http://www.vetvoice.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=840

by: RockRichard
Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 03:54:13 AM EDT 
 

First, let me say that millennium milestones for fatalities in Iraq are completely arbitrary.  Every single Soldier, Sailor, Airman and Marine who lays his or her life down there is a tragedy.  However, over the next few days the media will be cramming it down our throats. Therefore, I feel it is important to offer a response within this community. I'm sure my fellow front pagers and all of you bloggers who visit regularly will do the same.  In a time when the war in Iraq is receiving less and less attention within the traditional media, it is important that we seize the opportunities for discourse wherever they appear.

Politicians and talking heads keep telling me that the surge has been a successful strategy.  Violence is down and Baghdad is becoming more secure every day. What hasn't been spoken of much in the traditional media is an issue often discussed here at VetVoice: the fact that the decrease in violence in Baghdad is more a product of the cease fire of the Mahdi Army than of American troop presence.  What pundits also neglect to mention is that there has been little effect outside of Baghdad.  In fact violence has increased in places like Nineveh and Diyala. This is the dreaded Whac-a-Mole effect which has plagued the war in Iraq since 2003. The same effect has been seen in the war in Afghanistan during the recent Taliban resurgence.  This resurgence is a direct result of neglect of Afghanistan due to concentration on a war in Iraq which has no military solution.

There is also concern that the surge strategy isn't really working, even in Baghdad. The surge was designed to create breathing room for the political process by reducing violence in and around Baghdad.  Even General Petraeus has recently noted that the surge has not had those desired political effects.   Also, after a temporary reduction in violence (which again is more attributable to the Sadr cease fire) tensions and violence are currently increasing. Iraqi deaths in Baghdad have increased for four straight months. In the first 13 days of March, the wounded total surpassed that of the entire month of February. There is also the coincidence that on the same day the fatality count reached 4,000, 57 deaths were reported in Iraq due to mortar shelling of the supposedly secure Green Zone and a suicide car bomb in Mosul.

It's also not just the far left that is doubting the surge. On Sunday's ABC News This Week, Republican Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel noted the following:

We have lost over 900 dead Americans since the surge. Now if you want to dismiss that as 'success' that would be your interpretation.
What we have now is bipartisan agreement that the surge has not been a success. Republicans realize it. Democrats realize it.  Veterans realize it, and the American people realize it. So why do some pundits insist on perpetuating a fallacy that is in direct contradiction to the truth? The reality of the situation is obvious to the rest of us.

Of course, there are is plenty of mismanagement to discuss in Iraq. I focus on the surge because it is the latest failed strategy, to no fault of our service members, to be attempted in Iraq and was billed as the beginning of the end of the conflict in Iraq. Yet, here we are five years into this war, reaching the 4,000 milestone with no end in sight.

So this is where we are now. We have seen every excuse for invading Iraq you can think of. Weapons of mass destruction, spreading democracy, imminent threats, connections to al Qaeda, regime change, Iraq's threat to the region, to lower oil prices, because God called us to and a host of other ridiculous reasons.  We have seen a surge that has produced artificial results and no political progress. We have spent $1 trillion of tax payer money. More importantly and most dreadfully, we have lost the lives of 4,000 American service members to a conflict that is definitely immoral and arguably illegal. They kept the sacred yet unspoken promise that we have with our civilian leadership. It is a promise that we will lay down our lives for our country, so long as we are not sent to die for something not worth dying for.  Unfortunately, the civilian leadership has not kept their end of the bargain.

One death was too many in Iraq. 1,000, 2,000 and 3,000 were too many. 2,568 was too many, as was 3,999. The next service member that dies will be too many, although I hope with every bit of me that another Soldier, another father or mother, another spouse, another child is not lost to this ridiculous conflict.  Any amount of deaths in Iraq is inexcusable. Remember that as you hear and read conversations on the television, in the newspapers and around the water cooler.  Remember that every single death has resulted from our flawed policies in a war that was actually won militarily years ago. Yet, it is a war that never should have happened in the first place.  Remember this, remember them, and seize the opportunity for discourse.
 
RockRichard :: On the Heels of the Surge, 4,000 Lives Lost Over Lies and Mismanagement

http://www.vetvoice.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=14

[Posted by James Starowitz:

'RockRichard' is serving in Afghanistan right now, coming home in the next couple of weeks. 

He's a Frontpage poster at Vet Voice.  Last night, before he posted the below, he had a post up about his coming back, in it he has this:

“All told it will be a month before my wife meets me planeside with my 14 month old daughter in tow.  I'll delve into life raising an infant, a life I have known for only a short 25 days; a week after she was born and before I deployed, and 18 days of R&R leave.  It will be a challenge that I cannot wait to face.”]