On Foreign Insurgents in Iraq
A common strategy is to blame foreigners when a war is going badly. This has certainly been the case in Iraq. It is convenient to blame foreigner fighters to delegitimize the opposition and to spin a fiction that we are fighting the same guys who attacked us on 9/11. If not for those pesky foreigners streaming into Iraq to cause trouble, the natives would be greeting Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney with flowers. Yet military officials say that only 1.2 percent of the 25,000 inmates in American custody in Iraq are foreign, according to Richard A. Oppel of The New York Times. Even a 2006 State Department report acknowledges that more than 90 percent of the insurgency in Iraq is from domestic sources.
So, the overwhelming majority of insurgents in Iraq are Iraqis. This fact should be borne in mind even though I will analyze the national origins of foreign insurgents in Iraq in this post, my last one.
I should dispense with the obvious joke right away: I’m not referring to Americans when I talk about foreign fighters in Iraq. Insurgents are people who are fighting a civil or political authority. Despite their small numbers, it is important to know where the foreign insurgents are coming from because eventually many will return to their home countries, well trained and battle ready. It would be good to know where they are heading. Remember, al Qaeda was composed of many foreigners who went off to Bosnia and Afghanistan to fight.
It is also useful to learn the factors that predict participation in the insurgency to learn something about what motivates insurgents. Obtaining data on the national origins of foreign insurgents in Iraq is not easy. In the second chapter of my book, What Makes a Terrorist, I analyzed the country of origin of 311 foreign nationals who were captured in Iraq from April to October of 2005. The data were disclosed by the U.S. military in a press briefing on October 20, 2005. Major General Lynch vaguely explained the source as follows, “They’re identified in terms of questions we asked them, interrogations we do, papers that they might have on them. But with authority, we can say they came from those countries.”
According to the military, the 311 captured foreigners came from 27 different countries, with the largest number from Egypt (78), Syria (66), Sudan (41), Saudi Arabia (32), Jordan (17), Iran (13), Palestine (12), and Tunisia (10). Western countries were also represented. Two insurgents came from Great Britain and one came from the U.S., Denmark, Ireland and France. The data undoubtedly have several errors and omissions. It is also possible that foreign insurgents who were killed or evaded capture are from a different mix of countries than those who were captured. Despite these flaws, the analysis is still informative.
I used a technique called Negative Binomial Regression to model the number of insurgents captured from 76 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and Central Asia. Variables such as a country’s population size, GDP per capita, and an index of political and civil liberties were used to predict the number of its citizens captured in Iraq.
The main findings are that countries with close proximity to Baghdad, low levels of civil liberties or political rights, a large Muslim population, and low infant mortality are likely to have more of their citizens captured fighting in Iraq. A country’s literacy rate, GDP per capita and membership in the multinational coalition are unrelated to the number captured in Iraq. Some of these results are not surprising. I mentioned earlier in the week that most terrorism is local. The same could be said of insurgency, even the foreign insurgents come from nearby. Likewise, countries that suppress civil and political rights are more likely to have their people involved in international terrorism. The same goes for joining the Iraqi insurgency. In my research on international terrorism I found little role for religion overall, while the study of captured Iraq insurgents found that they are more likely to come from predominantly Muslim nations. This discrepancy is not surprising and I would not draw the inference that any particular religion plays a role in insurgencies in general. I suspect the role of religion in insurgency is context specific.
For three quarters of the countries, the statistical model predicted the number of captured insurgents remarkably well, within +/- 1 individual. It is nonetheless informative to examine the outliers, those for which the model greatly under or over predicted the number of insurgents. Often, one can learn about the process underlying the data from the extremes. Why doesn’t the model predict for them? Are there mistakes in the data? Are there key variables missing?
By far, the largest outlier was Saudi Arabia. The model over predicted the number of captured insurgents from Saudi Arabia by a wide margin. Only 10 percent (32/311) of the captured insurgents in the data the military released back in 2005 were from Saudi Arabia, while the statistical model – based on fundamental factors like proximity, population and civil liberties -- predicted that 44 percent would have been from Saudi Arabia. I highlighted this discrepancy as a puzzle at the time.
What is going on?
Since the publication of my book, more information has come to light. It is likely that my model was right and the data for Saudi Arabia were off. First, on July 27, 2007, Helen Cooper wrote the following in The New York Times, “Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.” Then, last week on Thanksgiving, Richard Oppel of the Times described a “trove of documents and computers” discovered in a raid by American forces of a desert camp in Iraq that was “believed to be responsible for smuggling the vast majority of foreign fighters into Iraq.” Reportedly, the hometowns of more than 700 foreign fighters who arrived in Iraq since August 2006 were uncovered. Oppel says that by far the largest percentage of these – 41 percent – came from Saudi Arabia.
These figures are remarkably close to what my model predicted for Saudi Arabia! This suggests that fundamental factors, such as proximity and political repression in Saudi Arabia, are driving the high participation of Saudis in the insurgency.
Of course, one needs to be cautious in interpreting reports from unnamed sources. But one also needs to be cautious in interpreting the data the military released in 2005. One lesson I draw from all this is that a statistical model can yield useful insights even when the underlying data are noisy. In the fog of war, it is useful to use statistics to keep your eye on the fundamentals.
Comments (142)
Did you do stepwise regression, or did you do other techniques to validate the set of independent variables?
There is a long and sad history, going back to Vietnam, of trying to find metrics of insurgency. Some have been more useful than others, although their applicability depends on the tactical situation and other things specific to each case. Kozmik points out, correctly I believe, that captures may not be a terribly valid metric. Before I suggest why I believe it is questionable here, I will share one classic tale of military operations research, when that field was still in its infancy.
In the early strategic bombing campaign against Germany, US bomber loss rates were excessive. Within the technology and tactics of the time, an obvious approach to improving survivability seemed to be passive protection: armor. Unfortunately, if one armored a B-17 everywhere, it could not get off the ground.
So, a busy group of analysts rushed to each smoking B-17 that limped back to England, and carefully recorded every point of damage. When they concluded they had a statistically meaningful sample, they took their results to the appropriate general. Pointing to the diagram, they indicated that these are the places the B-17's were being hit, and should be armored.
The general, a wise one, turned to an aide and directed that an immediate plan be started about armoring them everywhere else. Turning to the shocked analyst, he observed "these, gentlemen, are the ones that made it back."
