Why Bush is Losing a War he Started, Part Ad Infinitum

This is the direct result of Bush and political appointees issuing order to their military officers, or by their incredible lack of planning. One of the infinite number of reasons to vote these folks out of office.

From Knight-Ridder:

Operations by U.S. and multinational forces and Iraqi police are killing twice as many Iraqis — most of them civilians — as attacks by insurgents, according to statistics compiled by the Iraqi Health Ministry and obtained exclusively by Knight Ridder.

According to the ministry, the interim Iraqi government recorded 3,487 Iraqi deaths in 15 of the country's 18 provinces from April 5 — when the ministry began compiling the data — until Sept. 19. Of those, 328 were women and children. Another 13,720 Iraqis were injured, the ministry said.

While most of the dead are believed to be civilians, the data include an unknown number of police and Iraqi national guardsmen. Many Iraqi deaths, especially of insurgents, are never reported, so the actual number of Iraqis killed in fighting could be significantly higher.

During the same period, 432 American soldiers were killed.

Iraqi officials said the statistics proved that U.S. airstrikes intended for insurgents also were killing large numbers of innocent civilians. Some say these casualties are undermining popular acceptance of the American-backed interim government.

That suggests that more aggressive U.S. military operations, which the Bush administration has said are being planned to clear the way for nationwide elections scheduled for January, could backfire and strengthen the insurgency.

So about 3,500 civilians liberated not just from Saddam but from life itself.

No wonder the United States is so beloved.

Again, after all of the White House's reasons for going to war have fallen away, the ONLY thing they have left is the "well the Iraqi people were freed from a dictator". Well, ONE dicator.

WE are the new fucking dictators -- no longer liberators, just the external force bringing death and destruction, now operating out of our own interest as a super-power by making the Iraqi's tools of our policy. It is not the fault of the troops. they are forced by the orders of the commander-in-chief to be there, to carry out orders for an impossible task. But they are, through no fault of their own, not fighting to keep us safe, but rather they are required to fight to keep Bush in office. Bush keeps us afraid, while they play to their base by ordering troops to blow shit up.

Defeating insurgencies requires either "winning hearts or minds" or "being inhuman assholes". That is just the way it is, and always has been. Thanks to Bush, we have pretty much blown the former, and not even he, let alone the country, has the desire, or should, of being the Wehrmacht redux (hell even most of the original Wehrmacht didn't have that to begin with). Besides how does betraying our own national self-image by making everyone that could possibly hate us do so actually make us safer?

Forget the question of whether the death of more than 1,000 deaths and 15,000 casualties to American soldiers are worth the costs, consider whether these civilian deaths, just in the last five and a half-months are worth it to the Iraqis, for it is their country, not ours.

Another reason to support Bush this November you have to be one of two types of people. You either have to buy into the idea of "we are liberators...la...la...la...la...I can't hear you reality" or alternatively just be a first-class asshole.