Well, I think there’s some natural level of concern out there because in fact, you know, it wasn’t over instantaneously. It’s been a little over three years now since we went into Iraq, so I don’t think it’s surprising that people are concerned.
On the other hand, this government has only been in office about five months, five or six months now. They’re off to a good start. It is difficult, no question about it, but we’ve now got over 300,000 Iraqis trained and equipped as part of their security forces. They’ve had three national elections with higher turnout than we have here in the United States. If you look at the general overall situation, they’re doing remarkably well.
The deaths of 10 of the 11 troops on Tuesday were caused by enemy attacks, including bombings and firefights, and the 11th died of “nonhostile” causes, military officials said, using a term that often refers to accidents or illness.
At least 70 American troops have died so far this month, putting October on pace to be third deadliest month of the conflict.
The total, after only 18 days, already exceeds that of most other months since the start of the invasion in March 2003.
Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said the sudden surge in troop deaths would not force President Bush to alter his war plans.
Damned liberal media.
Gold Star for Robot Boy
But, according to Instapundit, Iraq is not a reason why the GOP deserves to lose. In fact, he doesn’t even think it’s worth mentioning.
JWeidner
Please John. Everyone knows that if the media didn’t report on war deaths, we’d be winning.
RSA
Damned liberal media. No one ever said that Iraq would be over instantaneously. You’d think someone had told the American public that U.S. soldiers would be greeted as liberators or something.
The Other Steve
Dick Cheney tries to do nuance.
Pb
Oh, well, that settles it. What was the turnout like under Saddam? I understand he consistently got almost all of the vote…
Ugh. Why would it, nothing else has…
skip
Introducing Dick Cheney to facts never seems to matter. I mean, if there is “simply no question” that Saddam:
Had long ties to al Qaeda
Had reconstituted nuclear weapons
then there is simply no question in his mind about lots of things, such as when he chose himself to be GWB’s vice-president after a long search. That was almost but not quite as remarkable as putting his wife in charge of a reading initiative. One assumes Elvira was already dead.
Nietzsche was right: “Mud often sits on the throne.” Lecturn too.
Tsulagi
I could write a long comment about how brain dead Cheney is about Iraq, put in links, etc., but why bother?
He proved it best himself about a month ago when asked if using hindsight, was there anything the admin could or should have changed to have a better result to date in Iraq. He said no, everything was planned and executed perfectly. That he was amazed at what a brilliant job they had done. He may be articulate, but “we’ll be welcomed as liberators,” “last throes” Cheney seriously competes with Bush for the stupidest sonofabitch title.
The 300,000 Iraqi troops he cites? Vapor. The whole “we’ll stand down as they stand up” is just another admin bullshit dog and pony show. One they’re not even repeating these days. Their sole goal is just to run two years off the clock, hand the ball to a new team, then blame them for the loss. Mission Accomplished.
scarshapedstar
Well, at least the November Surprise has been revealed.
That’s the Bush administration’s grand plan for restoring Iraq, y’all. Start clapping for Tinkerbell and get warmed up to join in the chorus of “Only a partisan would suggest that this has been delayed for political reasons!”
croatoan
using a term that often refers to accidents or illness.
…and suicides.
“My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators” …uh after three years or so — Dick Cheney
“It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months. — Donald Rumsfeld
BlogReeder
The interesting thing about the excerpt from the NY Times (I’m just talking about that) is the importance of numbers. Iraq the Model says it much better:
Pb
Wow, that’s stupid. Iraq The Model just found out that both sides have casualties in war! Yes, that’s right, if one Iraqi insurgent dies and one Iraqi policeman dies, it adds up to two dead Iraqis!
BadTux
Reeder, somehow I doubt that excerpting snippets from a CIA-funded web site is going to convince anybody of anything. For one thing, the CIA has had a, let us say, uneven record on Iraq intelligence. WMD’s are a “slam dunk”, anybody?
I don’t think anybody other than delusional fools could say that Iraq is anything other than a bloody mess right now. Either the leader of our nation (Dick Cheney) is a delusional fool, or he is the biggest liar on the planet. Or both. It’s not a boolean choice, they’re not mutually exclusive, y’know?
– Badtux the Logic Penguin
craigie
Well he could hardly do that, since he doesn’t actually know what they are.
BlogReeder
Pb:
I didn’t think you would catch the nuance. It might be beyond your P-brain. A ‘body count’ doesn’t say anything except that a lot of people have died. It says ‘a lot’ of people sure have died.
Of course, when a lot of people have died that’s a bad thing. It strongly suggests that it should all stop. A ‘body count’ by itself, which is what seems to be written doesn’t say anything interesting.
A body count implies that we should do whatever it takes to end all the dying. Ideals aren’t important if it causes more killing. Lets just give in. The most important thing is the body counts. Whatever is decided just keep the body counts in mind. Give up if it has any body counts whatsoever. Fight the insurgents? No! Body counts, remember?
Don’t you see with that single focus you start to say things like “let’s look at the Saddam line”. He wasn’t such a bad bloke because he kept body counts down. Saddam =saint because of body counts.
Can you catch this thinking in Former US President Carter says his Korea peace efforts of 1994 “in the wastebasket”? He’s saying we should give North Korea whatever it wants to avoid war. Everything it wants. We can’t even call it a bad name. Well what do you know, NK broke the agreement. Is that said here? No, Bush is the bad guy. HE broke it. Nevermind that NK hadn’t been abiding since it was signed. THEY had put it in the wastebasket. Why? Because they could. They knew we were only interested in body counts. Avoid war at ALL costs. Guess what? If we had taken out NK then when they DIDN’T have the bomb, it would have saved a lot of problems now. Can we trust NK anymore? They showed they can’t be trusted to hold up their end of a bilateral agreement. Even after we give it all sorts of goodies.
peter
CNN.com is now openly airing insurgent propaganda of sniper attacks on US soldiers. Billed as a story that CNN feels is “shocking, but has to be told. The graphic video of 10 sniper attacks was obtained by CNN — through intermediaries — from the Islamic Army of Iraq.” I wonder who these “intermediaries are.” CNN has been in overdrive this week trying to put the worst possible face on Iraq in order to influence the mid-term elections, but this is just sickening.
craigie
The best possible face being “Record numbers of US soldiers are dying, but the good news is, most of them hardly felt a thing.” Is that your point?