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| Iraq |
| What America's declining casualties reveal |
| 2008-02-04 |
| By Vasko Kohlmayer The dramatic decline in US casualties in Iraq has been one the great untold story of recent months. With thirty-nine lost in January, twenty-three in December, thirty-seven in November and thirty-eight in November, a young American male would have been safer in Iraq than in some of America's inner cities. Given the circumstances this is not what one would expect. For one thing, the number of casualties a foreign force takes usually grows as conflicts of this nature drag on. Secondly, a number of factors would appear to make Iraq the ideal place for the kind of partisan-style operation the insurgents are trying to carry out. To begin with, the conflict's long duration has given the enemy the time to structure and organize themselves. Since America incites deep hostility in the jihadist psyche, there has been no shortage of recruits eager to fight the Great Satan. The eagerness of many to die and claim their virgins makes them an especially dangerous and deadly foe. The insurgency has also been well backed by the jihad's financiers who consider Iraq the central battlefield in their cause. Finally, the insurgency has been receiving steady state support from Iran and Syria in the form of weapons, materiel and advisors. When an insurgency that is so favored ends up as ineffective as the one in Iraq today, there can only be one reason for it: a lack of support from the local population. This is because native populations are to this type of fighters what water is to fish. Since they move and live among them, the insurgents depend on locals for cover, sustenance and other necessities. But the Iraqis apparently do not provide them with the support they need and demand. In fact, the opposite is the case. Everyday our soldiers receive tips which help them to bust enemy safe houses, find weapons caches, and foil plots. This may come as a shock to some, but our low casualty rate clearly shows that the Iraqi people have taken the side of America and that on a mass scale. The perception that the Iraqis detest our soldiers as oppressive occupiers has been falsely created by American liberals and their collaborators in the Democrat Party and the mainstream media. It was them who fabricated the notion that our military is a cesspool of wanton torturers, lust-filled rapists and unscrupulous thugs preying on the people of Iraq. Because American liberals loathe our military, they want to make every one else loathe it as well. Eager to drum up hatred, they have been spreading their slander either by direct accusation or by insinuation. Liberals have shown their true nature by choosing the side of evil in the great struggle of our time. So complete is their betrayal that they obsessively shield some of the world's most bloodthirsty fanatics from temporary discomfort that would yield information that could save thousands of innocent lives. Even though they try to deny it, their actions clearly show that liberals have thrown their lot with some of the most brutal, cruel and depraved miscreants in recent memory. In their eagerness to hand them victory they have already declared this war lost even as their country dominates the battlefield. The terrorists for their part show their appreciation when they celebrate Democrats' electoral successes, for even ideological differences and geographic distance cannot obscure the fact that American liberals are the best friends they have. So intimate is this shameful pact that the other side - Bin Laden, al-Zahawiri, al-Jazeera and their likes - routinely base their tirades against America on liberals' talking points. And while liberals give plenty of encouragement to foreign reprobates, they have little good to say about the best and bravest among us. Even as they disingenuously proclaim their support for our troops, they eagerly seize on every minor infraction to besmirch their reputation. But like in much else liberals are wrong. Rather than being an accurate assessment of reality, their smears are a reflection of their own depravity which prevents them from seeing things as they really are. If they did, they would realize that there has never been a military which has treated both civilians and combat enemy more humanely or with more dignity. No one is in a better position to make this judgment than the Iraqi people who have had the opportunity to observe and interact with our armed forces first hand. The low casualty figures coming out of Iraq tell their side of the story loud and clear. Liberals would do well to listen up. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #5 Anonymoose: Let me add one: 9) Instilling a sense of confidence that we are going to be there in time, every time, for as long as it is necessary to get Iraq on its own feet. They can't worry about whether or not we are going to be there next year, and they have to know that if they stick their necks out and give us a call to clean up another pile of dog$hit that we will be there quickly and clean things up so thoroughly in a manner that protects their identity that they won't have to worry about having to face retribution from the bad guys. I personally think this is a huge factor in gaining the confidence and help of a population that has a desire to help but has to play by very "practical" and summary rules. |
| Posted by: gorb 2008-02-04 19:48 |
| #4 WORLDTRIBUNE > NOW AMERICA ROUTING Al-QAEDA IS NEWS. The SHOCK, the HORROR, the QUAGMIRE that is America winning a war. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-02-04 19:31 |
| #3 MEHSUD > has reportedly claimed that Islam = Islamism will de facto destroy the USA + Britain but wiithout using NUCLEAR WEAPONS. BY EXTENS MEHSUD IS IMPLYNG THE PER SE DESTRUCTION OF THE ANGLO-SPHERE WHICH INCLUDES ALL OF WESTERN EUROPE/EURO + WESTERN DEMOCRACIES, ultimately includng even POST-COLD WAR/USSR, HISTORICALLY + SELF-PROCLAIMED EURO-CENTRIC RUSSIA. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-02-04 17:53 |
| #2 Still, we should all be ready for the Al Queda version of the tet offensive as they try to show they aren't done and bring Iraq to the headlines again in time to shoot down the Republicans. That is if they can get enough suicide bombers, car bombs, to make it work. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2008-02-04 10:52 |
| #1 It is time to note the very important lessons learned from the Iraq war and occupation: 1) Using the nation, and areas and cities within, as a "roach motel" to attract foreign insurgents. This reduced conflicts in perhaps 10 countries to just one, with their insurgents fighting our troops in a place of our choosing, instead of attacking our civilians in the West, in our nations. 2) Every part of Iraq we rebuilt from scratch works a hundred times better than the parts we tried to salvage from the old regime. It was a terrible error to allow Iraq to keep its French-based legal system, instead of the far superior Common law based one, and to allow it to create its own constitution, instead of imposing one on them, in the manner of MacArthur in Japan. 3) It is yet unknown if the idealized economic system imposed by J. Paul Bremer will have the dramatic effect of making Iraq into a first world nation. This will take 10-20 more years to find out. But if so, Iraq will become so economically powerful that it will dominate much of the far side of the planet. 4) Hearts and minds was critical to the occupation. This was accomplished by numerous low-level military personnel under the guidance of a master counter-insurgency General. Unfortunately, we tried to use a "stabilization" General before Iraq was ready, which delayed victory for a year. Unlucky him. 5) By having the military directly disperse funds at a low level for reconstruction projects, efficiency was improved by a factor or two. This, despite bitter protests by Washington bureaucrats about these monies not being carefully accounted for, and passing through their control and discretion. Screw them. The military used these funds with the precision and timeliness of an epee. 6) We severely underestimated the number and type of prisons needed in Iraq, as well as the need for swift justice by the Iraqi equivalent of military tribunals, instead of traditional courts. 7) The use of civilian police criminal information and data mining software was brilliant. Early on, we should have ASAP conducted a biometric census of every Iraqi, to include fingerprints, DNA, and photo, as well as issued each one a biometric identification card. Such cards would be encrypted to conceal the identity from a casual glance, to protect them from their own enemies. 8) There is no practical limit to the use of surveillance during a military occupation. Optimally, we should have had 24 hour high altitude surveillance of every area of interest in the country, early on. The expense would have saved thousands of lives. These are just off the top of my head. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-02-04 09:28 |