Capture is a questionable metric here until you can demonstrate that your various populations all are equally willing to submit to surrender, or might well prefer death.
In Vietnam, body count was essentially useless at predicting the success of any engagement; it was worse than useless in predicting the overall progress of the war. What was meaningful for tactical assessment, however, was the number of enemy weapons captured. That was a far more accurate predictor of both that bodies belonged to soldiers, and also that the enemy unit was in sufficient disorganization that they did not carry weapons, always a shortage, away with them. An additional factor was correcting for any lost friendly weapons.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 30, 2007 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
As the saying goes, lies, damn lies, and statistics. Unfortunately, I'd say the methodology is essentially flawed, and you should look for a larger and more complex set to fit your model to, than something so easy to fudge as that scarce data.
In order to make your model work you have to choose a set of factors that fit, while almost arbitrarially ignoring others. Which is just too easy to fudge with a small set.
For example, you seem to be looking at the various countries in a vacuum, in the present, without considering the positive or negative influence Western countries and particularly the USA, has had in the region, or ethic similarity to combatants within Iraq, or a generally long list of factors that would modify your rather small set of data points.
For example of factors that could be cherry picked or excluded and greatly skew the outcome of your fitting:
Yes Iran by our standards has atrocious civil rights. And there is a moderate intellectual movement to improve them. It is not however militant because Iran overall has a fairly high quality of life and egalitarian income distribution relative to other countries in the region. Also, universally, the more important factors for public opinion against the US, is that the USA used Iraq to wage a proxy war, with chemical and biological weapons, for eight years, which killed millions, and had previously propped up a puppet dictator the Shah, and western countries have generally been meddling in the region for centuries. Meaning that relatively, Iran's Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad, are a heck of a lot more popular than the Shah and any US influence, which tends to reduce the number of gun toting militants waiting in the wings. Furthermore, Iran has been more reluctant to send combatants, preferring instead to coordinate directly and supply Shia proxies in Iraq, who whether or not one agrees with them can legitimately be considered combatants in civil war. And that frankly makes sense. We've done the same in proxy wars when we have a sympathetic group. Furthermore, Iranian Shia are less likely to be caught, as they blend in more fully with Iraqi Shia.
Then there is Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which are incredibly polarized societies between a small number of empowered wealthy and a vast number of exploited poor. And it's well known we're propping up both regimes, which are notoriously corrupt and fail to serve the general populace, with Egypt being moderately better but the Sauds being very unpopular. And in both countries, those living in the greatest squalor see capitalism and Western liberalism not working for them, and turn to reactionary fundamentalism. And again, the militants themselves need not be poor to be empathetically motivated to fight perceived injustice on the behalf of the poor. That's actually a reoccurring theme in all populists, from Gandhi to ObL, who are rarely from poverty themselves. So you can't measure their individual wealth as the meaningful factor, but those of the people they seek to represent.
Another issue pertinent to SA and Egypt, is they rank particularly high on human rights violations their own people would find offensive, not only those which American humanitarian groups find offensive. So that data has to be teased out. For example, the Saudi police state is notoriously brutal, beating and humiliating large numbers of poor laborers who are basically second class citizens, especially those peons who work in the oil industry and service industry, which are of course the greatest symbols of Western capitalism and liberalism. Iran has much less class segregation. Both are religious fundamentalist in some regards and terrible on other issues by our standards, but that's more of a problem to our human rights orgs than their general populace.
Also, Saudi Arabia of course has the greatest organization of AQ, as Obl is himself a very wealthy member of the Saud family. But on the other hand, AQ prefers to work with small cell groups rather than front line combat, following a model more akin to the military advisers we'd historically send into hot-spots to provide logistical support. and they're probably going to be better able to avoid capture, as we've seen repeatedly. So I doubt it would follow that Saudi AQ would produce a lot of captures.
Then there are other issues such as which people are simply more likely to be captured, due to difficulty blending in, organizational efficiency, and so on.
Sorry, but I think you'd actually have to crunch a much larger set of data, probably with an impossible degree of accuracy and impartiality, to get meaningful outcomes from regression. And with such a small number of data points to fit it to, the possibility for a sloppy fitting is also too high.
I don't think the number of captures is a good place to begin a model. Good data is probably classified, and unfortunately due to this administrations untrustworthiness, probably cooked already. Which is ultimately why we need a change of Administration, more Congressional oversight, and generally new housekeeping.
November 30, 2007 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Right. Or otherwise equally capturable due to the use of same tactics, the same amount of direct combat vs logistical support, same organizational efficiency, same inconspicuousness in the population, and so on.
November 30, 2007 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
So what.
The United States has been supporting insurgents in other countries - Central and South America, the Middle East, Afghanistan... - for years with arms, military training, and/or money who were fighting against a government, any government that didn't have our best corporate interests at heart.
I've wondered if the Iranians who have apparently joined the Iraqi insurgents have been sent by the government of Iran or whether they've gone on their own to support their fellow Shiites.
If it's the latter, where's the beef with the government of Iran. If it's the former, or both, so what. What's justifiable policy for the US becomes unjustifiable when any other country practices it? Our foreign policy so often screams hypocrisy. Do we actually think that the rest of the world doesn't notice?
November 30, 2007 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Question relating to the breaking news of a possible suicide bomber IN NEW HAMPSHIRE in a Hillary for President office:
(1) If they take this guy alive, will he be charged as a terrorist?
(2) Will the right-wingnut media say Hillary planned it to get sympathy?
(3) Will they say the individual is a Muslim friend of Obama?
Seriously, I hope it ends without harm to anyone, but we need to start focusing on attitudes and problems closer to home than lists of insurgents found in Iraq.
November 30, 2007 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a premise here that should be questioned. And that is why do we consider Saudi Arabians or other Arabs 'foreigners' when they are found in Iraq. There is a very important fact that we are ignoring here. These people all speak the same language, share a religion, share a history and for the most part are a single culture. When the crusader's Kingdom of Jerusalem was finally defeated I have not seen any historical complaints that Saladin's armies were "foreigners".
The current division of the Arabs into separate nations was largely imposed upon them by the colonial powers. Also consider that in 1939 after England went to war with Germany and many Canadian and Americans joined the British armed forces. These men were not considered foreigners, they were people that were offering to help their fellow English speaking compatriots with whom they shared a common culture.
