Iraq’s Killing Fields: More US Soldiers Die
“A suicide car bomber struck a US military outpost north of Baghdad yesterday, killing nine soldiers and wounding 20, in the deadliest attack on American forces in 16 months,” reports The Australian.
“The bomber exploded his vehicle against a patrol base in the restive province of Diyala. The deaths raised to 85 the number of US service members who have died in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month for American troops since December, when 112 died.
“The attack was the bloodiest against American soldiers since December 1, 2005, when 10 US marines were killed and 11 wounded by a roadside bomb on the outskirts of Fallujah.
“Twelve soldiers died when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Diyala on January 20. The military said it might have been shot down but the investigation is still ongoing.
“With the US casualty toll mounting, Democratic leaders in Washington agreed yesterday on legislation that requires the first American combat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by October, with the goal of a complete pullout six months later.
“President George W. Bush has vowed to veto any such measure…”
2 Responses to “Iraq’s Killing Fields: More US Soldiers Die”
We are making progress in setting new records for the number of our people getting killed. I’m sure the neocons will spin it into some sort of corny BS. Let me guess; “Its Senator Reid and the Democrats fault”.
This is just another sad and tragic event of many over the past few years. What is most insane is that the surge is just more of the same but larger. There are no new major initiatives on the social, economic or political tracks. Building walls around Bagdad neighborhoods will not bring about reconciliation. Economically, oil production still meanders along although they are bringing oil up with massive infusions of water, which is detrimental to the future production of oil. Maliki keeps spouting words about bringing back the Baath Party people but it’s going nowhere after Sistani came out against it.
There is no movement toward getting Syria and Iran’s help is calming down Iraq. I know many of you scoff at the idea of Iran helping but you have to remember without their help at Bonn, Karzai and Aftganistan would be in even worse shape. The small unit reconstruction teams that were suppossed to fan out into the Provinces has been put on hold since neither State or Defense has the resouces willing to do it.
Even though the Catholic Church is doing away with the concept of Limbo, they should keep it around to describe the state of Iraq today. Bush thinks that the Surge was a major strategic change. It wasn’t, it was a small scale change in tactics. Something really MAJOR is going to have to be done or Iraq will wallow in this violent cesspool for decades. We have to win militarily in order to effect the social, political and economic changes needed for Iraq to become a functioning state. Unfortunately, we cannot win militarily with 180,000 troops – not this year – not in 10 years. Short of a draft and a massive infusion of troops (500,000 +) we simply cannot squelch the insurrection. We have pissed off enough of the World so no one is going to come to our rescue with their own troops. Whether logical or not, they are going to let Bush stew in his own shit.
The answer is to call it – game, set, match and get off the court. We can call it a strategic retreat to prepare ourselves to do better next time at the next match.