Monday, October 24, 2005

Who are the "insurgents"?

Rantingprofs proposes the following:

Egyptians Largest Group of Detainees

If you assume the detainees in Iraq are representative of the proportionate breakdown of foreign fighters in Iraq, Egyptians are the largest group, which is interesting given that Saudis have consistently been best represented among the suicide bombers.

Do any of you guys remember hearing about an American captured in Iraq? Because I think this is the first I'm hearing of it. Now that's something you'd think the press would want to dig a little on (but suspect they won't.)

I agree that it is very interesting that the major press still (this was from 3 days ago, sorry but my fire hose isn't empty yet) hasn't hit on this.

I would, however, not assume that the detainees are representative of the foreign fighters. That assumption breaks down to multiple other assumptions from how well trained are the various groups involved in the meddling to how fanatical each is. While the statistic is interesting I do not think that it leads one to any conclusions about the overall insurgency without significantly more data. The point that she makes, that the Saudis have the most suicide bombers is part of the latter (more fanatical). I would assume based on everything that I have read that the non-suicide bombers, i.e. fighters, from Saudi Arabia and Syria are, in general, more fanatical than their Egyptian counterparts. It is also more likely that they and their Iranian friends are better equipped and trained.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home