Tuesday, August 19, 2003

If you follow right-wing thinking, you know that recently righties have been propounding what's called the "flypaper theory" to explain Bush administration policy in Iraq, and Bush's "bring 'em on" taunt in particular. Joshua Micah Marshall explains the theory (citing this essay by David Warren):

The thinking goes something like this. These guerilla engagements we're seeing in Iraq may not be such a bad thing. What we're doing is attracting all the terrorists to Iraq (i.e., like "flypaper") so that a) they won't be attacking us in America and b) we can fight them there on our own terms.

For a while, the righties almost seemed to have a case -- one could be cold-blooded and say that our casualty level in Iraq was "acceptable," and it was better to have U.S. soldiers in the line of fire than stateside civilians.

But that line of thinking seems like utter bullshit today, doesn't it?

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