November 30, 2007 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
You work with the numbers you have, ---
But it would be nice to know what connections, if any, these jihadis had with salafi/Wahhabi or other "fundamentalist" mosques and imams. Whether we think of the radical imam as inculcating his views or as simply providing a safe environment for groups learning to be radical, knowing how these clubs, cliques, and gangs form and grow is crucial to our understanding of who mans the Islamic insurgencies, because the individual jihadi needs the support of like-minded friends and accomplices.
November 30, 2007 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pravda claims there are two to three thousand Chechens fighting in Iraq. It's likely, in my view, that US officials would repress the numbers, since it opens up a very large can of political worms - I mean many in the US still consider the Chechens as freedom figthters struggling against cruel Boris the Bear. It would be interesting to use statistics to chart out vehicle suicide bombings (a Chechen specialty) in Iraq. Early on in the invasion, there were few, if any. It wasn't a tactic that had any appeal to Iraqis. After all, Saddam Hussein had successfully, albeit ruthlessly, to keep Iraq safe from terrorism. The remainder of the project would be to compare the rise in car bombings with the number of Chechen's entering Iraq.
These guys are well-seasoned soldiers with a lot of combat experience under their belt. They operate more like a guerilla army than a group of terrorists.
The story linked to above also describes the Chechens as also being non-al Qaeda players, bin Laden didn't trust them.
Neoboho
November 30, 2007 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, it's very important to be able to say "more data is needed" and not simply work with the numbers one has.
Anyways, Kruger deserves credit for forming a model and kicking off the discussion, and he's been pretty good about disclaimers. Even if model 1.0 is buggy, it's still a step in the right direction, and hopefully more meaningful data will become available later.
***
As a side note, I was thinking how much it bugs me, that it seems every professor feels compelled to write a string of books, attempting to stumble upon their opus out of sheer volume, when often they're just rehashing what's already been said or is obvious. I think there's a rule you have to have a certain number of books to name drop at parties.
But, having said that, I guess it's all grist for the mill and does spur innovation.
I only wish more people could come to the book club earlier, or collaborate with a wider group of experts, before actually writing the book, to more fully vet theories. Because it seems by the time it gets to TPMC-BC, often there is a great deal of time and ego invested in what may be a flawed premise, which is probably unpleasant all around.
November 30, 2007 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good point, though of course Pravda has it's own bias. But all the more examples of how difficult it is to get good information, and what a difference a trustworthy Administration and Congressional oversight make.
November 30, 2007 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I stumbled across SAAG.org when Afghanistan was targeted for invasion. The group's principle, B. Raman, is an endless fountain of information about terrorism - especially the many, many groups of Muslim fundamentalists (many of these groups are quite benign insofar as terrorism is concerned). I think the most valuable thing I've learned from SAAG's products is how utterly fragmented and antagonistic - even competitive - these groups are in reality.
It just seems to me that the most effective response to the threat of terrorism is to exploit these divisions, which are apparent in politics, religion, leadership, financing, military tactics and ideology. But instead, we have met the threat with military might and inadvertently create issues that are guaranteed to favor solidarity among otherwise fragmented radicals.
Neoboho
November 30, 2007 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, speaking of 'homegrown' insurgents, CNN anchor Campbell Brown said two days ago when speaking to Eli Pariser, "General David Petraeus made his reputation taking on insurgents in Iraq. But when he came to Capitol Hill in September, he was confronted by American insurgents, a liberal anti-war group called MoveOn.org"
So I guess were all insurgents now!
Republicans are people too.....mean, selfish, greedy people
November 30, 2007 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Capture is a questionable metric here until you can demonstrate that your various populations all are equally willing to submit to surrender, or might well prefer death.
You left out the possibility that some "populations" may be able to avoid capture better than others.
Resources, training, intelligence, and money can make a difference.
November 30, 2007 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
We Democrats are insurgents because we want to overthrow the Repub government and install a Democratic one. A statistical study of this phenomena would make a good book too. Some of us are foreigners - AKA Californians.
Hoppy in Sacramento
November 30, 2007 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe that the word you were looking for,when you used "foreigner", is stranger and they don't get no stranger than than folks in California.
;-P
Jack
November 30, 2007 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Professor,
I just bought your book today, and I like it so far. 20~ pages in. One kvetch: so far, you don't you include significance levels in your regression tables? (None of our favorite stars.) My buddy says that not reporting significance levels is en vogue for hardcore econometricians. I'm a political science phd at Berkeley, and it makes it pretty tough to focus on the right independent variables. Figuring out the ratio between the coefficient and standard error is tough for most readers, even quant jocks like myself, and near impossible for laymen.
Maybe something to add in the next edition.
As for the objections above about selection bias, model specification, and so forth: go get the book and measure these objections against Krueger's statistical and causal inferences. So far I see no reason to object.
Good work, sir. I'm a quantitative IR guy, and we can use all the attention on these issues as possible, using the full force of the discipline.
November 30, 2007 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even before a next edition, consider a webpage. Many publishers will run errata and update webpages for you. In biomedicine, the more esoteric statistics frequently aren't in the book or journal, but avaoiable online.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
November 30, 2007 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry but it's just not possible to tease meaningful conclusions from such a limited set with such obvious gaps in the data. In fact, the more his model fits, the more it's bound to be wrong, because there is no way he can possibly account for other meaningful factors outside his data, but which certainly exist. And I don't need to buy the book to see that. You're only 20 pages into his book, and clearly all too giddy to read the math. Let me guess, you just took some courses in statistics, and found a new love, right?
It's immediately apparent there are too many variables he's failing to calculate, and he's fudging it.
Just because his math is coherent, and exciting stuff for doctorate candidates to read, doesn't make his data comprehensive. The problem isn't in what he's included, it's what he's obviously failed to include.
And sorry to be rude, and blunt. But Poli Sci PhD? When did Poly Sci become a hard science? Last I checked, it was soft, rather soft. Floppy even.
November 30, 2007 10:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
And a well trained organization could avoid capture far more successfully. And there are a long list of other meaningful variables effecting rates of capture that his model fails to address. Some of them mentioned above, but I can think of several more easily.
It's pretty clear the number of terrorist captures is not a good metric to actual terrorist activity in Iraq, and hence a terrible place to begin a model seeking to analyze terrorist motivations.
