which you objected to, saying:
>> This statement smells very much like Kohr's, "neither AIPAC nor any of its current employees is or ever has been the target". So I am going to have to call you on it.
Kohr made that statement without a single reference to the "fired" employees who are under FBI investigation. So the statement is clearly deceptive, though technically true.
You said, "over 90% of the suicide bombers who could be identified were foreign". It was the italicized portion that made me think it possibly similarly deceptive to Kohr's.
You may be right. And I was willing to consider that you may be right from the start. But I find it unlikely (then as well as now) that an objective assessment of such statistics can be made. My reasons are:
War is deception. So any news coming from waring parties are suspect. That Iraqis would rather kill themselves than to see US soldiers in their land is in direct contradiction to Iraqis dancing on the streets and passing sweets to the "liberators". So the military has every reason to exaggerate the foreign fighter factor.
Similarly, AQ has strong reasons to take credit for everything that goes wrong in Iraq. Heck, if they could, they'd take credit for all the fatal car accidents in US. So they are not reliable source either.
So just someone saying so, specially someone with motives, does not make it so.
But I am willing to listen to a logical argument based on solid evidence, preferably from someone relatively neutral. But in the absence of neutrality, I will even consider the army's statements if supported by good evidence. For example, if suicide bombings are stopped or highly reduced now that the western Iraq campaign is in full force, then I find it credible that most of the suicide bombers came from Syria. |
