I was reading an article by Fred Kaplan on Slate.com and he had a heck of a point here about the bullshit, “Al-Qaida is going to fight us wherever we are,” line bush has been spewing and similar variations of the follow us home, kill them over there so they don’t kill us over here meme.
he says:
First, it isn’t true. U.S. troops are deployed, to varying degrees, all over the world; al-Qaida is fighting us in only a couple of places and, even there, hardly as the dominant force.
Second, by making such remarks, the president is only hyping al-Qaida’s power. What a great recruitment slogan: “Al-Qaida—fighting wherever the Americans are!”
Third, if the claim is true, why doesn’t Bush play strategic jujitsu? He should amass a lot of troops someplace where we have a great advantage, lure al-Qaida to come fight us, then spring the trap and crush them. Clearly, Iraq isn’t that place.