Flypaper and Body Counts

The first time I heard the term "flypaper" in relation to Iraq was from David Warren. Looking back - I think Warren was spot on:

....While engaged in the very difficult business of building a democracy in Iraq -- the first democracy should it succeed in the entire history of the Arabs -- President Bush has also quite consciously to my information created a new playground for the enemy away from Israel and even farther away from the United States itself. By the very act of proving this lower ground he drains terrorist resources from other swamps.

This is the meaning of Mr. Bush's "bring 'em on" taunt from the Roosevelt Room on Wednesday when he was quizzed about the "growing threat to U.S. forces" on the ground in Iraq. It should have been obvious that no U.S. President actually relishes having his soldiers take casualties. What the media and U.S. Democrats affect not to grasp is that the soldiers are now replacing targets that otherwise would be provided by defenseless civilians both in Iraq and at large. The sore thumb of the U.S. occupation -- and it is a sore thumb equally to Baathists and Islamists compelling their response -- is not a mistake. It is carefully hung flypaper.

There are some homegrown "insurgents" among the folks the US Military has been fighting in Iraq but for the most part we are fighting foreign born terrorists who are terrorists by trade and who - if they weren't fighting against our highly trained military would be killing civilians elsewhere.

Back in March of 2005 there was an interesting study highlighting this facet of the war:

The Global Research in International Affairs Center in Israel, a highly reputable and reliable think-tank, has published a paper titled "Arab volunteers killed in Iraq: an Analysis," available at e-prism.org. Authored by Dr. Reuven Paz, the paper analyzes the origins of 154 Arab jihadists killed in Iraq in the last six months, whose names have been posted on Islamist websites.

The sample does not account for all jihadists in Iraq, but provides a useful and eye-opening profile of them. Saudi Arabia accounted for 94 jihadists, or 61 percent of the sample, followed by Syria with 16 (10 percent), Iraq itself with only 13 (8 percent), and Kuwait with 11 (7 percent.) The rest included small numbers from Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Algeria, Morocco (of which one was a resident in Spain), Yemen, Tunisia, the Palestinian territories (only 1), Dubai, and Sudan. The Sudanese was living in Saudi Arabia before he went to die in Iraq.

What got me thinking along these lines was a must read letter from Marine Colonel Bob Chase about his experiences in Operation Matador. There are three paragraphs from his letter that I would like to focus on. First:

Matador is now officially over, supposedly, they were going to fight our way back and “destroy” us - guess they missed the turn at the dairy queen. We are back and the final tally was Good Guys - 125+ enemy dead, many more wounded, and 39 detainees of some significant value. The bad guys, who talk a real good game - 9 Killed (6 in the one Amtrak) and 30 wounded (most will return to duty). Not a bad weeks’ work.

That's an almost 14-1 ratio between our dead and their dead. I suspect that this was a particularly low ratio for the Marines. My guess is that throughout the war the ratio of their dead to ours has been about 15-20 terrorists dead for each US service man. The ratio would be higher except we include the dead servicemen who die from roadside bombs and training exercises. I have to guess at the number of enemy dead because keeping a body count is not something we do anymore (I'll come back to why we don't). I'm particularly curious about the countries of origin for their dead. It is not mentioned in the letter but I'd guess that only 10-20% of the enemy combatants were from Iraq (and yet the MSM still call them "insurgents").

I don't think we keep a body count of enemy dead for two reasons:

1. We had a bad experience with the practice in Vietnam. People would inflate the numbers because people like Robert McNamara were looking for statistics to hang their hat on. No body counts are another of the hangover effects from Vietnam.

2. We don't want the radical Islamists to know just how bad they are getting beaten because we want them to continue to empty their personnel resources against our military. Flypaper only works when the fly thinks he's getting some sugar (not a sticky certain death).

Second:

The enemy figured out after about 4 hours that we were there in force. They came down with about 100 fighters (no, scratch that - they were TARGETS) and made the poor decision to take on a battalion in open ground. They withdrew - we went after them into a place called Ubaydi. Many mounted boats and tried to escape N, we pushed Air, and the Cobras sunk a bunch of trash barges that night. Meanwhile, we continued to push west across the river. Our far-side units started to see pockets of insurgents move to key areas to emplace mines/IEDs. They came out, snipers took them out; their friends came for the bodies; they, joined them on the deck - permanently.

These foreign fighters (I'm assuming) went from Holy warriors, to "insurgents", to "targets" and then to "the dead". Flypaper.

Finally a paragraph we should all remember when seeing, hearing about or reading about Marines:

We can never replace a fellow Marine or best friend but I can attest that he died doing what we all hope to be doing as Marines, they were advancing, leading, and setting the example - they were being MARINES! It may not matter in the grand scheme of things to anyone but us, but we are singularly proud that we have and know Marines that fought and died like these. We remember and memorialize them and keep them alive every single time we put on this uniform — we are just honored to wear the same eagle, globe, and anchor as these warrior/heroes. We don’t make policy, we don’t decide on the fight, but we do fight and win. And when we win, it is because every one of these Marines fight with us in spirit - and we will not, we cannot let them down. To we Marines, Semper Fidelis is more than a motto - it was to them, and to us who were privileged to fight with them, a way of life.

This paragraph brought to mind the quote from Ronald Reagan:

Some people go through life wondering if they made a difference, but Marines don't have that problem.

Amen to that!