Giving all ME terrorist a sitting target is too easy on them. After each guerilla attack, randomly attack the neighboring countries that provide fodder for the struggle. They'll learn it isn't worth it after a few licks.

Posted by: PacRim Jim at June 29, 2005 12:17 AM

U.S. military dead in Iraq, including suicides: 1,717

U.S. military amputeed, wounded, injured, mentally ill, all now out of Iraq: 41,100

Iraqi civilians dead: 111,700

Posted by: viva brasil at June 29, 2005 01:14 AM

I think we should look back to 1979 (seizure of the embassy in Iran) as the first shots of the war.

I agree, though, that we're talking about a 100 Years War type of thing, more so than a 4 or 5 year long conflict.

Posted by: eLarson at June 29, 2005 06:22 AM

Quoting viva brasil:

Iraqi civilians dead: 111,700

You might want to check this web site. It is hardly pro-Bush, but it does have significant amounts of data on deaths in Iraq.

As of this posting, they report the following numbers:

Civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq
Minimum 22582, Maxium 25590. This includes those killed by suicide bombers, etc., not just those killed during military action.

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/

There is no support at all, that I have been able to find, for the 111,700 number you cited.

Posted by: David at June 29, 2005 09:24 AM

Consider that each year for the last four or five decades of the 20th Century, approximately 50,000 Americans died in plain old traffic accidents. If mortality rates for vehicular accidents are comparable to combat death rates versus surviveable injuries, that might mean something like nine or ten times that total for maimed and injured. Why isn't viva B. concerned about that. Arabs drive cars, too, so presumeably they're suffering similar vehicular carnage...

I'm beginning to suspect that automobiles are the true problem, most likely invented and promulgated by mortal enemies of our nation. Brilliant strategy. Certainly far more efficient way of killing us off than warfare.

Hmmmm. I wonder if there's some fiendish third-world plot behind the mushrooming incidence of clogged arteries, diabetes, cancer, cataracts, emphysema, COPD, CHF, CRI, and erectile dysfunction???????

Better Lob a few more nukes onto those guys for good measure.

David March

Posted by: David March at June 29, 2005 11:25 AM

IBC.net is known to inflate their numbers with questionable methods of counting- for example, they've been known to accept the word of civillians in the area flat out without doing an extensive fact-checking. Some of their entries simply report mass deaths without giving significant evidence as to methods or sources. Of the casualties reported by iraqbodycount.net, almost one half (both minimum and maximum) of the reports are grouped en-masse and cannot be reliably traced back to coalition forces. It seems somewhat decietful to be representing data that way.

Posted by: curtis at June 29, 2005 11:50 AM

wow, a couple republicans reply to the posting of war deaths with

1) your numbers are wrong
2) the absurd automobile death relativity theorem

must say, i'm shocked.

re: 1) what percentage of war-time deaths get reported, do you think? serious question. i'd say 30% is not an outlandish guestimate at all, making my figure compatible with yours. but certainly you're not suggesting that a death that isn't reported isn't a death, or that a death that is reported as an 'insurgent' isn't just as crushing to a family there as a death of a marine would be, here, right?

Posted by: que vive at June 29, 2005 12:08 PM

I agree, though, that we're talking about a 100 Years War type of thing, more so than a 4 or 5 year long conflict.

The grandkids are gonna look so nice in those bradleys!

Posted by: i sell junk bonds at June 29, 2005 12:17 PM

screw it: we need the swordfish solution. send out commando teams to attack groups like hamas, hezbollah, islamic jihad, etc kiling them their families, and supporters at a heavy rate of exchange for every attack against americans. say 10:1 casualty targets. bring the war home to syria, bekaa valley, iran, saudi arabia, etc.

gfive no quarter, no refuge, to our barbarian enemies.

and get serious about dealing with fifth columnists like viva b. and que vive.

