Recent reports confirm a theory that many had dismissed about the war on terror going on in Iraq. “Operation Honeypot”, as it might be called if the State Department releases any more details on this most recently reported turn of events, has actually been an active and successful anti-terrorist operation aimed at containing as many terrorists as possible to one known and completely controllable location.

While many (if not most) people see the Bush/Republican war in Iraq as a dismal failure, it has obviously turned out some good things, such as Operation Honeypot (as well as giving civilians the freedom they didn’t have under the tyranny of Saddam). The sheer genius of this operation is hallmark of the well thought out War in Iraq as well as most Middle East policies of the US. While most of the world wasn’t looking, the Bush administration was able to set up a real-world honeypot in Iraq, drawing in thousands of unsuspecting terrorists for future monitoring/capture/intelligence gathering – like tens of thousands of Winnie-the-Poohs jumping to one gigantic pot of honey. As persons who are familiar with honeypots will tell you – there is no better way to see into the mind of your enemy than watching them when they think they’re in their own environment and not being monitored. So what is a honeypot, anyway?

In computer terms, a honeypot is a trap set to detect and capture illegal activity on a network. It can be, for example, a computer set up on a network that appears to be part of a larger network, but is completely isolated. The attempts – perhaps successful – of a would-be hacker to compromise the computer give direct information into the mind of the hacker, his methods, and his goals in attacking the network.

The real genius occurred at the moment that the Bush administration took this honeypot idea from the IT sector and applied it to the overall strategy of the War in Iraq. Terrorists now have a place to breed ideas and train, build dirty bombs, plan world-wide attacks, and conduct terrorism over the internet – or so they think. In reality, Operation Honeypot has succeeded where others have failed, has strived where others stumbled: now even more terrorists are contained in a known, controllable area than ever before. And this is all thanks to the far-sightedness of the Bush administration. As president Bush said , “My judgment is, if we weren’t in Iraq, they’d find some other excuse, because they have ambitions”. He’s exactly right: people have ambitions. Why not corral these ambitious people into a small, secure location?

Certainly critics of the Bush administration will try to twist Operation Honeypot into something other than what it really is. While some will claim that the Iraq War has actually increased the number of terrorists in the world, they are missing the real point: these “closet terrorists”, those that perhaps have thoughts of retaliation against the US for whatever reason but have been actively supressing those feelings, are being forced to “come out of the closet”. In effect, the Bush administration has exposed the true thoughts deep down in the hearts of those sleeper terrorists, something that hours of expensive one-on-one therapy wouldn’t unearth. By heightening the anger of these wannabe terrorists to new and before unseen levels, they transform from opinionated observers to active participants. And this is exactly what Operation Honeypot is there for – to attract all kinds of terrorists, especially the ones that are trying to hide it. And there are probably hundreds of thousands of them. If you’ve ever had a thought of anger against the US government, or a moment of weakness where you question the goings-on of the Bush regime: be careful – you could also be a target of Operation Honeypot. You don’t actually have to go to Iraq, you just have to be there in spirit.

All this news of the Iraq War fueling terror is misguided. The Iraq War is just exposing more terrorists than ever before, and additionally containing many of them inside a country roughly the size of California. While Winnie the Pooh might balk at Bush’s inclusion of his honey addiction as a strategy in Iraq, I for one think that someone should get awarded for creating Operation Honeypot. Or at least there should be a party. Perhaps with costumes.