November 30, 2007 10:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
And btw, why was Krueger selected to be an "adviser to the National Counter-terrorism Center" anyways? I just read his CV, and he's certainly a highly educated and well connected economist, and professor at Princeton. I doubt we'll find any errors in his math and I'm sure his references are impeccable.
But, I don't see any expertise in the M.E. or other relevant background that would qualify him to analyze terrorism.
It's seems someone who actually understands the region and people intimately, someone like Juan Cole for example, would be a far, far, better candidate, as someone who actually knows the subject, culture, and people involved.
Sorry, but this book is reminding me a little too much of the "Green Zone" approach to understanding important FP issues, which I thought TPM was against.
November 30, 2007 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
And I find the natives very friendly here too Hoppy!
tonto in socal
Republicans are people too.....mean, selfish, greedy people
November 30, 2007 11:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly who the fuck are you? Would you like to go toe to toe on statistics? I'm training to be a formal modeler. I am already trained in statistics (and yes, multiple courses asshole) and econometrics. My masters thesis was a criminometric analysis of murder and other crime rates in Kosovo that modeled the effectiveness of the policing regime, controlling for other variables. This used a fixed effects model on panel data, over five years of data and five regions.
Those are big words, I know. It's a totally floppy field. Um, you're going to tell me you are a physicist? You sound more like a troll to me.
It's immediately apparent there are too many variables he's failing to calculate, and he's fudging it.
I assume you mean omitted variable bias. I can't tell from your layman's terms. First of all, you don't calculate variables. You include them in your model. The variable coefficients are generated from exogenous data, not from the researcher. So again, you don't calculate variables-- you include them. So, assuming you mean that he's left out variables, o wise know it all, which way do you think the omitted variables bias the coefficients?
Anyway, how can you even make this statement without reading his model? Which variables do you mean?
Gaps in the data
Do you mean that there are missing cells? Or that there are omitted variables? Or that the N is too small? Or that the sample isn't representative? What, O statistical wizard, do you mean?
tease meaningful conclusions
Do you mean statistical inference? Causal inference? Internal validity? External validity? Is the R-squared too small? What?
You are a fucking loser, is all I can tell.
November 30, 2007 11:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, but I think you'd actually have to crunch a much larger set of data, probably with an impossible degree of accuracy and impartiality, to get meaningful outcomes from regression. And with such a small number of data points to fit it to, the possibility for a sloppy fitting is also too high.
No. The point of running regressions for descriptive statistics is to abstract from the data. You can abstract even from very small n. It is more important that its a representative sample (which is obviously a big issue here-- these aren't randomly sampled folks, and they are arguably not even independent observations since they are all part of a sort of "movement").
However, even with a potentially biased sample, the descriptive statistics are usually biased in a predictable way. And so any conclusions you draw will have to account for that bias.
The professor does a pretty good job so far with that, which you would know if you had read the material, and weren't some random guy spouting off.
All of the examples you raise above are interesting if you were constructing an anthropological or a sociological explanation. I don't know what they would necessarily add to your regression model, what variables you would use to capture the phenomena you describe. Can you point us in the right direction?
For example, you seem to be looking at the various countries in a vacuum, in the present, without considering the positive or negative influence Western countries and particularly the USA, has had in the region, or ethic similarity to combatants within Iraq, or a generally long list of factors that would modify your rather small set of data points.
I don't understand this sentence. Are you suggesting running a longitudinal study on country level data? If your problem is that there are omitted variables (see below), that's fine. But how would you know if he's run robustness tests for alternate lists of variables, and then discarded them as insignificant, without reading the text?
November 30, 2007 11:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you normally go around questioning other people's credentials?
November 30, 2007 11:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Last I checked, it was soft
You must be a pretty old person, or haven't yet got to college. I'm guessing you know nearly nothing about the field. Just a hunch.
November 30, 2007 11:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a side note, I was thinking how much it bugs me, that it seems every professor feels compelled to write a string of books, attempting to stumble upon their opus out of sheer volume, when often they're just rehashing what's already been said or is obvious. I think there's a rule you have to have a certain number of books to name drop at parties.
...by the time it gets to TPMC-BC, often there is a great deal of time and ego invested in what may be a flawed premise, which is probably unpleasant all around.
So far I am not impressed with your comments. These are troll ratable.
November 30, 2007 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
GFW,
Inasmuch as you're probably the only statistician participating in this thread (and Prof. Krueger is unlikely to answer our questions), allow me to put mine to you.
Broadly, having reviewed Krueger's practices and procedures and having concluded that they support his findings, do you, also, conclude that those findings -- related as they are to the nationality of the foreign fighters -- are significant (do they signify anything interesting)?
For example, does Krueger show that a Moroccan (distant) residing in Jordan (near) is less likely than a citizen of Egypt (a nation nearer than Morocco) to be a foreign fighter in Iraq? that higher levels of civil and political rights explain why there are so very few Israelis fighting against us in Iraq even though Israel is quite close to Iraq? or so few Turks even though they're Muslims?
Prof. Krueger himself points out that "[s]ome of these results are not surprising."
What I want to know is whether those findings are of any use.
December 1, 2007 1:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
There you go again. Hello! Anti-American-military fighters are not insurgents.
Krueger: Insurgents are people who are fighting a civil or political authority.
What is going on? What motivates insurgents-who-aren't-insurgents?
Using a technique called Negative Binomial Regression I determined that they hate America, particularly when it's transplanted to another country using force. These figures are remarkably close to what my model predicted for Vietnam. duh.
Why am I making light of this study? Because you are trivializing the human needs and aspirations of real human beings by reducing them to statistics. Surely this is the future of all of us, but that doesn't mean we have to accept it. I don't.
The "foreign insurgents" in Iraq are real people fighting a real aggressor, and to refer to them as international terrorists is a perversion of terms. You are using the terms insurgents and terrorists interchangibly to refer to these people, and both terms are wrong. They are not fighting civil authority and they are probably not (you don't indicate the terms of their capture by US forces) causing violence against noncombatants for political reasons. They are basically fighting the US, are they not? They weren't there before the US was, were they?
