getting somewhere.  Unfortunately, the number all by itself is pretty meaningless beyond highlighting the fact that we’ve killed a lot of people in Bush’s “war on terror”.  Without any context or idea how many of the “enemy” that we’re dealing with, it’s impossible to tell if we’re accomplishing anything.  For example, if we create two jihadis for every one that we kill I’d have to say that this is a bad number.  Like I stated in the last thread, it’s pretty hard to believe that all these people that we’re killing in Iraq could have been the 20th hijacker.  Most of these people are enemies borne from our own actions.

This isn’t a conventional army with a finite number of recruits that we’re facing.  This is an ideology that knows no country and has no real chain of command, and can spread like a grease fire.    Mr. Victory Caucus apparently thinks that, eventually, we’ll manage to kill all of them, and we win.  I don’t think it’s quite that simple. 

Advertisement