Where Do Terrorists Come From?

BY NOW, you have no doubt heard that President Bush is “creating more terrorists” with his neoimperialist wars on terror, Iraq, Arab nationalism, etc. The meme has gotten so out of control that even mostly sensible people such as Mickey Kaus are spouting it. Sayeth Kaus:

In the larger war on terror, however, it’s no contest. Both candidates will hunt down and kill existing terrorists. The issue is how many new terrorists are we creating. . . . Let’s say that n is the number of net new terrorists who’ll come online in the next four years. Isn’t it obvious that n is a lot lower if Kerry is president than if Bush is president?

Obvious how? The creation of terrorists is one of those perfect little Rorschach tests since, as Reuel March Gerecht recently pointed out, there is (a) no data on how many terrorists there are today; (b) no data on how many terrorists there were yesterday; and (c) no foreseeable way to collect data on how many terrorists there will be tomorrow. In other words: You can take whatever position you want with utter confidence because nobody will ever be able to prove you wrong.