And you "dispense with the obvious joke" that Americans are the foreign fighters in Iraq. Well, okay, it's not funny to the million or so dead Iraqis, and all the others who have been injured and displaced, and the dead and messed up US troops. First time I've heard it referred to as a joke, and I hope the last. I'm not comfortable with an erroneous analytical study of mass murder, as you can tell.
from the web:
"One day while I was in a bunker in Vietnam, a sniper round went over my head. The person who fired that weapon was not a terrorist, a rebel, an extremist, or a so-called insurgent. The Vietnamese individual who tried to kill me was a citizen of Vietnam, who did not want me in his country. This truth escapes millions."--Mike Hastie, U.S. Army Medic, Vietnam 1970-71
ecotourism
WeGoEco.com
December 1, 2007 2:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Might I suggest that troll rating is a bit of overkill? I agree Kozmik can be abrasive, but he also makes some reasoned and informative posts. I freely admit there are times I'll stop reading his posts in a particular thread, because the particular interactions have turned into brawls.
This one hasn't. I'll observe that I started looking into quantitative approaches to guerilla warfare (unconventional warfare, insurgency, or whatever you want to call it) about 1967. There were some quite silly attempts to quantify things in Vietnam. The reporting of the Hamlet Evaluation System was dubious and politicized enough, but the questionnaire was one of those analytic tools where the key peer review choice was to go into hysterical giggles, scream, or tear it up.
At the same time, some useful metrics did develop, some coming from think tanks, some coming from combat soldiers with some social science background. While I would need to be convinced there is a general model for all types of unconventional warfare (UW), I will say that there are metrics that can be informative in a particular situation. For example, the best single predictor of the effectiveness of a given battle was the number of enemy weapons captured, minus the number of US weapons lost. There were some adjustments for the power of weapons -- losing a 14.5mm or .50 caliber machine gun was a much more significant event then losing an AK-47 or M-16.
I will admit that I need to read the most current work from Anthony Cordesman and associates at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (www.csis.org). Going back to the beginning of the occupation, he had a number of metrics about the level of equipping both US and Iraqi forces, the key metric(s) of effectiveness of Iraqi security forces, etc. These, however, were all essentially tactical.
During Vietnam, I had a reasonable degree of access to predictive research. There was a lot of garbage and a few useful things.
In some respects, I now have a wider range of inputs, through the Internet, than when I had classified access and things would be in hard copy and things were months late
I've rambled, but I hope usefully. Yes, things could be a bit less confrontational, but I'm impressed at the range of methodological questions, even phrased irritably, in this thread.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 1, 2007 6:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Something I haven't seen much is the Chechen influence in Lebanon, including some tactics that seemed to surprise the Israelis, but that I had seen reported as early as 1999. Chechens get very creative with medium to heavy antitank missiles (i.e., something that can be carried). Israel apparently wasn't prepared for top attack on their tanks, and even less so for using such missiles against infantry. Infantry might shelter in a concrete or even mud building, regrouping in a place that could probably take a missile hit. The Chechens had a practice of assigning two teams to such a building, one to open a hole and one to put the actual killer missile through the hole.
This was being done with precision guided air weapons in Desert Storm; it shouldn't have been a surprise someone would adapt it to ground combat.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 1, 2007 6:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Win the argument with facts and style. Otherwise, chill.
December 1, 2007 7:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
A very good point, Syvanen,
I always thought that Palestinians are just Arabs and they should feel at home in any Arab country.
December 1, 2007 7:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I see no hypocrisy. There is nothing wrong for Iran to help insurgents to kill American soldiers.
It's perfectly fine and justifiable.
What's not fine or justifiable is NOT to expect that US would consider then Iran to be an enemy of US and react accordingly to Iran's actions.
December 1, 2007 7:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Golly, gee, a model of the effectiveness of the policing regime. Any good fascist (and the world seems to be abundantly supplied with them these days) will no doubt make exquisite use of this. I'm reminded of the technical superiority of 1930's Germany.
We have far too many political modelers and far two few who are able to communicate political ideas to diverse cultures in a way that might bring some hope for the 21st century.
God save us from the technocrats!
December 1, 2007 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Um, what, so every police department in the country is fascist? Because they use statistics to tell if their doing a good job? To tell whether community policing or task-force style policing works better to reduce crime? Or, in my case, to tell whether UN peacekeeping-police were better at deterring crime than recently-trained Kosovars? How is that fascist?
Are you *really* going to invoke Godwin's law over analyzing crime statistics?
December 1, 2007 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
All of my comments are facts. Maybe the "fucking loser" part is gratuitous. But kozmik's comments are totally out of line. He/She is just spouting off from a place of total ignorance, questioning people's credentials, and insulting my profession.
I'll delete the "fucking loser" part, but the rest stands. My statistical questions/critiques in the above comment are legitimate, real, and factual.
Note: looks like i'm too late to edit my earlier comment. Apologies to Kozmik for calling you a fucking loser.
December 1, 2007 9:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let me re-read his three core chapters and get back to you later today. I'm writing a journal article on al Qaeda, and I'm considering using this book as a source. This was already my homework for the day.
My first impressions were that, yes, his conclusions are correct and they do signify something. The policy upshot seemed to be that we should be promoting political liberalism and democracy (not at the point of a gun, mind you). It does't seem to offer any short-term solutions, except perhaps monitoring the borders of repressive countries more closely than more liberal ones. But let me get back to you.
Best,
George
December 1, 2007 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
If I may make some friendly amendments, not the book, was this Muslim vs. non-Muslim (if there are any of the latter), or something more fine-grained? I would hesitate before treating Middle Eastern Arab Muslims with Turkish Muslims. Even though Arabs from the Maghreb of North Africa are Arabs, there are enough cultural and political differences from the Middle Eastern Arabs to think about whether those can be treated as a single population.
Egypt is problematic as the border between the Middle East and the Maghreb.
Is it reasonable to treat Arab Muslims of different sects as one population, starting with Shi'ites and Sunni, but possibly considering Alawites and Sufis? Within the Sunni, does one look separately or together about "mainstream" Sunni, Wahhabbists, or Qutbists?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 1, 2007 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
If a police department is doing a good job, it won't need statistics to tell them! Tt will find out by talking to the people they are employed to protect. Any police state can reduce crime. That doesn't mean the police are doing a "good job".
December 1, 2007 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
davai,
Of course Iran and the US are enemies, and have been since at least 1953 when the CIA overthrew the elected PM. Subsequently the US has invoked economic sanctions, directed regime-change propaganda and supported terrorism in Iran. The hypocrisy comes, not when the US complains about Iranian retaliation, but when it claims it is an innocent party undeserving of hostility.
hypocrisy: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion
But you knew that, didn't you.
