So just days after the lynching of Saddam Hussein, the US death toll has hit 3,000. That's a tiny fraction of the number of Iraqi dead - estimated at 655,000 by the latest studies - but it is the only number that Americans seem to care about. And what have they died for? To end a "threat" which turned out not to exist. To replace one group of murdering torturers with another. To make Iraq, in the opinion of Iraqis, worse than it was under Saddam. But hey, Bush got re-elected and Haliburton got to rake in billions from reconstruction contracts, so it must have all been worth it, right?
These men and women did not die to protect America. They did not die to make Iraqis free, or Iraq a better place than it was when they found it. They died for the arrogance and viciousness and venality of their commander in chief. And they continue to die because that man cannot admit that he made a mistake.
No-one should have to die for that, and its long past time US troops stood up and said so, and refuse to participate in Bush's mad game of toy soldiers any longer.
Irrelevant number, a discredited study, several lies, a selective reading of polls, outdated facts.
ReplyDeleteThat's just your first paragraph.
Scrubone, I'd be fascinated to read your take on Iraq. Rather than just come to this site and arrogantly dismiss the post, how about giving us your interpretation?
ReplyDeleteI/S, I seriously hope you'll act quickly to stop your comments section being over run and ruined with people whose sole aim is to destroy adult participation on the internet.
Anon: I don't censor my comments. Instead, I trust the majority of my readers to be intelligent, and avoid feeding trolls.
ReplyDeleteI've just heard a quote on TV One news from a Pentagon spokesman saying "the number of deaths is of no special significance".
ReplyDeleteHow nice for the families to know on this Happy New Year that the deaths of their sons and daughters is not especially significant to the people who sent them to those deaths.
Read it again more carefully - the number of deaths is of no special significance. Death is an occupational hazard of being a soldier, and so far US military losses in Iraq are, in the military sense, insignificant.
ReplyDeleteThe hope that US soldiers might refuse to carry out Bush's orders in Iraq is a forlorn one. Their sworn duty is to kill people and destroy things at the behest of the US govt, and it's a duty they take seriously - a large number of dead foreigners isn't likely to sway that.
Psycho Milt, I would dispute that US casualties in Iraq are
ReplyDelete"insignificant." Putting Aside how deeply insulting that is to the
families of the dead and seriously wounded, its worth looking at U.S.
losses in Iraq in depth. I'll use Vietnam as a comparison because even
the most crazed neo-con supporter agrees that was a "real" war.
First, the numbers of mercenaries killed (lets not use the euphemism
"contractor") are not counted in the overall total of U.S. losses despite
the fact most of these mercenaries are U.S. citizens. According to
http://icasualties.org this number sits at least 377 (its a "partial
list" according to icasualties site), fully an additional 11% to the some 3002 listed U.S. military deaths. Even if we apply a conservative 5:1
killed to wounded ratio ( not applying to other U.S. forces, as we shall
see) then the total number of mercenaries KIA/MIA/WIA rise to, shall we
say, 2300.
Second, the ratio of U.S. soldiers wounded to those killed in Iraq sits
at about 15:1. (according to icasualties, 3002 fatalities to 46,880
"non-mortal" losses). Over the period of the U.S. engagement in Vietnam,
the U.S. lost 58,199 troops killed in theatre from all causes (that
includes accidents - the Iraq figures seem to include non battle deaths
in their total as well) and 153,303 wounded -
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004615.html - (can't find a breakout of
these wounded figures), a ratio of wounded to killed of about 3:1. Thus,
after three years in Iraq, fighting a "low intensity" war, total U.S.
losses amount to 49,882 KIA/MIA/WIA + 2300 mercenaries = 52,000 vs.
around 200,000 KIA/MIA/WIA over ten years in Vietnam. At the same three
to one ratio as Vietnam, U.S. fatalities would be approaching 13,000
today. Any few hours spent googling around U.S. regional newspapers
confirm that U.S. troops are surviving massive battlefield trauma that
would have killed their fathers generation. THESE NUMBERS ARE NOT
INSIGNIFICANT.
Third, these losses are being inflicted on a total force guesstimate of
around 1.7 - 1.8 million troops (including National Guard) over the past
three years. The same number of U.S. troops rotated through Vietnam was
about 8,844,000. Given a generous "teeth to tail ratio" ratio of 4:1 then
the loss rate amongst the front line riflemen must be approaching 15% -
This is NOT an "insignificant" number.
Fourth, the relatively de-militarised modern Western societies rely on
armies of highly trained, long service professional mercenaries (albeit
mercenaries who are nationals of the country they serve). These troops
are expensive to train, highly effective in combat and extremely
difficult to replace once killed or wounded. These armies are the most
effective the world has ever seen, but under the tough as teak hide there is a brittleness that reflects the societies they come from. Should this
war drag on, losses will start to rise as inexperienced recruits are
pitched into the battle.
Fifth, over ten years in Vietnam, using the draft, 8,844,000 U.S.
soldiers rotated through Vietnam. Expressed very roughly, 884,400 new US
soldiers served in Vietnam each year, and 20,000 of them became
casualties, about 1 in 44. As far as I can tell, about 1,800,000 U.S.
troops have rotated through Iraq (no draft - this war is being fought by
the regular and reserve/National Guard formations only), about 600,000 a
year, and around 17,000 of them will become casualties, a ratio of 1 in
35 - higher than Vietnam.
