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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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 Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 7:42 pm Post subject: Iraqi Insurgents Emboldened by Antiwar Reporting |
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Are Iraqi Insurgents Emboldened by Antiwar Reporting? By Alex Kingsbury
Wed Mar 12, 2:44 PM ET
Are insurgents in Iraq emboldened by voices in the news media expressing dissent or calling for troop withdrawals from Iraq? The short answer, according to a pair of Harvard economists, is yes.
In a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the authors are quick to point out numerous caveats to their findings, based on data from mid-2003 through late 2007.
Yet, their results show that insurgent groups are not devoid of reason and unresponsive to outside pressures and stimuli. "It shows that the various insurgent groups do respond to incentives and shows that a successful counter insurgency strategy should take that reality into account," says one of the paper's coauthors, Jonathan Monten, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
The paper "Is There an 'Emboldenment' Effect in Iraq? Evidence From the Insurgency in Iraq" concludes the following:
--In the short term, there is a small but measurable cost to open public debate in the form of higher attacks against Iraqi and American targets.
--In periods immediately after a spike in "antiresolve" statements in the American media, the level of insurgent attacks increases between 7 and 10 percent.
--Insurgent organizations are strategic actors, meaning that whatever their motivations, religious or ideological, they will respond to incentives and disincentives.
But before partisans go wild on both sides of the aisle, here are just three of the important caveats to this study:
--The city of Baghdad, for a variety of reasons, was excluded from the report. The authors contend that looking at the outside provinces, where 65 percent of insurgent attacks take place, is a better way to understand the effect they have discovered. Other population centers like Mosul, Basra, Kirkuk, and Najaf were included in the study.
--The study does not take into account overall cost and benefit of public debate. Past research has shown that public debate has a positive effect on military strategy, for example, and, in the case of Iraq, might be a factor in forcing the Iraqi government to more quickly accept responsibility for internal security.
--It was not possible, from the data available, to determine whether insurgent groups increased the overall number of attacks against American and Iraqi targets in the wake of public dissent and debate or simply changed the timing of those attacks. This means that insurgents may not be increasing the number of attacks after all but simply changing the days on which they attack in response to media reports. |
Copyright � 2008 U.S. News & World Report, L.P.
Copyright � 2007 Yahoo All rights reserved.Copyright/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/20080312/ts_usnews/areiraqiinsurgentsemboldenedbyantiwarreporting |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:06 pm Post subject: |
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Its obvious that the moment a democrat steps into the white house the insurgents will be jumping for joy and swelling their ranks with fresh recruits eager to get on the winning side.
years of gains undone in an in instant. American resolve has consistently been inconsistent, and the bearded ones know this. its just a waiting game before the terrorists get to inherit the future of Iraq.
After that, iraq becomes the republic of al quaeda and the holy war can be exported outwards from its new centre of operations. |
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yawarakaijin
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Julius wrote: |
Its obvious that the moment a democrat steps into the white house the insurgents will be jumping for joy and swelling their ranks with fresh recruits eager to get on the winning side.
years of gains undone in an in instant. American resolve has consistently been inconsistent, and the bearded ones know this. its just a waiting game before the terrorists get to inherit the future of Iraq.
After that, iraq becomes the republic of al quaeda and the holy war can be exported outwards from its new centre of operations. |
If America were really so worried about that possibility then why aren't we invading Saudi Arabia. People blindly give this administration a free pass in trying to salvage the brutal mistake that was Iraq, while all the time ignoring his ultimate failure in dealing with extremist islam.
I take it all back if you were just being sarcastic. It's hard to tell these days. |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:44 pm Post subject: |
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| yawarakaijin wrote: |
I take it all back if you were just being sarcastic. |
Well....not really i guess... I do think a pull out from Iraq would embolden the extremists.
tackling the spread of extremist islam is one thing.
Relying on middle east oil is another.
playing along with political but not ideological allies is yet another.
Its a very long term confrontation.... |
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jkelly80
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Location: you boys like mexico?
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| Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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| This should expected in a free and open society. It must be tolerated, as it is the price of liberal democracy. Assuming that there is causation and not just correlation. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 1:04 am Post subject: |
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| yawarakaijin wrote: |
| Julius wrote: |
Its obvious that the moment a democrat steps into the white house the insurgents will be jumping for joy and swelling their ranks with fresh recruits eager to get on the winning side.
years of gains undone in an in instant. American resolve has consistently been inconsistent, and the bearded ones know this. its just a waiting game before the terrorists get to inherit the future of Iraq.
After that, iraq becomes the republic of al quaeda and the holy war can be exported outwards from its new centre of operations. |
If America were really so worried about that possibility then why aren't we invading Saudi Arabia. People blindly give this administration a free pass in trying to salvage the brutal mistake that was Iraq, while all the time ignoring his ultimate failure in dealing with extremist islam.
I take it all back if you were just being sarcastic. It's hard to tell these days. |
Invading Saudi Arabia would have been more difficult that invading , Iraq and Saudi is a much more complicated situation than Iraq.
Also invading Saudi Arabia would have allowed Saddam to pretty much go free. What would Saddam do then?
Not everyone in the Saudi royal family is pro Al Qaeda , some are pro US.
but Saudi Arabia was the real reason the US took down Saddam. |
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