December 1, 2007 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
So you are suggesting that we design public policy based on our impressions? Or better yet, the impressions that the police get as they walk their beat?
I wouldn't be so tart, if you hadn't implied I was a fascist. I am a liberal, union-member, yellow dog Democrat. In the policy world, we use statistics to improve the delivery of public goods and service, hopefully saving everyone money, and helping people better.
December 1, 2007 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
The questions are good, but you're not likely to win over the other guy by asking "who the fuck are you?"
I'll also mention that these posts will show up on Google searches, so a higher tone is helpful.
I agree with you, otherwise.
December 1, 2007 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe I can shock him into common decency?
:)
December 1, 2007 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't mean to imply you were a fascist but to point out that statistics are only a tool to be used by policy makers. The tool can be used for evil as well as for good.
I'm not a fan of focusing on the metrics. I've seen it lead to public policy fiascos when policy makers get dazzled by the tools instead of the "impressions", i.e., values.
For example, some well intentioned liberals around here got dazzled by the metric of how many people could be transported in HOV lanes. They designed a new freeway to maximize use of HOV vehicles in special lanes. The freeway lanes were a billion dollar failure.
They had been confused by the metric and distracted from the goal. The goal was accessible, convenient, affordable public transportation.
What did they forget? Something totally obvious to me (and almost everyone else!) who actually wanted to board a bus to use the HOV lane. The HOV lanes were almost totally inaccessible to pedestrian traffic. You wonder how anyone could overlook such an obvious design flaw! Well, they just counted how many people they could carry in the HOV lane. That's the question they apparently gave to the statisticians. If you don't ask the right questions, you get a correct, but wrong answer.
December 1, 2007 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm no newbie, either here or on other moderated boards like Kos. And this:
I freely admit there are times I'll stop reading his posts in a particular thread, because the particular interactions have turned into brawls.
is a perfect definition of troll behavior.
Edit: Okay, I'll raise it to an unproductive, but only because there were actually on topic comments in that post. The bulk of the comment was trollish, though. "cocktail party, etc."
December 1, 2007 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
My understanding is that the great majority of Chechen fighters are Shafit Sunni - so that might explain why they haven't infiltrated Lebanon in any identifiable number. But I have to wonder...there seem to be quite a few Chechens in Syria (another Shiia area) so the schism really might be a paper tiger. It strikes me as a good question: is Hezbollah so tight-assed that it would exclude other "freedom fighters" from any solidarity effort?
Neoboho
December 1, 2007 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Incidentally, for all you haters out there, our hero Larry Johnson has a quote on the book jacket that starts off:
"This is a book that even George Bush could understand. The United States would be more effective in combating terrorism if the president and his advisors embraced Alan Krueger's fine work..."
December 1, 2007 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who are the "haters", George, you of the silver tongue?
December 1, 2007 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's a fair compromise. If I may borrow from biology, there are facultative trolls and obligate trolls. Some people that post here can be reasonable, rational, informed, and collegial on a wide range of subjects, until someone hits their psychological button, and they enlarge, turn green, and turn into the Incredible Hulk.
The obligate troll, no matter what the topic, will make inflammatory and frequent posts intended to disrupt without reference to subject.
There are a few individuals here that come very close to obligate troll, and there are individuals whom, in the past, made that status and were banned. Unfortunately, the software feature to suppress low-rated (i.e., troll-rated) comments isn't working at present, unless it's a bug in my version of Firefox.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 1, 2007 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you're partially correct here - it is not unexpected for countries such as Iran to do it (since we do). But there's a very important reason why the US has NO right being upset whatsoever - this was an ELECTIVE war. We chose to invade this country. We chose to send young men & women to die for some insane and bloodthirsty neocon fantasies.
It reminds me of that screwy guy a while back who loved bears. He prided himself in his 'deep' knowledge & ability to get close to them in the wild. One day he sets up his camera and begins to film himself 'with the bears in the wild'. Well one bear, feeling either hungry or pissed, attacked the silly fellow & killed him.
So according to you it's OK for the bear to attack the guy. But it would subsequently be OK if we got angry and declared war on all bears for it?
I disagree. I think if a person or country does something outlandishly stupid then all fault and responsibility fall on them. And they have no right to be angry or to seek retribution for anything that happens as a result of their outrageously stupid actions. Iraq & the entire middle east is the bear. And the over confident screwball that thought he knew so much about bears? That would be America thinking we could waltz in there as we pleased with the audacity to think we knew anything at all about Iraq or the middle east.
So maybe it isn't hypocrisy as you point out. Maybe it's just plain old stupidity.
December 1, 2007 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps your display preferences (show/hide low-rated comments) reset and you didn't notice? Any Firefox upgrades lately?
December 1, 2007 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's still set to hide. Recent upgrades, yes. There may yet another one to apply.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
December 1, 2007 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Vietnam was just plain old stupidity. When you say: "We chose to invade this country. We chose to send young men & women to die for some insane and bloodthirsty neocon fantasies." you're talking just plain old evil.
December 1, 2007 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Although I'm not a native Califorian I've lived here in the 'strangeness' capital of the state (Los Angeles) for over a decade. There have often been times that I felt we were an entirely different country (more often wishing we were).
But I've learned to embrace the strangeness! To become one with it! But I must admit that I'm still trying to take that damned pebble from the sensei's hand... :D
December 1, 2007 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you could use both words in reference to both wars - each a voluntary battlefield for imaginary imminent threats to our nation. The domino effect of that old-school boogie man known as Communism and more recently the mushroom clouds & exploding backpacks (thanks for the commercial Tom) of today's trendy spector known as Islamofacism.
Evil & stupid. It's (not) funny how often those two words simultaneously apply so very often to people and nations...our in particular sadly enough.
December 1, 2007 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Regardless, it's a perfectly valid opinion that too many professors write too many books, often covering an enormous range, which are basically throw away popular reading, but make no lasting contribution to the various fields. Furthermore, that there seems to be a tremendous reluctance to collaborate and throughly vet theories with peers before committing them to writing.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, in the proper context, and with proper disclaimers.
Idle conversation has tremendous value in stirring-up, and shaking-out ideas which might otherwise be discarded. And it's certainly important for academics to read the musings of others to maintain a healthy circulation of ideas. However that has traditionally happened in journals and within institutions, with the benefit of their being understood and valued appropriately. Also, that sets a higher bar, and has less financial or status incentive to produce inadequate theories.