To conclude, total U.S losses expressed as percentage of KIA/MIA/WIA vs.
total force structure and troops deployed in Iraq is not "insignificant." A significant attritional war is going on in Iraq that is deeply
deleterious to the ability of the United States military preparedness,
and given the morale drop in U.S. forces (high numbers wanting to quit,
difficulty in recruiting quality replacements, increasing use of
increasingly unwilling National Guard and reserve units) U.S. combat
effectiveness must either already be in a decline or about to start a
decline.
Well, everyone's death is highly significant to those who knew them - that's why I pointed out the Pentagon spokesman was referring to significant in the military sense, which is more specific in meaning.
ReplyDeleteHere's "significant" in the military sense: Hitler sent around one and a half milllion men into the Soviet Union, and they took casualties at a rate of something like 100,000 a month. That was "significant" in the sense we're talking about - the army's offensive capability deteriorates rapidly if that rate's maintained. The US Army can absorb its current casualty rate indefinitely, therefore the number's not significant in the technical sense used by Pentagon spokeshumans.
That doesn't make it any more sensible to be absorbing those casualties (although from a command POV, actual combat experience for the troops is worth any amount of training), and certainly no more justifiable to have started the war in the first place, but it does mean the Pentagon spokesdude was correct that the numbers aren't of any special significance.
Psycho Milt I am not sure you actually read what I posted (maybe it was the formatting - can that be fixed?). Total casualties are ahead of Vietnam on a smaller force base.
ReplyDeleteRetention rates and recruitment are plummeting.
Remember, the United States is supposed to be able to respond to another major threat elsewhere. The U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are having a significant impact on the combat readiness and, eventually if not already, on the combat effectiveness of its units.
I don't understand how you can claim that the U.S. can sustain this loss rate indefitely, given the constraints that the armies of liberal democracies operate under.
Regardless of the human cost, the cost in treasure is enormous, around five billion U.S. dollars a month and U.S. tanks and AFV's and other equipment are wearing out five times faster than budgeted for. And this is on top of the soaring budget deficit because with usual faith based insanity Dubya refuses to realisticly fund this war and instead goes insists on tax cuts for the corporates getting rich on borrowed money supplying equipment for Iraq.
To claim that 3002 dead is an insignificant number might be true insofar as its no more significant than 3002, or 3050 or whatever. But make no mistake - the American military is stuck in an attritional war that it CANNOT sustain indefintely.
"Regardless of the human cost, the cost in treasure is enormous..."
ReplyDeleteYes - Chamberlain and Churchill managed to bankrupt the UK in hardly more than a year after declaring war. But that's a political issue, not a military one.
I did read your points about the Vietnam casualty rate, but I think you're missing your own point re the different killed/wounded ratios. It's certainly true that the US death rate in Iraq would be higher if Vietnam-era medicine were being applied, but then the Vietnam-era US death rate would have been enormous if medieval-era medicine were being applied. Basically, it's not a useful "if" - what counts is how many are getting killed or badly-enough wounded to remove them permanently from combat, and in Iraq it's not really that many. The US Army can replace the current loss rate without difficulty - the sustainability issue is financial, and therefore strictly a matter for the politicians to address.
I won't pretend to know what casualty levels the US military can sustain and remain able to do the job in Iraq. It is obvious however that they not achieving their mission at the moment.
ReplyDeletePM To say that they can sustain current rates indefinitely would you not have to assume that troops can be rotated into theatre indefinitely? Suicide rates are up, both in Iraq and at home. PTSD rates will only increase. Yes the troops are battle hardened but they are also battle fatigued.
They're certainly not achieving their mission, and the people who said they shouldn't be sent on it back in 2002 were right. I just reject the view that they're suffering militarily significant losses.
ReplyDeleteI think we tend to underestimate professional soldiers. People like Michael Moore portray US soldiers as scammers looking for a cheap college education, or dumbass proletarians trying to escape the ghetto, but that's just the fringe of what would be currently the best army in the world. I worked for them in Kuwait from 2004 to 2006 and didn't see any sign of deteriorating morale. Their attitude seemed to be that getting sent into Iraq was a pain in the arse, more than anything else.
Soldiers in wartime do suffer more PTSD and suicides than in peacetime, obviously. But again, don't underestimate them. Soldiers go into the job knowing they can be rotated into a combat theatre as often and for as long as their govt sees fit. For a comparison, the soldiers that landed in Normandy in 1944 spent the next 10 months in continuous combat against the then-current best army in the world, without quitting or committing suicide. Their chances of making it from D-Day to VE Day without becoming a casualty were low. The million and a half Jerries who got sent into the Soviet Union had it even worse, but they did it. Some of those guys spent more than 5 years being rotated into combat theatres that included the worst in the history of the world. People may think decades of comfortable peacetime existence have rendered Westerners incapable of maintaining that kind of kill-or-be-killed attitude, but they're currently being proved wrong. That may be morally undesirable, but it's a fact.