Posted by: hey at June 29, 2005 12:17 PM

Steve, have you read the article by Christopher Ford about the Iraqi population's neutrality in this war? I find the data to be at odds with what Jim Dunnigan and crew are reporting at Strategypage; according to them the Iraqi population is rapidy moving from neutral to anti-terrorists. If that is the case, then our counterinsurgency efforts have been enourmously successful.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Posted by: TF6S at June 29, 2005 12:45 PM

-- or that a death that is reported as an 'insurgent' isn't just as crushing to a family--

This shows that que vive doesn't understand our enemy.

Posted by: Sandy P at June 29, 2005 01:13 PM

Iraqis freed from fascist slavery: 26,074,900

(Source: CIA Factbook)

Posted by: contra viva brasil at June 29, 2005 01:18 PM

Glad to see you back Stephen!

In response to 'viva brasil', the 111,700 number is bogus and has been widely, repeatedly and thoroughly discredited.

Unfortunately, the uninformed or those who would willfully misinform others, keep repeating it.

The original survey was made by two notably anti-American, British physicians and originally published in the Lancet. They interviewed, if memory serves, approximately 725 housholds in Iraq, none in actively dangerous areas and their original span for the casualty figure was between 4,000 and 198,000. So the happy medium of roughly 100,000, now grown to 111,700, got bandied about as fact by the lefties.
How tiresome.

Posted by: Tim P at June 29, 2005 02:25 PM

Even if the numbers posted by "viva brasil" are correct, what does it matter ?

Since when do we measure the success or failure of a military operation by the number of casualties on either side ? If that were the measure of success, then the Civil War and World War Two were both abysmal failures. Last time I checked, the world was a better place because those wars turned out the way they did.

(And I'm sure someone will disagree with my opinion on the long-term impact of the Civil War, but you get the point.)

Posted by: Doug at June 29, 2005 02:29 PM

You have a good point Doug. By that metric, all wars have been dismal failures, yet much good has resulted from certain conflicts.

Here's a link about the Lancet article. Please forgive any mis-statements on my part, I was going from memory.
http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3352814

Posted by: Tim P at June 29, 2005 02:35 PM

Stephen,

You referenced the winning strategy of containment in the Cold War. While containment was very important -- a long with the threat of total destruction -- the military approach did not win the Cold War. It was won by peace. The military approach of containment and readiness for any attack with the ability of overwhelming response did keep the Cold War from going hot. However, that only held it in check, it did not win. During peace time, or relative peace, the economies of the communist countries could be seen for all its short comings. Every one who cared to notice could not help but see that free markets provided a higher standard of living for everyone including the poorest than the planned economies of communist countries. When this became obvious to people in both communist and non-communist countries and developing nations, communism’s future was doomed.

Communism was defeated by peace. The much maligned “soft on communism” turned out to be the winning strategy. Might this apply to terror? Containment and military response? For sure, but peace and openness may be the best strategy for the ultimate defeat of terrorist.

Posted by: scout29c at June 29, 2005 02:44 PM

"Communism was defeated by peace."

Untrue. It was defeated by a number of factors, including direct wars in Korea and Vietnam and numerous proxy wars.

Maybe you should try a more nuanced view instead of black/white platitudes?

Posted by: Tike at June 29, 2005 02:56 PM

"Communism was defeated by peace."

Nonsense.

Communism was defeated by an American President who refused to stand by in the face of renewed efforts by the USSR to expand its sphere of influence. It wasn't the peaceniks and the nuclear freeze movement who won the Cold War, it was the so-called "warmongers."

Posted by: Doug at June 29, 2005 03:02 PM

"Every one who cared to notice could not help but see that free markets provided a higher standard of living for everyone including the poorest than the planned economies of communist countries"

Hmmm, then one wonders why so many people still haven't noticed this.

Posted by: Doug at June 29, 2005 03:04 PM

Dug- get over the whole Regan thing. He just happened to be there while it was happening. Communism was ending anyway. Same with bush- 9/11 just happened to be on his watch so, of course, he is credited with doing something. In 50 years the terrorism war will end, badly or not, it will end. Who ever is Pres. at that time will have supporters saying it was all due to the greatness of that individual.
It takes a society to facilitate a change upon itself. Not one man.