However, when these books are marketed to the general public, they tend take on the air of expertise, and purport themselves to be far more substantial than they actually are. An academic can gain status and wealth purely by sales figures.
Which is a big problem and a disservice to the general public. The media makes the problem worse by latching onto these books at best arbitrarily and further distorting their merits.
It's made worse still by the status and (usually limited) financial incentive of writing books within academia, which ensures a steady stream of books seeking stardom often by authors reluctant to collaborate or share their theories. Or vet them.
Academia seems incapable of reigning in the epidemic because of the sheer volume of books being written, which ensures the merits of each are unlikely to be known, let alone read, even by peers.
The public needs to be more aware of these trends in authoring books. Too often the public presumes credentials + book = wisdom.
Perhaps we need a new section in bookstores called "fiction?" or more accurately: "musings."
December 1, 2007 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great, I just checked it out very superficially, but it looks interesting and I've bookmarked it. Kudos and karma your way.
December 1, 2007 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
And you have an interesting mix of appeals to authority and potty mouth. Not generally associated wisdom and intellect, but of course you're probably an outlier.
btw, if for a moment you overcome your giddiness at your newly attained skills, your undoubtedly great intellect might stop to realize layman's terms would be appropriate to this forum, unless you're trying to impress most readers by baffling them, which is more the art of demogougery. Just FYI.
If I hit on a nerve calling Poly Sci a rather soft science, it's because I'm not exactly the first person to have made the observation. Correct? And the application of the tools of a hard science, to a soft field, doesn't necessarily elevate the latter. Otherwise, for example the rigorous application of mathematics to Astrology would elevate it to a hard science, even with all the goofy assumptions intact.
Lastly, I'd suggest as a practical matter, you grow a thicker skin, until the day when the merits and consistency of the field of Poly Sci are unequivocally proven, which you're surely on the way to accomplishing, and can thusly brace yourself by savoring the moment in advance. I'd also suggest your learn the difference between tools and knowledge.
December 1, 2007 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, as a matter of fact I do. It's called thinking.
I'm not disparaging Krueger's credentials. He's certainly a preeminent American scholar of elite American institutions. He is certainly a highly trained economist and statistician worthy of respect in that regard. But I think in some ways he's been duped, and we've been duped, in elevating his opinions on terrorism.
He is not, as far as I can discern, in any way an expert on the Middle East or terrorism, nor do I see any reason why he particularly would be selected to address those fields more than any other economist or statistician. And while I think it's a good idea at times to bring interdisciplinary experts without experience in the primary subject matter, for a fresh perspective, it makes no sense attempting to analyze with statistics cultures one has only the vaguest understanding of.
And my bet is that you'd get a different model and theory of terrorism, fitting somewhat well to scant data, for every economist and statistician unfamiliar with the region and culture, tasked to the job. Which it should be noted has the effect of either misleading, or more likely mutually canceling out, information trickling down to ordinary folks in our democracy.
He's certainly no Juan Cole, who actually is a lifelong Middle East expert allowing him great insight to the subject. And I would think a Middle East expert such as Juan Cole, combined perhaps with an economist or someone otherwaise more capable of formally crunching the data, perhaps Brad De Long, (who would additionally provide robust vetting) would produce a far more rigorous theory of terrorism. Which begs the question, why do expert panels formed by this administration continually avoid the best experts in the field?
And I think the answer is clear: people with actual expertise in the region, or other subjects relevant to policy, are likely to have a deeper understanding, form consensus, and offer far more compelling and lasting opinions. Which is absolutely the last thing this Administration wants, and has actively avoided on every policy matter I can recall over the last two terms.
Compelling theories and policy recommendations have been consistently avoided, on everything from the Global Climate Change, to FP in the Middle East, to the Green Zone, to DHS, to FEMA.
And of course this makes perfect sense for this Administration, as they don't actually want any experts trumping their policy agenda with thorough and compelling studies.
December 1, 2007 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good karma, I hope...something to help me out of the lower astral plane at least.
Neoboho
December 1, 2007 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
From page 11: "For the past six years or so I've been studying various aspects of of the economics of terrorism."
Before which, he studied hate crimes, which is somewhat analogous (i.e. politically motivated violence with intent to influence an audience).
Since you don't seem to know much about academia, I'll let you know: that's a lot of time for a researcher to spend on a research project.
At any rate, you don't seem to understand the difference between questioning someone's credentials and questioning their thesis and research. Your snide comments about name-dropping, parties, credentials, the field of political science, economics, and so forth are just bizarre and have nothing to do with engaging the argument. They are therefore trollish.
December 1, 2007 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Evil for sure. But do you really think that all those bodies in the DOD, State Department, Military, Congress, the Senate, the AEI, not to mention legions of unidentifiable advisors... (I'm leaving out the Oval Office et al because I know they're stupid) could be that stupid?
I'm not so sure that though we see Iraq as a tragic debacle, a huge failure, there are those who see it as a victory. We've captured the country, we own it, we control it for as long as we choose. Bush might well have been telling his truth when he declared victory on that aircraft carrier back in '03.
December 1, 2007 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, no need for other planes, or branes. Karma works materially just fine in this one.
Karma could be defined roughly as a behavior selected in social species to improve group fitness by instinctual empathy and reciprocal altruism.
So, next time you do a good deed, keep that in mind. Or just enjoy it. Anyways, neet-o link. Good on ya mate!
December 1, 2007 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course there is a place in the world for both Prof. Cole and Prof. Krueger. You seem to object that Prof. Krueger isn't Prof. Cole.
Please explain?
December 1, 2007 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
The HOV analogy aside, which I'm unfamiliar with, I do agree with:
And that's exactly my criticism of Krueger. He certainly has a dazzling CV, and certainly knows where to drop technical language. I couldn't be more impressed if he actually wore a white smock, and black horn-rimmed glasses.
However, there is still an imo fatal problem concerning his lack of Middle Eastern expertise, or any expertise in the cultures he's attempting to analyze, despite his impressive arsenal of tools otherwise.
And it seems a classic example of ivory tower academic oversight when there are prestigious Middle East experts, like Juan Cole, who are neglected outsiders precisely because they're gifted at studying the outside world. Which has the perverse effect of denying us the expertise we need to deal with unfamiliar and unpleasant subjects, because we feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the people who actually study them. Talk about gouging out one's eyes for the offense they present.
