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And One A Day Is Supposed To Be Good?
by James Glaser March 27, 2008 George Bush's troops surge in Iraq was announced in January of 2007, but it took a couple of months to get it started. The first six or so months after the troop numbers were increased we had some bad losses, with over three plus Americans getting killed every day. Now after a year of Bush's troop surge, we are told that things have gone better than anyone could expect. Today, we are losing troops at the rate of one a day. Having one American killed each day in Iraq seems to be very acceptable with the pro-war crowd in Washington, and in fact they are proud of that accomplishment. One American death a day seems too high for me, especially when there is talk of our staying in Iraq from anywhere between 5 and 100 years. That means at least another 1835 dead at the rate they are dying today, or maybe as many as 36,500 if we stay the long term. Of course those pro-war people never mention the numbers of our troops wounded or maimed. All through out this war, those numbers have always been kept kind of hidden. We do hear about thousands of returning troops who are looking for help with Post Traumatic Stress, and then there are the new VA clinics opening for Traumatic Brain Injuries. We hear talk of new Gulf War sicknesses affecting these new troops returning from their time in combat, and there are reports of what depleted uranium weapons might do, but Washington does everything they can to keep all of these numbers vague. They do talk about "only" one American being killed a day. Like that is a number we should be proud of, and proof that the surge is working. That troop surge sounds great to many Americans, and they think the additional troops have turned the tide, but here are some other numbers to think about. It seems that we now pay $800,000 dollars a day to 80,000 Sunni insurgents to not attack us. We have heard talk of these people. Washington calls them the "Sons of Iraq" or a "U.S.-allied security force." Washington makes it sound like all of a sudden these 80,000 Iraqis decided to no longer fight us, but to join us in fighting other insurgents. So what did we do, we put them on the payroll and gave them weapons. Actually that $800,000 a day is nothing compared to what we spend there every day. In reality we are spending thousands of millions in Iraq every week. I don't know why we don't just hire all the insurgents. Then no Americans would be getting killed, and after a while we could just put all of Iraq on direct deposit, and our troops could come home. It would probably be a lot cheaper than keeping the troops there. The only draw back with that plan is that the American Defense Industry would not be making their billions in profits. For them to make any money, American troops have to be killed and wounded. Weapons, tanks, planes, helicopters, and artillery have to be used up so they can be replaced. Bullets have to be fired and grenades have to be exploded so more will be ordered. If Americans don't fight and die, some very rich Americans will lose their cash cow, and they won't spread some of their profits to the politicians who keep this war going. So, one American being killed each day might seem bad to you and me — I can promise you it is horrifying to one mother every day. But to the Merchants of Death in Washington, that number is as low as they can let the death rate go. |
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