Iraq Casualties Continue Declining
As those of us who've been watching for the last year know, except for a horrible insurgency that was put down in November, casualties in Iraq have been on a slow downward decline, which has continued through to this very day.
The funny thing is, some dishonest people, for whom attacking Bush is far more important than any concept of truth, fairness, or non-partisan decency, keep suggesting that the situation in Iraq keeps getting worse even as it steadily gets better. The Commissar has a chart you should see, and he's not the only one with this data.
Iraq continues to go better than any large-scale military operation of its type in history. It's amazing how angry and upset some people get when you state this simple fact.
I'm not sure about that, and I will say it's not going quite as well as I'd hoped; but so far, I haven't seen anything that really alarms me or that was completely unexpected.
This is going to be a tough nut to crack. Too bad half of us are hoping we fail.
And that, to me, is the only thing that's really worrisome.
Dave, you seem like a nice guy, but your statement leads me to believe you need to spend some time reading military history. To say this is a stunning success for what has been accomplished is gross understatement. It is beyond belief, and one only needs to look at the statements before the war from various "military experts" about how were were going to lose 50,000 to 100,000 troops, etc., to see even the pros got blindsided.
Toren,
While I agree withn your analysis, I don't remember any expert predicting 50,000 casualties on our side. I remember 10-20k, which of course was still outlandish to anyone not seeking to make the most of their 5 minutes on television. The 100,000 numbers I remember referred to Iraqi casualties. Then throw on Chomsky's million deaths from the mass disruptions in the food supply.
I don't remember any predictions in the 50K-100K range either, but Toren's right: you'd have to read one helluva lot of military history to find examples of any victory which comes close to what we've achieved in Iraq. If you could find any at all, that is.
The struggle in Iraq, though, is not the one that worries me: the one that does, is the battle here at home. If we lose it, and the pallid, craven forces of pessimism, self-doubt, timidity, UN-worship and Francophilia take over in November, Iraq will turn into another self-inflicted defeat like Vietnam.
And if that happens, then we will end up simply passing the struggle against Islamic totalitarianism on to the next generation of Americans.
And if we do, our grandchildren will very likely be faced with an extremely ugly choice: either accept life under sharia, or incinerate a billion or so Muslims in a nuclear showdown.
I don't want them to have to make that decision, and that's why I'll crawl over broken glass next Fall--if I have to--to re-elect Bush.
"And if we do, our grandchildren will very likely be faced with an extremely ugly choice: either accept life under sharia, or incinerate a billion or so Muslims in a nuclear showdown."
This, I fear, is exactly correct. In the end we will win the war whatever it takes. But waiting strengthens our enemies. To overcome them later will be harder for us and harder on them.
Meanwhile, guess who has risen from the dead and resumed blogging, with a superb post on this very subject...
Not to be argumentative but:
- how many total dead in Iraq? Civilian, Iraq military, US and allied military? Without a real number, chiding comparisons are useless. You may be right but state facts.
- despite the wonderful and real recreation of the infrastructure to make up for all of the dictatorship, the emargo and the bombing, when is a society without sewage in all the hospitals (as described on 20/20 last night) expected?
- who do you really think hopes the US will fail in Iraq other than the Baathists? [That has to be the stupidest remark I have read since 9/11.]
- what resources need to be moved to the War on Terror on the Afgan/Pakistan border now that Iraq is going so well and return to the real hunt can be and is being renewed?
Vietnam, sharia, nuclear meltdown?
Must be the political season. Sigh.
In all seriousness, my side engage in our share of hyperbole, but where do people like Dave D come from? The thing that worries me most is that he has the demeanour of a warrior and a seriousness of intent. God bless America.
Dave D,
As a comparison, the last time a western military force entered Baghdad was 1917 - and it took the Brits a force of 250,000 men two years to go from Basra to Baghdad, and about 100,000 casualties...against an enemy force which never exceeded 100,000.
Mark: those are some pretty remarkable numbers!
Max: New Jersey. Any other questions?
Dave D:
...you'd have to read one helluva lot of military history to find examples of any victory which comes close to what we've achieved in Iraq. If you could find any at all, that is.
Apparently you haven't heard of something called the Trojan Horse? They just waited till night time then burned the whole place down. Probably didn't even suffer one casualty. Of course, I stopped watching half-way through the movie, so who knows? I think Helen dies at the end, or something.
dowingba,
Searching the thing I use for a brain, it was Ilerda...
"Theoretically, at least, slaughter is a regrettable adjunct of operations seeking primarily to bend the enemy's will by the threat of force. The flawless victory would therefore be the one in which all objectives were gained without the loss of a man by either side. Only a few such triumphs are recorded in history, and none has ever surpassed Ceasar's first civil war campaign." - 'War Through the Ages', by Lynn Montross, pg 78
Ceasar, in command of 40,000 men against an enemy force of 70,000, used the following steps:
1. Ceasar forces the enemy to take a weak defensive stand, then declines an almost certain victory.
2. Ceasar pursues his opponents, harassing their flanks and rear without ever coming to grips.
3. Ceasar makes a rapid countermarch and cuts the enemy off from its line of retreat.
4. Ceasar agains takes the opposing legions at a disadvantage - and again refuses a battle which obviously would have resulted in the destruction of the other army.
5. Ceasar makes another countermarch and heads off his faltering enemy from obtaining needed water.
6. Ceasar cuts off his enemy from regaining their fortified camp.
7. Ceasar gains the complete surrender of an army outmanouvered at every turn and twice spared from a bloody defeat.
Hmm...I guess I was thinking of that story of the U.S. military ordering up 50,000 body bags.
As for padding the numbers by adding in Iraqi military dead...no thanks. We don't consider enemy dead to be a bad thing.
Henry V pulled off a pretty impressive victory (for the time) at Agincourt in 1415, killing 6,000 French (including the flower of French knighthood) and losing only 400, mostly foot soldiers.
Bush, November 2000. Pulls off bloodless coup d'état: not a shot fired.
;-p
Flame on guys!
I worry about the soldiers, of course, but I also worry about Iraqis: I'm lucky enough to know a couple of people over there. It seems that we're losing fewer soldiers, but there doesn't seem to be very reliable data on violence against Iraqis by insurgents. The Iraqi police force are targets. Any Iraqi working for the coalition forces is a target. Translators and guides are targets. It's very worrisome.
I don't know how to value an Iraqi life more or less than the life of one of our soldiers. I don't want to know how. I hope that as our own soldiers get safer that Iraqis get safer too. I hope they get organized to the point where they can deal with insurgents in their own way.
I have tried several times to post a particular comment response here, to Mr. Esmay's entry, but it keeps telling me that I am not able to do so... Is there some reason for this?
(Note: The error message I got said something about the content of my comment not being permissible, but said to contain Mr. Esmay if I thought that was a mistaken message. I am typing a new comment here, and seeing if this gets posted.)
Well, what do you know... It did.
Hmmmm...
John Kusch,
The lives of Iraqi's are every bit as valuable as the lives of Americans...but the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of both patriots and tyrants...the Iraqi's are paying for their freedom now, lest the consider it valueless in the future. Better a million of them die than tyranny rear its ugly head in Iraq again.
"Iraq Casualties Continue Declining"
Are you bringing people back from the dead?