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Studies done "by the Saudi Arabian government and an Israeli think tank" state that the majority of foreign terrorists killing civilians in Iraq were not previously part of Al Qaeda:
...interrogations of nearly 300 Saudis captured while trying to sneak into Iraq and case studies of more than three dozen others who blew themselves up in suicide attacks show that most were heeding the calls from clerics and activists to drive infidels out of Arab land, according to a study by Saudi investigator Nawaf Obaid, a US-trained analyst who was commissioned by the Saudi government and given access to Saudi officials and intelligence.
A separate Israeli analysis of 154 foreign fighters compiled by a leading terrorism researcher found that despite the presence of some senior Al Qaeda operatives who are organizing the volunteers, ''the vast majority of [non-Iraqi] Arabs killed in Iraq have never taken part in any terrorist activity prior to their arrival in Iraq."
Some therefore argue that:
The studies, which together constitute the most detailed picture available of foreign fighters, cast serious doubt on President Bush's claim that those responsible for some of the worst violence are terrorists who seized on the opportunity to make Iraq the ''central front" in a battle against the United States.
The key error in this argument is the hidden assumption that only those who had previously engaged in terrorist actions were the ones we were battling. As if the clerics and activists who recruit them were not the leaders of the terrorists! As if we were not permitted to fight new recruits the terrorists could bring into service!
This relates to a point I've been talking about a lot: that the enemy is not merely the point men who actually blow themselves up, but the larger society that literally gives birth to them, in every sense of the word. Such societies can always raise more kids to blow themselves up. We must show them that that strategy is not going to work for them.
(Hat Tip to A.)
