(no subject)

[johnraptor.livejournal.com]

Comments

[motherginsberg.livejournal.com]

oh, oh my.

[tbonestg.livejournal.com]

I've yet to see any evidence that Iraq is driving up Al Qaeda recruitment.

I'm a bit rusty, but I think one of the median estimates for the number of people who went through jihadi training camps in Afghanistan between 1996 when Al Qaeda set up shop there, to 2001, when the US closed that shop, was 45,000. That's roughly 9000 recruits a year.

Now, the numbers on foreign fighters in Iraq are hard to nail down, but have generally been estimated at 500-1000 at any given time. Obviously, there's some turnover there, as the foreign fighters are the primary source of suicide bombers in Iraq, but there aren't enough bombings to make a 900-1800% turnover rate that believable.

[insidersav.livejournal.com]

That's if you base their numbers on how many bombings occur. A relatively large number of foreign fighters entering the country would more likely lead to them banding together in groups or possibly representing smaller factions of a larger organization, such as al qaeda. That would make them more likely to plan attacks and car bombings, as suicide bombing would lower their #'s. Just because there aren't a larger number of suicide bombings doesn't mean the foreign fighters aren't there doing other things instead.

[tbonestg.livejournal.com]

Sure, but their numbers just aren't that high. Even those who want to characterize the insurgency as being foreign-driven won't say that there's more than 2000 foreign fighters in country. There's just not enough evidence, bodies or otherwise, to suggest that there are more foreigners than that in-country.

[somefantastic10.livejournal.com]

That last panel is funny and horrifying at the same time.