Al Qaeda Numbers Game

from JoeUser Forums

Seventy-five percent of what? Bush claimed in the first debate that 75% of Osama’s people “have been brought to justice.” Did he really mean Osama bin Laden’s terrorists or was he talking about the Iraqi playing cards? As far as security experts know — unlike the celebrated Saddam henchmen — no one can be sure of how many al Qaeda leaders exist. According to The American Prospect Karen Goldberg, director of the Center of Law and Security, and Stephen Holmes, both of NYU, the estimate in 2001 was 22 suspects; Ashcroft has since upped it to 27 as of now. From this total only three have been captured or killed — 11%, not 75%. The American Prospect authors point out that perhaps the president meant not the leadership but 75% of the terrorists that were known to be trained in Afghanistan before 9/11, in which case it would be 2,000 captured or killed in Afghanistan out of 20,000 militants.

However, most of the 20,000 probably left before the assault to do their dirty work elsewhere. For the sake of argument, conjecture that 5,000 remained to do battle with the US Special Forces and the Northern Alliance, 2 out of 5 is not too bad. Because intelligence was so weak, no one can verify how many actually took to the hills or the Pakistan bordering mountains. The sticky point of this is that to toss off a statistic without any semblance of verification is bogus politics just to give the impression that the situation is well in hand and al Qaeda is under control.

Frankly, the president cannot refrain from including al Qaeda body counts from Iraq’s; after all, they are all the same to him, even though it is apparent that al Qaeda and affiliates have countless cells round the globe.

Copyright © 2004 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: October 26, 2004.

http://stevendedalus.joeuser.com

politics
6,679 views 17 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Steven, great argument! I've always said that the adminstration's "numbers game" was misleadingly being manipulated for political point-scoring and had nothing to do with reality. Great job!
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
SiRMetMan: Excellent point! There is more "fuzzy math" going on in this administration than one can keep up with. Don't get me wrong, all Presidents are guilty to using this tactic to some extent in order to boost their chances for re-election, but this administration's use of it to lull the American people into believing we are "safer" as a result of his disasterous foreign policies, is appalling.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
Steven, I don't mean to post something in your blog response section that is sort of unrelated to your article, but I didn't know of any other way of getting this information to you. Do you remember in one of my articles, (regarding why the Iraq war was making the world more dangerous), I brought up the issue of Zarqawi, his base being in the Kurish-controlled north prior to the war, and the fact that the administration's failure to bomb it led me to suspect that Bush was keeping Zarqawi around as a "false talking point" about Iraqi-al Qaeda ties? Well, I don't know if you have been following that story or not but it appears (much to my dismay) that I was right. Look at this information:

"The story of the looted explosives has overshadowed another report that Bush officials tried to suppress - this one about how the Bush administration let Abu Musab al-Zarqawi get away. An article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal confirmed and expanded on an "NBC Nightly News" report from March that asserted that before the Iraq war, administration officials called off a planned attack that might have killed Mr. Zarqawi, the terrorist now blamed for much of the mayhem in that country, in his camp."

"Citing "military officials," the original NBC report explained that the failure to go after Mr. Zarqawi was based on domestic politics: "the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq" - a part of Iraq not controlled by Saddam Hussein - "could undermine its case for war against Saddam." The Journal doesn't comment on this explanation, but it does say that when NBC reported, correctly, that Mr. Zarqawi had been targeted before the war, administration officials denied it."

I can't send you the link to the Wall Street Journal report because I don't have an on-line subscription but here is the link to the op-ed piece where I was able to get these quotes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/26/opinion/26krugman.html

I am going to try and find the NBC report.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Did he really mean Osama bin Laden’s terrorists or was he talking about the Iraqi playing cards?


As far as security experts know — unlike the celebrated Saddam henchmen — no one can be sure of how many al Qaeda leaders exist.


Great points. Evidently, our administration is working under the belief (lie[?]) that the Iraq war is part of the "global war on terrorism," so for them, there's really no distinction.

The sticky point of this is that to toss off a statistic without any semblance of verification is bogus politics just to give the impression that the situation is well in hand and al Qaeda is under control.


Yes, but they've never steered us wrong before . . . oh wait . . .oops . . . nevermind . . . maybe we shouldn't blindly trust the administration's tall tales, after all.

Great article, as always, steven.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
My sources indicate that Keyser Soze is still at large, but as many as 60% of his footsoldiers have been aprehended.

Good post, Steven.
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
Steven:

Condi Rice told Wolf Blitzer when asked how many Al Qaeda leaders 75% was said "Oh, tens to hundreds" So, it was a number between 7.5 and 750. That narrows the count down for us, doesn't it? The truth is that the Bush Administration has not one single clue how many Al Qaeda there were, are, or will be. But we should follow the logic and vote for THEIR leadership?

Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
CrispE, it is literally IMPOSSIBLE to know how many terrorists there are in the world because the world can't even agree on a definition of what a terrorist IS. And even if it could agree, there is no way of getting an accurate count. So the whole numbers game is a sham.
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
I think one of the big problems with terrorists is that by their very nature, you don't know most of them are terrorists until the terrorize. Terrrorists don't tend to wear uniforms or little Al Queda lapel pins. As a result of this, you don't really know who the terrorists are until after you capture or kill them. Yeah, you know Osama and some top figures, but the majority of the foot soldiers blend in to the rest of society, because that is exactly what they are trained and trying to do. Saying we have captured the majority of known terrorists really means very little.
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
there's really no distinction.
Yeah, they're stereotyped--all Arabs look alike, right?
Bush was keeping Zarqawi around as a "false talking point" about Iraqi-al Qaeda ties?
Yes, when he lost Osama, at least he had a designated hitter to remind us of terrorism in Iraq! 
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
Great piece Steven,

In fairness to Bush, it's the American people who keep demanding to be told that the War on Terrorism is winnable; so Bush keeps claiming to be winning it in some measurable way, and he and Kerry attack each other when either admits that the WoT is no more winnable than the War on Drugs, or the War on Poverty, or the War on Run-On Sentences... oh wait.
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
Blogic, so true! We sheep must have confidence in the shepherd.
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
The war on terror is winnable to an extent, just not really with guns and rockets. If the lack of general wealth, freedoms, education, and information in the mid-east was lessened significantly or irradictaed, Osama and his ilk would have a hard time finding recruits, and terrorism would become somewhat of a paper tiger.
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top
True. I think there's a longterm problem that nuclear weapons will get cheaper and smaller over time. A terrorist won't really need any recruits, and they're always be crazy, evil people no matter how well people live in this world.
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
I think that that comment about reducing terrorism to a 'nusance' that Kerry made and the Reps predictably latched on to as a sign of weakness was adressing this very point. Yes, there will always be crazies, but if the number of people sympathetic to and able to be influnced by thier messages are reduced or irradicated through education and other means, then the whole Muslim extremist terrorist element will become as much a threat as the militant Nazi and Christian nut cases on thier compounds in Montana or whereever. You won't be able to completely irradicate them, but you can minimize them to the point of utter insignificance.
Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top
. I think there's a longterm problem that nuclear weapons will get cheaper and smaller over time.
Scary future.
If the lack of general wealth, freedoms, education, and information in the mid-east was lessened significantly or irradictaed, Osama and his ilk would have a hard time finding recruits, and terrorism would become somewhat of a paper tiger.
Strong statement.