Posted by: pete at June 29, 2005 03:32 PM

Pete,

And if Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, or Jerry Brown had been President in the mid to late 80's, do you seriously believe that history would have turned out the same ?

Posted by: Doug at June 29, 2005 03:47 PM

"It takes a society to facilitate a change upon itself. Not one man."

I disagree. The instances throughout history where the actions of one man have been pivotal are too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say that the world would have been different if, say, Winston Churchill had not been Prime Minister in the 1940s, or if Adolf Hitler had been killed in WW 1.

Posted by: Doug at June 29, 2005 04:23 PM

Tim P -- More to the point, that study was published in the Lancet without peer review, which makes it... and the Lancet's reputation... worthless.

Posted by: richard mcenroe at June 29, 2005 06:09 PM

Did you hear? George Washington was lucky to have beaten the British in road to becoming the first President of the Greatest Experiment in History. The British were falling anyway, and he just happened to be there. Lucky, lucky...

The "lucky-to-be-there" argument is scatologically sufficient, but not much better than that. Jimmy Carter wasn't lucky when Iran got feisty; neither were the American People serendipitous that Jimmy, a man with balls so small his cup was a peanut shell and a rubberband, was President.

Posted by: TF6S at June 29, 2005 06:38 PM

you people will apologize for, justify, or attempt to explain away the grotesque tragedy that we have inflicted on iraq--a civil war for the next 12 (rummy's number) years--rather than come to grips with the carnage. 1,700 american boys dead, probably 20-30x that number of iraqis, and no one cares. just tie a yellow ribbon around your antenna, that makes it ok.

sickening.

Posted by: MY EYES ARE CLOSED at June 29, 2005 09:21 PM

Somehow Omar and other Iraqis don't agree w/you MYAC.

Maybe you need to get out more.

Posted by: Sandy P at June 29, 2005 10:00 PM

--"Every one who cared to notice could not help but see that free markets provided a higher standard of living for everyone including the poorest than the planned economies of communist countries"---

Well, that let out the CIA until Ronnie made them look hard and gather all those scraps they discounted. And they fought it tooth and nail. Ohh, and these guys, too!

Dinesh D'Souza: Reagan won the Cold War

June 07, 2004

...If so, it is reasonable to expect that the inevitable Soviet collapse would have been foreseen by these experts. Let's see what some of them had to say about the Soviet system during the '80s.

In 1982, the learned Sovietologist Seweryn Bialer, of Columbia University, wrote in Foreign Affairs: "The Soviet Union is not now, nor will it be during the next decade, in the throes of a true systemic crisis, for it boasts enormous unused reserves of political and social stability."

This view was seconded that same year by the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr, who observed that "those in the United States who think the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse" are "wishful thinkers who are only kidding themselves".

John Kenneth Galbraith, the distinguished Harvard economist, wrote in 1984: "That the Soviet system has made great material progress in recent years is evident both from the statistics and from the general urban scene. One sees it in the appearance of solid well-being of the people on the streets . . . and the general aspect of restaurants, theatres, and shops. Partly, the Russian system succeeds because, in contrast with the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower."

Equally imaginative was the assessment of Paul Samuelson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Nobel laureate in economics, writing in the 1985 edition of his widely used textbook: "What counts is results, and there can be no doubt that the Soviet planning system has been a powerful engine for economic growth. The Soviet model has surely demonstrated that a command economy is capable of mobilising resources for rapid growth."

Columnist James Reston, of The New York Times, revealed his capacity for sophisticated even-handedness in June 1985 when he dismissed the possibility of the collapse of communism on the grounds that Soviet problems were not different from those in the US. "It is clear that the ideologies of communism, socialism and capitalism are all in trouble," he wrote.

