The Futile War

One hundred-thirty people were killed in a truck bomb attack in Iraq yesterday. I'm no more a military strategist than I am a political strategist, but it seems to me that we aren't winning the war in Iraq. Reports say that the truck bombing was orchestrated by Al Qaeda, who is trying to incite a full scale civil war between Sunni and Shiite muslims. 30,000 additional US troops have been deployed to Iraq, yet there are still mass casualties of Iraqi civilians and US troops. I was looking at a website this morning that lists DOD statistics of coalition casualties. The numbers are staggering. So far this month, there have been 27 military fatalities. The worst month was November, 2004 when 137 soldiers were killed. The worst month thus far in 2007 was May when 126 were killed. So far this month, 272 Iraqis have been killed. This includes security forces and civilians. I don't believe the attack from yesterday is included in those numbers. The worst month for Iraqi deaths is September of 2006 when 3539 deaths were reported. The worst month this year was February when 3014 people were killed. The site, if you're interested is http://icasualties.org/oif/ .

I'm sure people who believe they are smarter than me about wars and military things will say that the numbers are not the only thing you can look at to determine the success or failure of a military operation. I'm sure they aren't, but I'm a numbers person. For those who aren't, let's look at some faces. There is the face of the young man at the Capital Fourth celebration in Washington DC this past Wednesday who had the side of his head blown off. There are the faces of the couple who have been fighting the military for months over disability benefits (see the Washington Post series on the treatment of veterans at Walter Reed Medical Center). There's the face of the soldier who went missing last month in Iraq while his wife was home fighting deportation. There's the face of our president and others in his administration who continually say we are winning the war.

I don't believe it would be right to completely pull our forces out of Iraq cold turkey. I think it's time for a gradual scaling back of support of the Iraqi security force until we have fewer than 5000 troops in the country. The administration is studying the Algerian war for independence that went from 1954 to 1962 for lessons in how to handle the conflict in Iraq. There are similarities and differences between Iraq and Algeria, but the most interesting thing I find about the Algerian conflict is that Charles De Gaulle withdrew troops in 1962 because opposition to the war was so strong, some say France was on the verge of civil war over it. Clearly things aren't that bad here. But it's time to bring these young men and women home.