It seems to me that, except for "they hate us for our freedoms," the "fight them there rather than here" argument is the most damaging lie used to frighten Americans into supporting the Iraq War.   It is heartbreaking to hear it from the lips of families of soldiers killed in Iraq. This so-called "Flypaper Theory," which holds that occupying Iraq attracts terrorists to Iraq so we can "fight them there rather than here," is rebutted, indirectly, by Henry Crumpton, a former CIA operative and former State Department counter-terrorism coordinator. He says that, partly as a result of resentment against the United States that the Iraq occupation has fueled, "We're going to get hit" by another domestic terror attack. Crumpton calls this "a hard, ugly fact." (Newsweek, January 2007.)

Imagine what Republicans would do with this kind of testimony had the parties' positions on the war been reversed. The Democratic leadership's reaction to Crumpton's courageous truth-telling was a huge, stifled yawn. Besides, if we wanted to fight "them" there instead of here, why couldn't we draw them to Afghanistan, where we actually have true international support?

Further evidence that the Flypaper Theory is wrong comes from Michael Scheuer, former chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit. He notes that Al Qaeda is structured to take full advantage of U.S. foreign policy errors. Scheuer calls the Iraq invasion a "never-to-be-hoped-for gift" to bin Laden. Al Qaeda's training camps are not primarily intended to train terrorists, he says. They are meant to train the trainers, who can then train more trainers, in a self-regenerating organization which requires only a high level of discontent among Muslims to gain recruits.

In his book "Imperial Hubris" Scheuer says that the camps teach "a deep skill set in a narrow range" and produce "large numbers of skilled fighters, who then return home to fight and train others..." This basic training includes instruction in:

"AK-47s, Stinger missiles, GPS systems, advanced land navigation, RPGs, map-reading, demolition techniques, celestial navigation, hand-to-hand combat, trench digging, weapons deployment, escape and evasion techniques, first aid, scientific calculations to plot artillery fire, secure communications..."

In other words, the invasion of Iraq plays right into the hands of the bin Laden strategy, which is to supply the skills and organization, while allowing U.S. blindness to supply the manpower.

In my book "The Elephant in the Room" on the 2004 presidential election, I suggest that, in order to counter the neat, dumbed-down image of "flypaper," Democratic talking points should adopt "incubator" as a metaphor which better describes what is going on in Iraq. Rather than effect deterrence, Iraq has put us into a foreign policy "spiral," in which potential enemies are radicalized by national aggression that is outside the scope of legitimate national defense. It's Foreign Policy 101, familiar to any first year international relations grad student at any foreign policy program in the world.

Passage from "The Elephant in the Room":

General Ricardo Sanchez, before he got sacked, said
attacking Iraq was good because it's like flypaper for terrorists,
who'll be too busy fighting us there to bother us here. An incubator is
more like it, flies laying thousands of eggs that grow up feeding on a
gruel of hatred and the killing arts.  

From my post of November 2005:

...the Republican instinct understands what the Democrats do not: Americans will tolerate being lied to if they believe it was for their own good. The "fight them there rather than here" is a powerful narcotic to fearful Americans. Although it's absurd (nothing says they can't come here after the live-fire training ground we have provided in Iraq,) its pedigree is long.

During Vietnam we were told we had to fight them in Southeast Asia or we would be fighting them "on the shores of San Diego." My own dear dad went to that war, and the only reason he went, he said, was so that we, his young sons, "wouldn't have to." The real evil of this draft-dodger administration is to harness the noblest impulses of the bravest and most idealistic, and to use them for their own foul ends.

From "Elephant in the Room":

To rebut Kerry's calling the Iraq war a diversion, Junior said something about Zarqawi, to wit: "If Zarqawi and his associates were not busy fighting American forces in Iraq, does Senator Kerry think he would be leading a productive and peaceful life?"

The Shrub is pulling in, without saying it, the "flypaper" theory, which, if you can believe it, says we invaded Iraq to keep terrorists "busy."  Good.  Good and wrong.  

The straw man:  Bush says Kerry believes that Zarqawi  "would be leading a productive and peaceful life" if we had not  invaded Iraq, something Kerry never even remotely suggested.  The  challenge of rebutting Bush is that so much nonsense is thrown at you  in such a short space that it's hard to know where to start.  

WHAT KERRY SHOULD SAY, AND MAKE SURE IT
HITS ALL THE PAPERS:  

"Yesterday the president suggested the Iraq invasion was not
a diversion, because we are keeping Zarqawi "busy," that's what he
said, "busy," there rather than here.  The problem is now there are
more Zarqawis; now they are busy creating more terrorists.  And
nothing says they have to stay there, which is why we're in greater
danger as a result of this president's policies."

This attacks the core of the Bush statement.  As for the straw  man, a "would [Zarqawi] be leading a peaceful and productive life,"  you do what a smart bull does to the waving red cape once it has spotted the  part of you it wants to gore: ignore it.

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