I went back and broke down the data behind this graph showing US military deaths in Iraq. Here's a new graph showing deaths classified by the Department of Defense as "hostile" (caused by enemy attacks, including IED's and other attacks outside of active combat) and "non-hostile" (caused by accidents, illness, etc.) in blue. Total deaths are in grey:
To see the data for yourself, go to Iraq Coaltion Casualty Count and click on the dates in the table titled "Military Fatalities: By Month". It turns out that of 2,332 confirmed deaths through March 2006, 555 were classified as "non-hostile". That's 23.8%, or almost 1 in four.
I don't mean in any way to trivialize those deaths. Those 555 men and women sacrificed their lives in serving our country. And we should repay their sacrifice by not turning their deaths into propaganda that makes our enemies seem deadlier than they are.
To see the data for yourself, go to Iraq Coaltion Casualty Count and click on the dates in the table titled "Military Fatalities: By Month". It turns out that of 2,332 confirmed deaths through March 2006, 555 were classified as "non-hostile". That's 23.8%, or almost 1 in four.
I don't mean in any way to trivialize those deaths. Those 555 men and women sacrificed their lives in serving our country. And we should repay their sacrifice by not turning their deaths into propaganda that makes our enemies seem deadlier than they are.
The sooner the mainstream media stops blowing up the Islamic militants into more of a threat than they are, the sooner we can begin to rationalize U.S. policy and strategy in the region.
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
2. transitive verb make something rational: to make something rational, logical, or consistent
Some people say we should increase the number of troops in Iraq to stop the violence. Well, Rumsfeld--the man so many people want to resign--knows that more troops will only mean more deaths all around.
The French had 500,000 troops in Algeria, which at that time had a population of 9 million. If you scale the troop-to-citizen ratio up to match Iraq's population, that would mean we'd need 1.5 million troops in Iraq. We currently have 138,000.
The French lost 18,000 troops killed over an eight-year period, or 2250 a year. Again, if you scale it up to Iraq ratios, it would be 6750 a year. We're losing about 700 a year, and that figure is falling.
Between 350,000 and 1.5 million Algerians were killed. To scale those figures up to Iraq, multiply them by three. So far in Iraq, about 32,000 have died, including terrorists.
The French used a policy of collective punishment in Algeria: If a village harbored insurgents, the village was bombed from the air or hit with artillery strikes. The French also tortured suspects to death, rounded people up by the thousands and shot them without trial, and put about 2 million in concentration camps. And they still lost the war.
With less than 10% of the troops (proportionally) that France had in Algeria, and with a policy not of conquest but of partnership, look what we've accomplished. More importantly, look at the slaughter we've avoided.
Something to thank Rumsfeld for.
Thanks for the perspective on the mistakes the French in Algeria. Do you think Rumsfeld made none in Iraq? If not, I'm curious what you'd consider them to be. He certainly seems to have defeated Saddam handily, but it doesn't seem that he used sufficient troops to "win the peace".
While we're all glad to see our troop losses falling, that has to be weighed in the context of the coninued growth of sectarian violence. Keeping our own troop losses low is hardly a "victory" - by that standard we would clearly have been farther ahead by keeping them at home.
Are we keeping our losses down by keeping out of the way? How much is the increased sectarian violence due to the absence of US troops? I note that guys like Powell and Zinni both advocate higher troop numbers. It is not clear to me that staying the course on troop numbers is a winning strategy in a country that is in a spiral of sectarian violence. None trusts the other, and none is a fan of the US. Here is a quote from the WaPo in February
That was an American offensive, mostly driven by intelligence captured with Saddam in his septic tank. The reason there were more American deaths is that for a brief period the tempo of offensive operations went way up for about 3 weeks.
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