From Juan Cole's wiki:
In 2006 Cole was nominated to teach at Yale University and was approved by both Yale's sociology and history departments. However, the senior appointments committee overruled the departments, and Cole was not appointed.
According to "several Yale faculty members," the decision to overrule Cole's approval was "highly unusual."[6] Yale Deputy Provost Charles Long stated that "Tenure appointments at Yale are very complicated and they go through several stages, and [the candidates] can fail to pass at any of the stages. Every year, at least one and often more fail at one of these levels, and that happened in this case." [7] The history department vote was 13 yes, 7 no, with 3 abstensions.[8] Professors interviewed by the Yale Daily News said "the faculty appeared sharply divided."[7]
Yale Historian Paula Hyman commented that the deep divisions in the appointment committee were the primary reasons that Cole was rejected: "There was also concern, aside from the process, about the nature of his blog and what it would be like to have a very divisive colleague."[7] Yale political science professor Steven B. Smith commented, "It would be very comforting for Cole's supporters to think that this got steamrolled because of his controversial blog opinions. The blog opened people's eyes as to what was going on."[9] Another Yale historian, John Merriman, said of Cole's rejection: "In this case, academic integrity clearly has been trumped by politics."
...
Criticism [of Juan Cole] seems mostly to come from American Zionists.
Alexander H. Joffe in the Middle East Quarterly has written that "Cole suggests that many American Jewish officials hold dual loyalties, a frequent anti-Semitic theme."[103]. Cole argues that his critics have "perverted the word 'antisemitic,'" and also points out that "in the Middle East Studies establishment in the United States, I have stood with Israeli colleagues and against any attempt to marginalize them or boycott them".[104]
According to Efraim Karsh, Cole has done "hardly any independent research on the twentieth-century Middle East", and Karsh characterized Cole's analysis of this era as "derivative." He has also responded to Cole's criticism of Israeli policies and the influence of the Israel lobby, comparing them to accusations that have been made in anti-semitic writings.[105] Cole responded directly to Karsh in his blog, dismissing one of Karsh's charges, that Cole's criticisms echo themes in the antisemitic tract Protocols of the Elders of Zion, as a "propaganda technique," adding that "No serious person who knows me or my work would credit his outrageous insinuations for a moment." Cole also defended his knowledge of modern Middle Eastern history, comparing his experience "on the ground" in the modern Arab world favorably with that of Bernard Lewis, a historian he said is "lionized" by Karsh
December 1, 2007 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, it's the "publish or perish" sydrome, Kozmik. It varies a bit form U to U (some let you use speaking engagement to satisfy tenure requirements.) But why not - a university's "product" is knowledge, and published material is a way of expressing that.
Columbia's late professor Edward Said wrote an interesting essay in which he talked about the numbers - in many academic publications are very small because the readership is small. Editions of 2,500 are common, he bulk being snapped-up by academic libraries. Every once in a while a professor will produce a best seller.
An outrageous example was Carlos Casteñeda - his dissertation, rewritten in book form, was an enormous best seller (The Teachings of Don Juan.) But he published it before submitting his dissertation to his committee. When he did, the Anthros at UCLA had a fit and rejected it because he did not identify his source. But UCLA had a different opinion - they ordered that the Deparment accept the dissertation, because Casteñeda was a best-selling author and that brought prestige of the UC system. The ultimate result was that it has become a legal issue - anthropologists no longer have to identify sources to publish in the academic press. I actually learned about this from an Anthropologist who thought the Casteñeda was terrific, for it allowed him to promise his informants anonymity thus protecting them from tribal retribution for giving away cultural knowledge.
Neoboho
December 1, 2007 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
From what expertise? Did he have an understanding of terrorism, the Middle East, the IRA, asymmetric warfare, or other such pertinent subjects before 9/11 which qualified him to the undertaking? I don't see them in his CV.
That's a stretch. There are many fields of dedicated expertise far more relevant. That's like saying the person most qualified to analyze the IRA is someone whose background is in gay-bashing, or such; as opposed to experts in British history, asymmetric warfare and insurgency, and other fields far more relevant. Absurd.
And your last couple grafs are just nonsensical and unimpressive fluff. Do better.
December 1, 2007 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you are going to raise methodological issues with a study, and present them in a know-it-all fashion, then disparage people who actually know what they're talking about, and then question people's credentials, I suggest that you come prepared to actually discuss methodology.
Layman's terms *are* appropriate, especially in a forum like this. But you are the one that raised the methodological objections-- let's sharpen those objections so we can discuss them. Please answer the questions that I've posed so we can!
I haven't been giddy since I was a teenager, by the way.
As to my "potty mouth", please see this. Sometimes it's just warranted. But I'm sorry I swore at you. At the very least it has distracted the discussion. So why don't we start with you addressing my questions?
And finally,
until the day when the merits and consistency of the field of Poly Sci are unequivocally proven
Wow. Just, wow. (We generally spell it PoliSci by the way.)
December 1, 2007 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, that explains why it made no sense for a polymer expert to weigh in on terrorism.
I wonder if we have to wait until the merits and consistency of history are proven before we can argue over it. Where's the fun in that?
December 1, 2007 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
For instance, the folks in this thread that seem to think the professor is some Bush hack (look, he serves on a board!), has no expertise in the Middle East, or doesn't know how to run a regression.
December 1, 2007 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate your post here & think it makes some important points.
I've often been troubled by what appears to be a trend of replacing or befuddling concience with numbers. These mathematical studies & models seem appropriate for some things but their usefulness seems questionable for others. To me, when attepting to 'wrap our heads around' human conflict, multiple disciplines are needed. Mathematics, History, Economics, Phychology (and in a note aimmed directly at our monumentally inept administration - some cultural & language studies are recommended). All of the fields are necessary in order to truely understand what forces are really at work and exactly how much impact they have.
I think it's also important to approach a study as complex and volitle as human conflict as unbiased as humanly possible. It's a difficult thing to do sometimes but bias of any kind will quickly taint any results and render the entire effort useless at best or worse to provide another tool to be exploited to further misunderstanding & ignorance. Terroism strikes me as one such area requiring as many fields as possible. Numbers alone do not begin to tell the story and they n