23 and How Many More?

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Since May 1, the day GW declared the war in Iraq a victory, 23 soldiers have died. That is almost 1 each day. If it keeps on like this, it will be a strange victory. This Washington Post story helps keep some perspective on the Iraq victory.

Is the war over, or is real victory still a long way off? What do those on SP think?

http://www.msnbc.com/news/918152.asp?0sl=-12

 

As Bush annoucned it was a first battle in a perpetual war for whatever purpose, let's, for the sake of goodness, say US interests - eventually no one really believes in the war on terror anymore. As it is only a step of many to come calling it victory is myopia.

Better get used to it. In the coming years there will be more US soldiers dieing. Unless the US prefer to get rid of Bush Jr. and his goons.

 

Victory a long way off? Depends on what you consider the objectives are. Iraq is not pacified, protesters and imams are clearly opposed to US presence, I don't think they will calm down soon. "Hopefully" for American families, Polish troops will now share the casuality bill.

Also,

Where does peacetime training take place, home or abroad? And one soldier a day or every two day dying in training, isn't that a little bit much?

 

Seems like I and Donnie Rumsfeld agree on this. I interpret his ...ahm... very vague and ambiguous describing of "long" as: It's going to take a very, very long time. Hey, Rome wasn't build in a day, how long will it take to reshape a country ? Our American friends won't pack their bags too soon.

Hm, was that really Rumsfeld ? Sounds more like Greenspan. But then, Greenspan wouldn't say "fooling".

They have a huge army, so, statistically speaking, that isn't too much in peacetime.

 

Last I checked, more American soldiers died in training than in war.

So it is actually safer to go to war

 

I believe that the war in Iraq has nowentered a new state and has not ended as Mr. Bush said
This article is saying pretty much the same
Look this and this
The Iraqies now just don't feel to happy about the presence of the US forces in their country and i fear that we will see more of this in the near future. Not to say that if the US forces decide to apply the ultimatum they gave we will have a whole new war in Iraq

[ May 27, 2003, 14:08: Message edited by: Mithrantir ]

 

The Iraqi's shouldn't be whining like little children. Would they rather have Saddam back in charge ?

 

I don't think they mind Saddam, I think it's mainly his son Uday, that people are more afraid of.

 

That's the problem with the pandora's box of freedom. People are free to have their own opinions, free to say what the like and what they don't like. They are free to make their own decisions. Occupation and freedom usually don't work well together, no taxation without representation.

Freedom is just "untidy".

 

I believe a philosopher once said: "It is better to be a feared ruler than a loved one." And in the case of the Iraqis now, I am inclined to agree. It seems that the US soft tactics are not working. At least during Saddams time, fear was the ruler, and it ruled well.

 

Machiavelli, if I am not mistaken. No wonder no one likes him (or at least doesn't want to be connected to him), except Stalin, who obviously was very inspired by him.

 

Well, his little philosophy does work during times of unrest.

 

That's an amazing thought. Like the colonial perspective on africa and asia back at the end of the 19th century ... "... these pagan savages still live in the stoneage, it's the white man's burden to guide them out of the darkness."

That hybris has a nice charm in it, embracing the sense of mission so astonishing in the US: The iraqis, unable to help themselves got US (or better: Bush Jr's ) help, right out of the sky, unasked and were bombed to freedom with the best intentions sure . That would sound splendid for anyone who foolishly believes the US are, or have ever been, interested in human rights and freedom in iraq - are the US in zaire where another genocide is underway? Have they been in Pol Pot's cambodia?

[ May 28, 2003, 00:44: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Yago - I know you like to read history. There is a line of theory that as a work of literature, _The Prince_ is entirely ironic. It goes on that Mac had become so disillusioned with the politics of Italy during the late 15th/early 16th century that he wrote it as a giant satire, mostly as a challenge to the Medici. The essay is by Garret Mattingly: "The Prince: Political Science or Political Satire?" The textbook I found it in was, _Major Problems with the History of the Italian Renaissance_. It may change your opinion of Mac, somewhat.

[ May 29, 2003, 03:32: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

Although it may sound strange but Machiavelli was a genius in the political theories his work although is condemned by a lot of people it is secretly followed by them even unconciously.
But here the main problem is that the Iraqies want to be self governed and at first they thought that the US army will come in bring down Saddam Husein and go out but they were gravely mistaken as the facts have shown .
So now they decided to show their annoyance with the guerillas and the total disregard of the US army orders and ultimatums. This will lead to far more troubles than the US officials think.

 

At Chandos the red: My opinion of Machiavelli isn't as bad as it sounded first. It's purpose as guidance for "princes" was fulfilled. The best example is Frederick the great of prussia, who actually has written an essay on Machiavelli in his youth, the bottom line of it was something like:" Why you should never do what Machiavelli says you should do". And there's a famous quote of him, something like:"Machiavelli shows the kings and queens how wrong they can be". So, Frederick would have never become "the great" or the "enlightend absolutist", if he wouldn't have learned his Machiavelli so well.

Frederick, a.k.a. as the "enigma", on the other hand has left a lot of interesting thoughts, which are very likely to be influenced by Machiavelli's cynism and irony, like:

"God is always on the side of the strongest army"

" I take first. I will find a educated person later to show that I have the perfect right to do so."

Well, this is a birlliant application of "the end justifies the means", in my view.

The problem with Machiavelli is on the other hand, you need some further studies and knowledge in renaissance and enlightment, to get the not so obvious presented meaning. Which you have, Chandos. And Frederick did, because one of his teachers was Voltaire. So, Machiavelli often gets summarized as:" Do whatever you please, as long you have the power to do so". Which on the other hand justifies the use of Machiavelli as "hm, that's sounds machiavellistic".

 

As far as casualties go, the body count in Iraq is extremely low.

The following was copied and pasted from a post I made earlier. I've modified the text slightly.

Here are the statistics of U.S. casualities per war. In many cases, these numbers will be far too low. These do not reflect the brave British soldiers that were lost in World War II.

• Revolutionary War: 4,435
• War of 1812 (vs Canada): 2,260
• Mexican War: 13,283
• Civil War: 558,052
• Spanish-American War: 2,446
• World War I: 116,708
• World War II: 407,316
• Korean War: 33,651
• Vietnam War: 58,168
• Gulf War (1991): 293

It should be noted that in World War I and II, European civilian and military casualties were massive.

 

Blackhawk don't forget that the technology has evolved in order to disengage the people from the unpleasentries of the war. So i do believe that the bodycount of US soldiers in Iraq is a number worth considering.

 

Blackhawk inspired me to compare the losses of WW2 with any other war. Note: This is killed, not casualties.

Yes, every war seems small compared to WW2

The list is from:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II

I left the small countries out.

So, I don't think, that the Americans plan to get near the Russian losses in WW2, but how many soldiers is many ? What if there's an uprising in Iraq, which kills 1000 Americans and 100'000 Iraqis ?

 

According to The Times, US losses might come from Afghanistan as well. Taliban forces are known to be regrouping on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan to mount attacks on American troops, with support from Pakistani groups. It seems the Mullah there have been reinforced with fresh new recruits and are fighting a guerilla against US and regular Afghan soldiers.

One can wonder if the war in Iraq is over. In Afghanistan, the war might start again (or maybe it never ended)

Between that, Iraq, training and terrorist attacks, losses could mount this summer.