Both Dan and Matt Yglesias provide us with empirical evidence that the number of insurgents in Iraq is snowballing. It’s a far cry from the ridiculous predictions of Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds that jihadists from across the Arab world would get sucked into Iraq, leaving the US safer. Indeed, if the Brookings people are right, the number of foreign insurgents has grown only slightly since December, while the number of domestic insurgents has grown fourfold. Flypaper, my ass. This whole nonsensical theory was never more than ex post wishful thinking masquerading as foreign policy analysis - as I argued last year, it seemed to be based on the fallacious notion that there was a limited “lump of terrorism” floating around in the international system that could be absorbed by a conflict in Iraq. Instead, entirely predictably, we’re seeing what seems to be an enormous increase in recruitment to anti-American forces - an eightfold increase over the last fifteen months. The dynamic effects are swamping the constant ones. I don’t see how this can be anything but bad news.
Update: I’d forgotten that Ted too posted on this eleven months ago.
I’m going to make a prediction that I feel pretty good about: a year from now, no one will be very proud of the flypaper theory.
And I reckon that Robert Schwartz owes him $100 …
(Technical Note): I think your last link is broken, points to the same as the first link…
My largest objection to the fly-paper theory was its open attempt to bring our war to Iraq. The whole rationale reminds me of the recent obsession with “Are We Safer?” rhetoric, when the point of these wars (coming from a pro-war lunatic like myself) should be to drain swamps (a better cliche than fly-paper), not make ourselves safer or divert the enemy into fighting us on foreign lands.
The hacks need to come up with a suitable metric to make it looks like things are getting better. For example, take the number of insurgents and divide by some quantity which has gone up faster, then call it the “insurgents intensity”. Kind of like how they do with greenhouse gases.
I dunno, maybe if you divide the number of insurgents by the number of Starbucks franchises then things look better.
Unlike you and the majority of CT commenters, I don’t even remotely claim to be expert on military matters or precisely how the situation in Iraq has changed over the past months, but I’ve got to say there’s something odd about the Brookings chart your link to Mr. Yglesias relies upon. From April 2004 to July 2004, it shows insurgents growing from 5,000 to 20,000, U.S. troop fatalities falling from 131 to 55, and insurgents detained/killed falling from 2,000 to 1,000. Did all of the active insurgents get killed (the best and the bravest die first, you know)? Or are the new insurgents adherents of Mahatma Gandhi (that would be good news)?
I would note the chart also shows 80% of Iraqis Expect That Life Will Improve Under New Government and electric capacity as fully 20% higher than pre-war.
How about by the amount of electricity generated in Iraq before the war subtracted from the amount generated currently?
Oh, forgot, that’s a NEGATIVE number.
First lesson in fighting terrorism with democracy: Democracy REQUIRES a viable Infrastructure.
Ken, from where are you getting your electric stats from? USAID reports that on October 6, 2003 Iraqi electric production reached 4518 MW, surpassing the 4400 MW pre-war level. Is this statistic skewered or out of date?
Perusing the USAID reports also gives you a feel for the wide scope of this reconstruction — it’s unparalleled, and keep in mind the coalition is working to fix infrastructure damaged not just by one war, but by 24 years of Saddam’s rule.
So, at the point where we actually kill more Iraqis than Saddam, do we get relief from the ‘Yeah but we are better than Saddam’ arguments?
Because frankly, just ‘being better than Saddam’ was not something I aspired to. Apparently the right-wingers have a much lower success level than I do.
Rajeev:
I don’t know if you intended to mislead, or if you are just lazy. But the USAID numbers you cite are from July 2003. What follows is from an article three months ago. (If the war’s supporters would just stop lying about the state of affairs, we would all be better off.)
Baghdad , May 14 - Contrary to US President George Bush’s recent statement that electricity in Iraq “is now more widely available than before the war,” Iraqi officials say the power supply in their country has not yet been repaired to pre-war levels. Bush made the claim in his May 1, 2004 speech commemorating the one-year anniversary of the “mission accomplished” address he delivered from aboard the USS Lincoln.
Twelve months later, it appears as though the majority of Iraqis have seen little improvement in their power supply.
