One of the Democratic memes that gets repeated ad nauseum is that our presence in Iraq is supposedly good for terrorist "recruiting." The problem, like so many brain-dead remarks from the left, is that it assumes that middle-eastern terrorists operate their organizations in the same manner that they operate their little lefty clubs and organizations. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is, quite simply, no such thing as "terrorist recruitment."
The terrorist "recruitment" meme is a classic example of leftist projection. It's true for them. Leftists operate in little clubs, and our presence in Iraq IS good for THEIR recruitment.
And the argument seems to make sense to Western ears. We all know about recruitment.
Everybody from chruches to, of course, the military recruits. Recruitment is even a word that has been co-opted (as everything eventually is) by big business. Most companies have their own "recruiter" or hire an outside "recruiting" firm. And, of course, individuals recruit, in their own way--singles (and unhappy marrieds) are constantly sifting through their acquaintences for possible relationship partners, a brand of "recruiting" we all engage in at one time or another.
So recruitment is something we are familiar with in all aspects of our lives. It's that familiarity that leads terrorist apologists to make their mistake. What they fail to understand is that "recruitment" is a foreign concept in the Middle-east and in the Arab world. From marriage to business to politics, groups in the Arab world form not by attempting to attract random strangers, but by longstanding familial and traditional bonds.
And even if some Arab societies are westernizing, and learning the concept of recruiting in some areas of their world, the concept has not penetrated Arab life deeply enough to affect the most secretive Arab organizations of all--terrorist groups.
Ask the CIA and the FBI! They'll say: If only terrorist groups DID recruit! If so, we'd already have operatives deep inside the Al-Quida in Iraq and the resurgent Taliban. We'd have already captured Bin-Laden. Indeed these groups are impenetrable for one reason and one reason only--the do NOT recruit. They are formed entirely by people who have spent decades with one another, who know each other intimately. They form small cells and never permit outsiders to enter. Recruiting is anathema to everything Arab terrorists groups stand for.
So the next time a Bush-hater tries to tell you that the Iraq War is good for recruitment, ask him to prove it. He won't be able to. Because terrorist recruitment is a myth.