Posted on 04/04/2006 3:27:12 PM PDT by jmc1969
The fatality figures in Iraq are perhaps telling a story, which would be that the war focuses progressively on internecine killings. The American death rate for March was 31 fatalities, a gruesome toll (one per day), yet the second lowest since the invasion was launched three years ago. Over approximately the same period, nearly 1,500 Iraqi civilians were killed, according to the American military, a significant increase over recent months.
One asks then: Is the furious resolve of the insurgents altering in focus? Has the enemy reckoned that the problem in hand is not Americans, who will be gone, roughly speaking, tomorrow, but Iraqis whose ethnic identities will remain the same when the grandchildren of both parties will be eyeing each other?
The rate of these killings reduces but is not concomitant with any reduction in U.S. strength. It is brought on by (a) the reduction in U.S. exposure, and (b) insurgent concentration on non-U.S. targets.
But ask then: Is this reduced exposure a part of the U.S. battle plan? We have not in recent months seen any hard U.S. assaults on hard Iraqi targets, in the class of Fallujah in the fall of 2004. Can we assume that such hard enemy nests aren't there, holding out? Or rather that the U.S. army command is less bent on smoking them out?
If there are (one speculates) 15 areas of Iraq in which the insurgents are embedded with special defensive ingenuity, the commanding general can elect to dispatch bombs and artillery, always with some care for collateral damage done to innocent civilians. But that approach, a platonic alternative to sending in a battalion with instructions to root out the offenders, means a diminished exposure of American soldiers to high-cost engagements.
To reason that this is happening is deductive: fewer casualties, fewer engagements. However, fewer engagements should presume an enemy diminished in size and potency. But to say that runs us into the corresponding figure, of 1,500 Iraqi civilian deaths. Somebody is killing those people, and the whole idea of the U.S. enterprise was to shield the Iraqi population not only from the depredations of Saddam Hussein, but also from successor killers. Manifestly this has not happened, if the killing proceeds at so high a rate.
I have myself concluded that our Iraqi mission has failed.
Buckley has lost his marbles. He's got a bad case of Cronkitis. Fool.
Buckley, another clown who never wore the uniform much less served in combat.
We liberated FIFTY MILLION PEOPLE in three years with less than three thousand KIA's. Now if that isn't a victory I don't know what is. FDR & LBJ would have given their right arm for a similar success!
Semper Fi,
Kelly
Buckley is now using Iraqi casulties to explain how we have lost.
Bill is simply wrong on this particular issue. He's done too much good over the past half century for us to throw him under the car.
ping
bttt
"Buckley is now using Iraqi casulties to explain how we have lost."
yea, well that dog won't hunt...
did we win WWI or WWII?
well I hope everyone remembers what the casualties were...
He simply doesn't understand the situation any more then the average American does. He seems to think 1,500 casulties in a month is a sign the enemy is winning. But, he is not sure who the enemy is.
I would say 1/4 of those deaths are probably criminal in nature. 1/2 are being caused by Baathists and jihadists and the other half by Shia militias. Iraqi is going to be in a low level insurgent and sectarian conflict for years, it doesn't mean Iraq is any closer to failing then Pakistan is today.
WFB,Jr. served in the US Army as an enlisted man.
I assume you voted for John Kerry.
And long-standing tribal blood feuds. Saddam kept all these people in line by making everyone fear him. Now that he's gone, people are more inclined to take vengeance against each other for past offenses and transgressions that can stretch back generations.
But ask then: Is this reduced exposure a part of the U.S. battle plan? We have not in recent months seen any hard U.S. assaults on hard Iraqi targets, in the class of Fallujah in the fall of 2004.
I think lately he's developed a case of Goldwateritis.
I voted for GWB who wore the uniform, served and did not disgrace his uniform by lying about those of us who did serve in Viet Nam.
Buckley did in fact serve in the Army. If you look at his biography by John Judis, you can see a family picture that proves this.
But so what?
Can't a person comment on a war without having served in one?
What kind of know-nothing BS are you peddling?
And how dare you call Buckley a clown. He is one of the few outstanding leaders American conservatism ever had. Some intelligent people believe that there wouldn't have been much of it without him.
Thank you. I stand corrected.
"I assume you voted for John Kerry."
Heh -- good one, Tall.
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