At the Al-Dora power station in Baghdad on May 3, the deputy manager of the plant, Bashir Khalaf Omair, said that electricity output in Iraq prior to the March, 2003 invasion was around 5,000 Megawatts (MW) a day.
Iraq’s Acting Minister of Electricity, Ra’ad Al-Haris, said in an interview Thursday that the current supply of electricity produced in Iraq measures between 3,600-4,000 MW.
Actually, the USAID numbers are from October of ‘03.
Rajeev’s post is still based on information that is now false. Please stop that practice now, Rajeev.
From April 2004 to July 2004, it shows insurgents growing from 5,000 to 20,000, U.S. troop fatalities falling from 131 to 55, and insurgents detained/killed falling from 2,000 to 1,000.
Note: this is because April 2004 marked the start of the first Sadr insurrection, which ended in May.
I don’t like this term: “insurgents”, “insurgency”. “Insurgency” assumes a legitimate government, while these people rise up against illegal foreign occupation. It’s called “resistance”.
Doh - of course the resistance is growing. Obviously it does create better opportunities for terrorist recruitment, but most of these people only want freedom from foreign occupation; they won’t necessarily go to the US to blow up buildings. So, yes, the “fly-paper theory” is, of course, quite idiotic, yet, in the short term, this phenomenon may or may not metamorphize into more terroristm inside the US. Eventually it will, of course.
Thanks for the information Mklutra. To answer your question, I was being lazy — I was just looking at USAID’s most recent numbers. (If I intended to mislead, I probably wouldn’t have asked: “Is this statistic skewered or out of date?”) Anyway, let’s not pollute this thread with personal attacks and silly defenses.
What’s more interesting is, like the quandary with casualty counts, why is the USAID report wrong on electricity production? Regarding the date of the report, their server shows it was posted on July 2003, but it’s quoting the levels, as I noted in my post above, as they were on October 2003. So either the levels have dropped since then, or the USAID report had exagerrated.
Note: this is because April 2004 marked the start of the first Sadr insurrection, which ended in May.
Sadr’s militia hardly killed any US troops, they are armatures. April US fatalities are from the Fallujah operation. Iraqi April casualties are also mostly result of the Fallujah operation, when US troops bombed the city and killed 600 people within just a couple days.
Flypaper was the idea of neither of the good folks you mention. It was David Warren.
I almost tire of mentioning how the media — specifically, the “liberal” mainstream media that determine how 60 per cent of Canadians and 40 per cent of Americans think — get everything backwards. So that by the time one has unwrangled their reflexive views, one is stupefied by the doublings, quadruplings, and sextuplings of negatives.
And
This is exactly what President Bush wants. To engage them, away from Israel, in mortal combat. To have an excuse for wiping them out — a good, solid, American excuse, from which Israel has been extracted. The good news is, Hizbullah’s taking the bait.
Read the whole thing as they say. As the right are fond of quoting, “it takes an intellectual to be so stupid.”
Is this Warren character sane? Does he really think there is/was a finite number of the “them” he wants wiped out? As suggested by the poster above, resistance might be a more useful term than insurgents: perhaps it will evoke the struggle for US independence and French liberation and make the Iraqi viewpoint easier to understand.
seen on some car back window:
YEE-HAW! is not a foreign policy. (One might substitute “bring ‘em on” but the rebel yell has some enjoyable connotations.)
Look at the footnotes (23 and 24; 24 can be accessed at http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4290373,00.html) to the Brookings’ study (http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf). The sources do not stand for the proposition that there has been an upsurge in the number of insurgents. Instead, the earlier figure is based on a military briefing and the later figure is based on an AP story that says the number of insurgents has been underestimated all along. What has surged is the estimate, not the actual; and the sources have changed.
I think the inference of empirical support for a mushrooming insurgency should be withdrawn.
The electricity number of 5.5 Mw peak production for July fascinates me. It really does, if it holds up, constitute good news. That said, I do corporate metrics for a living and the 5.5 would jump out at anyone I put that table in front of. It’s just a lot higher than any of the other numbers in that row and it does not fit the pattern. Possibilities include
a) The number is wrong;
b) The number is right, and indicative of a trend;
c) The number is right, but is due to a change in method of calculation that was not applied back to prior months - this is how America’s overweight population shot up abruptly in the 1990s;
d) The number is right but is an outlier, like the November, April and May casualty figures.
