Tony Snow Knows Jihadists

President Bush’s press secretary has been trying to convince us that more jihadists translates into the proposition that we are winning the Global War on Terrorism. One of his arguments is:

Just because somebody says they joined the movement does not necessarily mean that they are prepared to strap on a vest and blow somebody up. So that’s the distinction to make.

Let’s see if I can explain what he means by this. Someone suggested that before that stupid decision on March 19, 2003 to invade Iraq, there were 20,000 jihadists and now there are 50,000 jihadists. Osama bin Laden’s main weapon seems to be the willingness of jihadists to commit suicide as they kill innocent people. So let’s make a couple of assumptions. Let’s say that four years ago, 80% of that 20,000 were willing to commit suicide for bin Laden (16,000 such fanatics) but now 70% of the 50,000 have joined the cause just to impress chics. If that is so, then the number of fanatics is down to 15,000. I’m glad Tony Snow sees things so clearly!