Iraq as Roach Motel

Terrorist check in but don't check out! Larry Schweikart on the real Iraq body count:

In America’s Victories, I argued that Iraq was a giant “Roach Motel,” in which the terrorists check in, and only leave via the morgue. The real Iraq body count suggest I understated my case by several orders of magnitude. Let me reiterate that no one is looking at the enemy wounded, many of whom will never again fight, or deserters/quitters. As the Japanese found out with their kamikaze pilots, there is a finite number of “warriors” willing to commit suicide. There is also—even for the most fanatical of bushido-ist Japanese and Islamic jihadists—a critical mass in which “fighters” and would-be suicide bombers say “no mas” and quietly abandon the front.

The “Roach Motel” strategy, as bloody as it is, works as well for us in Iraq as it worked for Lord Chelmsford when he sent his army into Zululand in 1879 to draw out the Zulus and destroy them.

Zarqawi’s last memos testify to the effectiveness of this strategy, as does his corpse.