In the good old days, you could just download the daily power output spreadsheet from the CPA website and see daily data stretching back to August 2003. Alas, if the new people are still offering such good data, I haven’t found it. Meanwhile, the full Saban Center Iraq Index, from which the NYT Op-Chart is excerpted, only goes up to June. But the Apr-May-Jun trend is 3.8-3.9-4.3. 5.5 is a heck of a jump from that. SO:
1. If the 5.5 number holds up, my hats off to them.
2. If it holds up, it is good news. However, some perspective is called for. The “pre-war” number of 4500 is, IIRC, a Feb 2003 figure. For electricity, you’d really want to compare the 5.5 to July 2002, the last pre-war high-summer number. Also, while 5.5 is an improvement, it still represents a shortfall from goal, which Brookings tells us was 6.0 for beginning (not end) July.
Bull - you could be right, in which case the Brookings figures are quite misleading on their face (you’ll notice that the post was predicated on their accuracy). Still contend that the Flypaper theory is nonsense though.
“and keep in mind the coalition is working to fix infrastructure damaged not just by one war, but by 24 years of Saddam’s rule.”
I really hate this misleading Republican talking point. Iraq before Gulf War I was one of the most modernized Arabi countries, if not the most. That talking point is an Orwellian memory-hole, a shirking of the responsibility for the horrors wrought on Iraq by 12 years of SANCTIONS.
Barry you’re adding to my argument not rejecting it: the infrastructure has been damaged by Saddam and the sanctions, both. Going back to fix the damage wrought by sanctions is hardly a “shirking of responsibility.” And I’m not sure why you refer to this as a Republican talking point. It’s more general than that: it’s a pro-war talking point, and your sanctions formulation is used often by the liberal interventionists who opposed sanctions throughout the 90s.
One of the comments that I hear last year was that restoration of the electricity was slower than under Saddam, after the first Gulf War. During sanctions. Which the iraqis took as a sign that the US didn’t mind if Iraq was f*cked up.
another important point is that electricity is no longer hoarded in Baghdad and favored areas, but spread throughout the country. Some are better off; some worse.
The whole “flypaper” argument was krap from the get-go. What, we wouldn’t attract the Bad Guys by fighting in Afghanistan or Pakistan (where Al-Q really was/is)? Bastards.
Flypaper’s the wrong word, it’s more like a loop - terrorists justify war on terror, war on terror creates more terrorists, more terrorists justify more war on terror, etc. etc. etc. Of course it’s entirely unintentional!, god forbid I suggest otherwise, it’s just a fortunate coincidence for both parties to keep justifying their policies. Less fortunate for those caught in the middle, but what do they count anyway.
I gotta say, I discuss politics with online wingnuts (or an amazing simulation of same), and some still seem to have faith in the flypaper theory.
Wouldn’t pre-Gulf War I levels of electricity production be a better comparison?
the infrastructure has been damaged by Saddam and the sanctions, both
As barry pointed out, Iraq, pre-Gulf War I, had fairly modern infrastructure (and low infant mortality, high literacy relative to the region). Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say the infrastructure had been damaged by US targeting of electricity grids (remember silicon-fiber spewing bombs?) and water treatment plants (Geneva?)?
Most of the damage from the sanctions then came about as hundreds of thousands of civilians (children) died of cholera from impure water. IIRC prohibitions on the importation of dual-use technology prevented the repair of many water treatment facilities.
No points for responding that it’s still Saddam’s fault since the sanctions would have been lifted if he hadn’t “thwarted the will of the United Nations for 12 years”.
If you want a truly magnificently cock-eyed attempt to explain why the situation in Iraq is absolutely fine, check out Crooked Timber favorite Steven den Beste’s post of 07/31/2004 - the most recent one, at the moment(www.denbeste.nu).
The flypaper theory also forms a part of den Beste’s cosily precise and complex “Strategic Overview” - an attempt at defending and excusing every aspect of the American campaign in Iraq.
See: http://denbeste.nu/essays/strategic_overview.shtml
In fairness to den Bastard, he does actually put the flypaper theory low down on his list, call it “not confirmed” and cite David Warren as the ultimate source.
