Hi Neocon; Re: "Few Iraqis are shooting at us, or the casualty rates would be much greater."
Yes, and few Americans are shooting at the Iraqis, otherwise their casualty rates would also be much greater. But the number of casualties isn't going down, and it's large enough to put Bush out of office for getting us involved. And it's certainly enough to get US troops jumpy enough to regularly shoot civilians, Iraqi police, reporters, and even the interpreter for a UN official.
Re: "Most of the unrest is confined to the Sunni triangle, and the worst of it is in Ba'athist strongholds like Tikrit and Fallujah."
More US troops are dead in Baghdad than in either of those two cities. Here's today's news:
Bombs Kill Three U.S. Soldiers in Iraq
Fox "News", October 7, 2003
Insurgents killed three U.S. soldiers with roadside bombs, the military reported Tuesday, and former Iraqi intelligence officers demanding jobs hurled stones and charged American forces guarding occupation headquarters in the capital.
Large sections of Baghdad were in turmoil. There was an explosion inside the Foreign Ministry compound about a half mile from the confrontation outside the U.S.-led occupation headquarters.
Across the city, U.S. solders were met with a demonstration by Shiite Muslims (search) after closing a mosque and allegedly arresting the imam. Late in the afternoon, U.S. troops fired concussion grenades and shots in the air to disperse the crowd, which grew by the hour.
...
One soldier attached to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment was killed and another wounded in a bombing about 9:50 p.m. Monday just west of Baghdad.
About an hour later, another roadside bombing killed two soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division and their Iraqi translator. Two other soldiers were wounded in the bombing in al-Haswah, 25 miles south of the capital.
...
foxnews.com
So we had 3 dead today, and they were in Baghdad and "25 miles south", which hardly makes it part of the "Sunni triangle".
Today's riots in Baghdad were Shiite, not Sunni riots. So what will you be saying after we begin taking substantial casualties across the Shiite regions? So far, the worst single incident in "post war" Iraq was June 24, when the Shiites killed 6 British soldiers.
-- Carl |
