This must be very worrying for the Republicans.
If this continues (and I see no likelihood that it won’t), firstly, what can the Administration do about it, and secondly, could this be the issue that brings Bush down? (Or will the American public see this as part of the price that must be paid when fighting the War on Terror?)
As troubling as the killings are, the sabotage of the oil industry infrastucture presents much more fundamental problems for the Bush policy in Iraq. Add the inability to form an Iraqi government of any sort, and you have a recipe for stagnation and failure in Iraq.
I agree that oil pipelines across the country are almost impossible to guard and very easy to sabotage.
IIRC Morocco had a similar problem in the Western Sahara with a long conveyor for the phosphates from the mines to the sea and the Polisarios kept blowing it up.
Pipelines hundreds of Kilometers long are easy targets. Add to that the mishandling of the situation by the USA (like selling Iraqi oil to Israel and other such impositions) and you have a recipe for continued Iraqi fighting. Which will lead to more dead US soldiers and more dead Iraqis at the hands of US forces. Not a pretty situation.
It ought to worry all of us. Or, is it your position that non-Republicans don’t care about the murder of dozens of innocent people?
In the interests of truth, it should be pointed out that Iraqi oil has not been sold to Israel. Then again, it could be that the interests of truth were not your goal with that statement.
The targetting of US servicemen in Iraq is the murder of innocent people? While I certainly don’t feel they are criminals, they are there as an occupying invasion force.
Very true.
Whether Iraqi oil will or will not be sold to Israel is not essential to my point so I will not defend it here. My central point is that the USA is making one PR blunder after another and managing to alienate the people it was supposed to liberate and make happy. But if you wish to discuss the Iraq - Israel oil pipeline there is a current thread: Iraqi oil to flow into Israel
Well, isn’t that just dandy! How to Win Friends and Influence People.
What is the daily mortality rate of US forces in Iraq? Does anyone have a cite?
According to CNN news on TV, the number of KIA is over 50 now sicne May 1st.
But, this article says that there were 29 killed on June 10th, about 40 days after GWB claimed “major” hostilities ended.
story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030610/pl_afp/iraq_us_rumsfeld_030610132318
Thus, at that time it was about .65 killed a day.
Now, on June 18, the number was 51, just 8 days later.
story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20030618/pl_afp/us_iraq_military_force_030618214156
This would equate to 22 in 8 days as reported by these stories. That is 2.8 killed a day.
If you average it out, 51 were killed in 49 days. That is about 1.05 a day.
In the “major war”, from March 20 to May 1st (according to GWB’s timeline), 137 Americans were killed. That is a rate of about 3.5 per day.
Thus, in the last 8 days, it has been about par for the open conflict, but the overall rate since the GWB claim of victory is about 33% of the “open hostilities” rate.
That’s the best I can do. However, if the recent increase is a trend, that post GWB rate may increase demonstrably.
This does not count the wounded, which I would estimate is at least double given the stories I have seen about injuries in an attacks without fatalities.
And that’s all anyone can ask for.
Thanks, Lissa.
Forget the Drip drop loss of american lives!
THIS is what really makes GWB cry at night.
One option the administration has is to try and replace US troops in Iraq with those of other nations which if done to a sufficient enough extent may reduce the US casualties and political fallout from both the dead and from the troops being away so long. Of course this amounts to someone else’s sons being killed instead. Given that much of the world considered the invasion a half-baked ill-considered and foolish idea I suspect sufficient numbers of foreign troops wont be available though India may provide quite a few.
At the moment the fighting appears largely contained to the sunnis of central Iraq. On current trends I think at some point it will spread to the shiite areas and the problem then gets much worse.
FWIW
Since May 1st, the 50 coalition deaths (3 or 4 were British) break down as follows:
16 - enemy action
32 - accidents (mostly vehicle)
2 - under investigation
Gosh, I’m so excited. I hope more people die so a Democrat can get elected. If we can just get that number above 3 people per day (the average number of gun deaths in Los Angeles) it should work.
When your excitement wears off consider what was done this week alone. Makmoud al-Tikritione was captured and the fallout has led to the capture of 100’s of Bathe party leaders.
It should be noted that many of the people involved in the attacks are foreigners. They are probably mercenaries, given Saddams past practice of payment to the families of Hamas suicide terrorists.
My apologies for the sarcasm but I have a number of friends in the service and the opening statement seemed a bit callous.
Ahem… many of us were worried these deaths a long time ago, and tried to keep them from happening in the first place. I’d wager most of these people were not republicans. The accusations of callousness are entirely misplaced.
Now, there were a lot of Democrats that voted to put those people in harm’s and still claim it was a good idea. So if Lieberman wins the primary, it becomes a moot point. The question is whether an anti-war president is electable anyway. Then again, Bush, once said he wasn’t into nation building :rolleyes:
The crux of the matter will be if Iraq is in decent enough shape to look like a success by election time. Any casualties might be overlooked if a successful nation is built from the rubble.
Good point.
A number of them were conservatives. Pat Buchanan comes to mind right away.
The only way I could picture that happening is if the candidate had a lengthy and impeccable military service record. Then he could come off as the professional vs amatuers and claim greater authority and consequently better judgement.
Well, we all have to do things we don’t want to.:dubious: Now that the eggs are broken, might as well make that omlette.
The Iraqi liberation forces, (theirs, not ours), would have to hold out for nearly a year. If there is still guerilla warfare going on this time in 2004 I think Americans will be pretty sick of it and ready to throw some weighty blame around rightly or wrongly.
IIRC, something like 75-80% of our military forces are overseas right now. The bulk of them in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If Iraq’s recovery isn’t any better than Afghanistan…
Since the first days of occupation I saw a I-P like situation coming. If this is not handled with a lot of skill things may go ballistic quite fast. Another month should tell which direction things will take.
I saw this quote the other day. I can’t help but think of it every day when I hear that another service man has been killed.