But then, he’s not above using the fly-paper theory’s brand of ex post fuck-up logic, when he argues that more violence and more resistance actually signify that “our” enemies are heading for a fall. Check out his splendidly mad entry “Enemy mistakes” -
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2004/04/Enemymistakes.shtml.
(In the light of that post’s glorying in America bringing Iraq free speech, I wonder what he makes of the recent banning of Al-Jazeera?)
If you want a truly magnificently cock-eyed attempt to explain why the situation in Iraq is absolutely fine, check out Crooked Timber favorite Steven den Beste’s post of 07/31/2004 - the most recent one, at the moment(www.denbeste.nu).
The flypaper theory also forms a part of den Beste’s cosily precise and complex “Strategic Overview” - an attempt at defending and excusing every aspect of the American campaign in Iraq.
See: http://denbeste.nu/essays/strategic_overview.shtml
In fairness to den Bastard, he does actually put the flypaper theory low down on his list, call it “not confirmed” and cite David Warren as the ultimate source.
But then, he’s not above using the fly-paper theory’s brand of ex post fuck-up logic, when he argues that more violence and more resistance actually signify that “our” enemies are heading for a fall. Check out his splendidly mad entry “Enemy mistakes” -
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2004/04/Enemymistakes.shtml.
(In the light of that post’s glorying in America bringing Iraq free speech, I wonder what he makes of the recent banning of Al-Jazeera?)
Some of the most astute, and acerbic, commentary on the “flypaper” theory, around the time it was first aired, came from Paleo-Con writer Steve Sailer (www.isteve.com). Here’s one example:
“nk: Sep. 4, 2003 23:00:05 E-mail me iSteve home
“Jumbo shrimp,” “military intelligence,” and now … “blog wisdom!” — Since midsummer, the big blog boys, including Tin Pencil-Sharpener nominees Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, and James Taranto of the WSJ, have been promoting the “flypaper” or “draining the swamp” theory to explain why our getting into a guerilla war in Iraq is really a good thing. See, now we’ve got all the bad guys right where we want them — all the anti-American Muslims in the world are flocking to Iraq where we will kill them all and then there will be no more of them anywhere ever again. As Greg Cochran points out, the Soviets tried out the flypaper theory in Afghanistan from 1979-1988, killing a million or more Muslims, which is why there hasn’t been a single Islamist extremist in Afghanistan ever since.”
In another of his posts, Sailer pointed out that the Iraqis might be less than happy with a strategy that treated their country as bait for terrorists.
I’m not a Paleo-Con myself (far from it), but I highly recommend Sailer but when foreign policy is at issue. I should add that for Paleo-Con positions I don’t care for, he’s at the least an intelligent and sober champion of those positions. And he has a hearty contempt for Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds that never fails to endear him to me.
Some of the most astute, and acerbic, commentary on the “flypaper” theory, around the time it was first aired, came from Paleo-Con writer Steve Sailer (www.isteve.com). Here’s one example:
“nk: Sep. 4, 2003 23:00:05 E-mail me iSteve home
“Jumbo shrimp,” “military intelligence,” and now … “blog wisdom!” — Since midsummer, the big blog boys, including Tin Pencil-Sharpener nominees Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, and James Taranto of the WSJ, have been promoting the “flypaper” or “draining the swamp” theory to explain why our getting into a guerilla war in Iraq is really a good thing. See, now we’ve got all the bad guys right where we want them — all the anti-American Muslims in the world are flocking to Iraq where we will kill them all and then there will be no more of them anywhere ever again. As Greg Cochran points out, the Soviets tried out the flypaper theory in Afghanistan from 1979-1988, killing a million or more Muslims, which is why there hasn’t been a single Islamist extremist in Afghanistan ever since.”
In another of his posts, Sailer pointed out that the Iraqis might be less than happy with a strategy that treated their country as bait for terrorists.
I’m not a Paleo-Con myself (far from it), but I highly recommend Sailer but when foreign policy is at issue. I should add that for Paleo-Con positions I don’t care for, he’s at the least an intelligent and sober champion of those positions. And he has a hearty contempt for Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Reynolds that never fails to endear him to me.
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review