But the genius award undoubtedly goes to Lester Thurow, another MIT economist and well-known author who, as late as 1989, wrote: "Can economic command significantly . . . accelerate the growth process? The remarkable performance of the Soviet Union suggests that it can. Today the Soviet Union is a country whose economic achievements bear comparison with those of the United States." ...---

Hindsight is 20/20

Posted by: Sandy P at June 29, 2005 10:07 PM

"International Law", whatever it once was, is now a joke and a dead-letter. Over half a Century from the Korean Armistice NOT A SINGLE body of any kind--official or unofficial--Court of the Hague, UN Security Council, panels of academic "experts"--you name it-- has EVER agreed on the exact legal status of the Chicom Army in the Korean war. And this was an Army in uniform, controlled by officers,etc. Was it a breakway group of true "volunteers?"; still under the control (with all the legal ramifications for International law)of Communist China? The matter has NEVER been settled. ....Look sportsfans, if the international community can't bring itself to call a duck a duck after fifty years, I'd say the whole deal is pretty much useless and it is a total waste of time to be tying ourselves in knots trying to accomadate today's terrorism in some legal framework that no one will ever agree to; our enemies will disregard(except to use it as a club to beat us over the head with); and political opponents domestically will never be satisfied with, no matter WHAT set of guidelines we choose.

To give another example, consider the fact that the international community has, ever since the invention of the ballistic missle(some fourty years ago) NEVER YET settled on whether the test-firing of a missle over one country by another(as N.Korea consistantly does over Japan)is a violation of the first country's soverign territory....... So much for "International Law."

Posted by: RVD at June 30, 2005 08:52 PM

What if FDR followed the attack on Pearl Harbor with a declaration: "Japanese Militarism is peace," and then made alliances with rear wing elements of the aggressors? With the recent memory of 3,000 Americans who were slaughtered by Muslims at the WTC and Pentagon (and Pennsylvania countryside), GWB pronounced "Islam is peace," at the Islamic Center of Washington, on Sept. 16, 2001. GWB has never - including his Tuesday speech - made reference to Islamic jihadism, notwithstanding the centrality of that dogma to Muslims. GWB has never recognized the popularity of Osama bin Laden, Qasi Hussein Ahmad, Zarqawi, or any other Muslim terrorist leader. GWB has never attacked an American Muslim leader for supporting jihad. In fact, Qazi's Islamic Society of North America (the Muslim Students Association) takes consultation fees from the State Dept., on "islamic affairs." Clearly, the message from the White House to most Muslims is: indulgence.

The best weapon of the Islamofascists is: denial. And as long as George Walker Bush denies the inherent belicosity of Muslims, no war against Muslim terrorists can be won. Iran's new tyrant will soon be over-matching both Sunni aid and participation in Iraqi terrorism. Take no comfort in rhetorical surrender, inherent to the declaration: "Islam is peace."

Posted by: Earth Papa at June 30, 2005 10:46 PM

The Russians never attacked the US on our own soil, killing 3,000 American civilians. I think it's safe to say that the Cold War would have gone hot pdq, if that had happened.

As far as Bush being lucky to be the one in power at the time of 9/11, he didn't look lucky the day it happened. He looked stricken, like we all were. What would Al Gore have done? Too little.

Let's face it, we're already doing too little, and the Dems still think it's too much. Those of us who don't suffer from chronic short-term memory loss, understood that 9/11 was just the latest in a long series of terrorist attacks on the US by a NUMBER of different terrorist organizations based in different ME countries. We understood that 9/11 meant that we had harvested what we had sown by not undertaking a proper military response to those previous attacks. And we understood that in order to ensure that 9/11 never happened again, we were going to have to wage war against the Middle East. Not Afghanistan. Not Iraq. Not even just Iran. THE ENTIRE MIDDLE EAST. The preferred way to have done that would have been from the air with very large bombs. Flattening Mecca and Medina would have sent a very powerful message about the foundational beliefs of Islamic fundamentalism. Namely, there is no god, and Mohammed for damn sure was not his prophet.

