THE DEADLIEST QUARTER YET
In early April, 2006, the New York Times ran a front page article in the Sunday paper trumpeting declining casualty rates among the coalition troops in Iraq. March, 2006 had been an unusually quiet month, and the Times published a chart showing 6 consecutive months of declining fatalities. However, it was clear that the so-called trend was bogus. If the chart had shown 7 or more months, the trend would have all but vanished. As it turned out, April was one of the deadliest months of 2006, and the supposed decline was no longer mentioned.Now there is a much clearer trend, heading in the opposite direction.I suspect that lots of people had the same two reactions I had when the President Bush officially announced “the new way forward” (a.k.a. “the surge”) in January. My first reaction was, “it’s too little, too late”; and my second reaction was, “it's going to get a lot more of our soldiers killed.”Even pro-war analysts seemed to admit right out of the gates that the surge’s success was anything but assured. John McCain said if it had been up to him, there would have been more troops in the surge.Sidney Blumenthal reported in February on a group of policy planners meeting at the Pentagon, all of whom believed the surge was destined to fail.At his confirmation hearings, General Petraeus spoke of ominous emails from his friends and colleagues which said, “Congratulations - - I think”.President Bush himself said, while announcing his new strategy, ”The year ahead will demand more patience, sacrifice, and resolve.”Now we can start to see the sacrifices to which the President referred. We are about to complete the deadliest quarter of the Iraq war so far for the coalition troops in Iraq.We have reached 349 coalition fatalities for the past three calendar months, and with a more than a day left in June, the number is bound to go higher (It may be higher by the time you read this). The previous deadliest 3-month period was 11/04-1/05, during which there were 344 coalition fatalities.For the first time, coalition fatalities have been over 100 for three months in a row. We’ve never had two months in a row before with more than 100 fatalities.This will also be the deadliest 4-month period, with 431 coalition fatalities so far vs. 414 during 2/07-5/07 and 412 during 10/04-1/05.It will be the deadliest 5-month period, with 515 dead vs. 500 during 1/07-5/07 and 499 during 9/04-1/05.It will be the 2nd deadliest 6-month period, with 601 dead vs. 615 during 12/06-5/07 vs. 559 during 9/04-2/05. I didn't calculate 7 through 11 months, but it's worth noting that we are about to finish the deadliest 12-month period (calendar months) of the entire war, with 981 coalition fatalities so far. The previous deadliest 12-month period ended last month with 946 fatalities and before that it was 1/04-1/05 with 906 casualties.It will also be the deadliest 3-month period for US troops (vs all coalitition troops) with 324 US soldiers killed since 4/1/07 vs. 316 for 11/04-1/05.And the deadliest 12-month period for US troops (vs all coalitition troops) with 928 US troops killed since 7/1/06 vs 899 for the period ending last month and 837 for the 12-month period through 1/05.One explanation for the rise in troop deaths is simple math. With more troops in harm’s way, there are bound to be more fatalities. However, it’s not clear that we’ve actually had much of a surge at all. According to globalsecurity.org, we are currently at 162,000 troops “in country”, up from 132,000 in January, but just 2 months earlier, in November, 2006 we were at 152,000. And in December, 2005, we were at 160,000.There are other possible explanations. It could be that the new counterinsurgency tactics under General Petraeus leave the troops more vulnerable to attack. It could be that the attacks are just more numerous or more deadly than they have been in the past. Whatever the reason, it is certain that we will have to suffer many more months or years of the slow-motion train wreck which is President Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq.
I READ THIS IN APRIL AND WANTED TO INCLUDE IT THEN, I JUST REMEMBERED IT, SO HERE IT IS.
It was with a heavy heart that I read that 10 Coalition troops were killed on Monday, 9 of them Americans.
The guerrillas who attacked the US outpost also wounded 20 other soldiers, 5 of them seriously.Militiamen in Basra killed a British soldier.
I'm sad about all this because we won't have round the clock cable television coverage of them, or lower the flag to half mast for them. And although we do not yet know the names of those killed, we know who they are like.
They are like Christopher North of Sarasota, Fl., a hero who aspired to be an FBI agent and who as a teenaged boy loved fast cars and motorcycles.
They are like Wade Oglesby, a painfully shy teenager with a "British sense of humor," an "incredibly nurturing" young man who dropped out of high school to care for his ailing mother and then his sister. When his mother died, he joined the army. His stepbrother said of him, "That kid would bend over backwards and go to the ends of the earth if you needed anything."
They are like Michael Rojas, and Army Staff Sgt. Jesse Williams, of Santa Rosa, "who died on April 8. Williams was killed by a sniper's bullet . . . Williams was 25 years old and on his second tour of duty. He leaves behind a wife, Sonya, and an 11-month-old daughter, Amaya. His wife said Amaya was the pride of his life." Scroll down for the Williams family photos.
They are like Michael Slater, just out of high school in West Virginia, who had all along wanted to join the army to serve us. We are told, "Rachelle Atkins graduated with Slater and described him as energetic, funny and happy. In high school, they worked together at the Red Line Diner in St. Albans, where he was a busboy. “He was really fast,” Atkins said. “I never had to worry about tables needing cleaning because he was always on top of things.”
They were like Kristen Turton, whose mother said of him, "If either of us were ill, he would look after us. I would always get flowers on Mother's Day and we would get lovely presents for birthdays and Christmas. "He was our life and our sunshine. Now he has gone, the sunshine has gone out of our lives."
Saddam is gone. There was never any threat to the US or UK from Iraq, and there is not now one. What is the mission, for which these young people have given their lives this spring? What do we tell their children about why their daddy is no longer there for them? Is it just Karl Rove's best guess about what will win the next election? Better business for Dick Cheney's golf buddies among the Big Oil CEOs? George W. Bush's cokehead emotional shallowness and inability to admit he ever made a mistake? What?We ask our men and women in uniform to risk their lives, sometimes to sacrifice them, for the security of our nation. But the security of our nation is not in doubt.
We ask defense attorneys to defend someone who might be guilty, and prosecuting attorneys to attempt to convict someone who might be innocent, since justice requires a fair trial, and guilt and innocence are seldom clear. In the same way, we sometimes send our military into a war, the justice of which is not clear.
They have done their job, the job the American and British publics gave them, uncomplainingly. But if the prosecuting attorney suddenly finds evidence that the defendent is innocent, he has to drop the charges.
Iraq is innocent. It isn't a threat to the US. It may now be a threat to itself or its region, because of the civil war. But it and its region will just have to deal with that. And they will deal with it better if we don't keep getting in their way.
That is why the Democratic majority in the House and Senate agreed on a date by which they want US troops out of Iraq. Because enough sunshine has gone out of our lives, enough children are without a parent, enough lives have been blighted, for a mission that no one has been able to define with any clarity.
