Tim, I agree that you state these caveats. However, the assumption at the core of your argument is still that the supply of terrorists is limited, and that by fighting them in Iraq we need not fight them elsewhere.
This assumption is what I believe to be false. By fighting in Iraq we simply generate many new terrorists there (aka Resistance fighters) who would never have fought us had we not invaded: AND that our actions, being perceived and readily portrayed as anti-Muslim, generate greater numbers of terrorists and their abettors/sympathisers elsewhere than we would have faced had we not invaded Iraq.
Oh, agreed, we may draw some terrorists into Iraq who otherwise would in any case have worked against us elsewhere - but that's hardly a win, unless you believe they would have been more effective outside Iraq (debatable at best since they'd have had so much less conducive and chaotic an environment). But their numbers I suspect are smaller than those new recruits who might otherwise have sympathised, but never would have been spurred to act. This is opinion, sure: but I'm basing it on the obvious mood now in the rest of the Muslim world. Or do you think Pakistan, or Indonesia, or Jordan, or Egypt, or indeed Muslims in the UK and US, are more pro-West than they were in [say] December 2002?
Hence I believe that the case that "it's better to fight terrorists in Iraq than elsewhere" is not only morally unpleasant, devaluing as it does the independence, environment and lives of others; it's downright incorrect, because the end result (not having terrorists elsewhere) is false.
And in an example of gross hypocrisy, our own governments agrees with me - by their actions. If they believe the world's safer, if they believe they've lessened the threat from terrorists elsewhere by drawing them into Iraq, then why do they feel the need to have greater powers, more far-reaching security, and more restrictions on civil rights at home?
They obviously don't believe their own case here. Nor should you. |
