Hi ACRB; Interesting article, but it's dead wrong (or very misleading) on numerous details.
Re: "Moreover, during Vietnam, combat caused sixty percent of the injuries, while in Iraq, combat has only caused 23 percent of the injuries."
The first 15 days of November have seen 2 "non-combat", 1 "accident", and 66 "action" deaths. Earlier the war saw a lot of non KIA deaths, but that has not been the case in the last few months. So while his statistics may be true (for injuries only, not deaths), such statistics are a misleading way to compare the two wars. For that matter, the analysis of Vietnam is from after the fact, while the Iraq war is not only ongoing, but is getting hotter on a month over month basis.
Re: "The non-combat injury rate in Vietnam (.52 percent a month) was actually lower than the rate in Iraq (.69 percent). Much of this difference is accounted for by four factors;"
The author gives no evidence that disease, women or old people are increasing our wounded totals. I do not have statistics for the wounded figures, but it is clear that our KIA are not particularly old or female. And the author ignores the two obvious reasons for the high survival rate in Iraq: (a) much improved emergency medical care, (b) a situation which allows quicker evacuation (at least so far), and (c) extensive use of vastly improved body armor.
Re: "The nature of combat was also quite different in Vietnam. There it was a civil war where one side (the communists) had adjacent nations (North Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) that could be used for sanctuaries and major nations (Russia, China) supplying weapons, money and other support. ... The nature of the Vietnam fighting was largely gun battles in the jungle, and this was seen by the fact that, for the first time since the American Civil War, the majority of army combat deaths (61 percent) were from gunfire. The enemy didn't have a lot of artillery (as the foe did in Korea and the World Wars), so there were a lot of firefights in the bush. Iraqis are not very accurate with rifles, and U.S. troops have excellent body armor."
The two ends of this paragraph are somewhat contradictory. If our enemies in Vietnam were so well supplied, while the Iraqis have to fight with no assistance, then how come it's the Iraqis that are coming at us with SAMs and mortars? There is more than one contribution to this difference. (a) The Iraqis already have huge amounts of munitions, so they don't need to import any. (b) The world is a much more wealthy place now than 40 years ago so little countries can afford nicer weapons. (c) In Vietnam, we had the support of a Vietnamese government, which, in turn, had the support of a substantial percentage of the population. The South Vietnamese government was able to clean the guerillas out of the cities. By contrast, in Iraq we are so hated that the guerillas can freely operate in populated regions.
And the suggestion that Iraq does not have adjacent nations to supply it with weapons has already been denied by the Bush administration, which claims that foreign fighters are streaming over the porous borders. In addition, this is only the early years of the Iraq war. Like the Israelis in Palestine, if we hang around for 50 years we'll be looking at Iraqis who are even madder than they are now, and probably better armed as well. God knows that after we start arming the militias and police the guerillas will get their share.
Re: "This kind of fighting involved a lot of helicopters, and 18 percent of American deaths were helicopter related (combat, and non-combat accidents.) This is more than twice the rate so far in Iraq."
This past few weeks have been kind of hard on helicopters, but maybe it's a "spike". At least I thought it was after the first three.
Re: "While the number of Iraqi attacker deaths are not made public, the higher fees paid to the attackers by Baath Party leaders and increased use of remote controlled bombs indicates that getting too close to American combat troops is seen as a losing proposition."
We take higher and higher casualties, but we're declaring a victory because the enemy keeps getting wealthier and wealthier? The simple fact is that they're using remote controlled bombs in order to reduce their own casualties and maximize ours.
What we did was to trade a situation where we could drop bombs on these guys from high altitude with complete impunity to a situation where they can blow us up from a distance with us having little we can do about it.
Re: "But even the remote controlled bombs are not the perfect weapon. The analysis of each incident generates new tactics for detecting and avoiding them. This battle of wits largely goes unreported, as does an accurate comparison of the casualties, and tactics in Vietnam."
If we're winning this battle of wits, I'd hate to see what the trend lines would look like if we were losing. I think that the author is just trying to see the good side of a losing war.
This is just the latest in a long series of rosy forecasts for the war in Iraq. (a) Before the war, we were supposed to be involved in a liberation that would see cheering crowds and little American involvement. (b) The official Iraqi military collapsed and Bush declared victory. (c) The resistance started up, and Rumsfeld declared our losses as a "spike". (d) The administration crowed about the killing of Saddam's sons and declared that as the remaining "cards" were dealt with, the resistance would end. (d) The undeniable fact that Al Qaeda now has a foothold in Iraq and has had remarkable success targeting coalition forces is a sign that the opposition is "desperate". (f) Iraq began returning to normalcy and the administration declared that the media were "failing to report on the good news".
But in the face of all this, November is already the worst month for KIA since April. And now the spin is that the "battle of wits largely goes unreported", LOL? Okay, when is the war going to improve to the point where we get back to only losing one soldier to combat per day? I don't see it, unless we leave the regions that are in rebellion, or maybe hunker down. But that would leave the enemy free to form a provisional government.
-- Carl |