Of course, what ought to be done, and what can be done politically, are often two different things. If the political will had existed to do the above, there would not have been a 9/11. We would have nipped it in the bud 26 years ago. So the question for Bush after 9/11 was: what can I do about this and still get re-elected in four years? The answer was invade Afghanistan, and maybe Iraq. Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan, and in Iraq was a guy who was destabilizing the entire region by attacking his neighbors, who had failed to comply with the terms of a peace treaty and who was already under long-term UN sanctions for failing to disarm. If ever there was a candidate for regime change, he was it. But no one should ever underestimate the anti-Americanism of the left, or the depths to which venal politicians will sink to win political advantage, or the degree to which the MSM will support both of those agendas. Like Vietnam, this has become a war on two fronts. We are winning on the military front, but struggling on the homefront. Thank Al Gore for providing us with the internet and a way to circumvent the propaganda of the MSM.

Posted by: Ardsgaine at July 1, 2005 06:47 AM

So, Viva Brasil, got any figures on the number of homeless kids hunted down by the police and vigilante groups in Brazil?

Here are a couple of numbers for you:
23
189

23 is the number of Iraqis murdered, on average, per day by Saddam's security apparatus. 189 is the number of dead per day on average once you factor in the day of Saddam's various wars of conquest. (Obviously, they didn't spread out that neatly.)

Any consideration of Iraqi dead has to start by comparing it to those benchmarks. By my count the dead if Saddam had remained in power (heck, he'd probably have declared another war by now, since the sanctions would have fallen apart by now) work out to something like 20,000 and 150,000 by those two measures. Worth keeping in mind-- if you believe in context when throwing factoids around, anyway.

Posted by: Mike G at July 1, 2005 06:56 AM

que vivre
The percentage of Iraqi war deaths that get reported, when all the Middle East media, and 3/4s of the western media, is actively opposed to OIF? I guarantee that civilian deaths are being over-reported, not under-reported.

Posted by: exhelodrvr at July 1, 2005 12:24 PM

Pete,
And Lech Walesa, Margaret Thatcher, and the Pope also just happened to be in their positions when they were, too.

Posted by: exhelodrvr at July 1, 2005 12:28 PM

Earth Papa, your metaphor is skewed. In fact its scary how many of you seem to revel in your ignorance. I'd leave you to it, but I have an obligation as a citizen to give you my two cents.

Condemming Islam would amount to FDR condemming Asiatics, although there were probably many less Asiatics back then then there are Muslims now. If all 1.4 billion of them really were caught up in a Jihad, we would be in a full-pitched world war & although we would win...

As it stands, the number of actively resisting Muslims numbers no more than 1 million, the passive ones perhaps as high as 100 mil. You want to get one fifth the world's population caught up in a true, total war, jihad because you disagree with their religion, or hold them responsible for the actions of a small minority, go build your own damm nuke.

That said, the Muslims are also located over our life-support, the all important oil, thus making it important that we handle them with care, & stabilize the region. Regime change is an excellent way to accomplish that, although the execution was dismal. Coupled with some alternative energy, I would almost say that we're on the right track to fixing the Muslim problem, but it ain't so we aren't.

The Soviet Union's collapse was inevitable. There were basic system flaws. But if we're going to look for a single man who brought it about, Gorbachev is a lot more deserving than Reagan. Reagan was great and all, but Gorbachev is the guy who renounced the use of violence to squash democratic uprisings, who declared free press, and made the transition between a closed & open state awkward enough that the whole thing collapsed.

I don't know how you got onto International Law, but ripping down the dialogue and rules between nations because of a few bizarre cases is just begging for a return to the pre-WWI days of secret treaties and millions dead to satisfy someone's ego. Keep in mind Japan and Russia never even signed a peace treaty because of conflicts over the Sakhalin islands, and yet they've become large trade partners all the same.

I don't know about you, but last time I checked, both Vietnam and North Korea, the two places where we tried fighting communism with fire, still are communist... And Cuba, receiver of the largest American cold shoulder conceivable, is still staying true. Openness, peace, containment, strong & strategic military, that's the way we win wars that are more between ideas than armies (if our army has its weak spots, our ideas really don't).

Well, there you go, my two cents. Take it, contradict it, embrace democratic intercourse, or ignore it and continue to revel in the slosh of ignorance.

Posted by: William at July 1, 2005 11:46 PM