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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Neocon who wrote (146037)9/20/2004 7:09:18 PM
From: Bilow  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 281500
 
Hi Neocon; Why are you bothering to quote this article? All it does is provide clear evidence that we're not winning sufficient numbers of hearts and minds in Iraq to stay there. If we were winning the war, the number of guerilla attacks against us would be declining, but instead it is more than double the number of a year before, as your link makes clear: "The total number of guerrilla attacks on coalition forces from June 2003 to March 2004 generally remained steady at between 12 and 20 attacks per day, with the exception of a surge of attacks in November 2003 during which as many as 50 attacks per day were reported on some days. The average number of attacks spiked to 70 a day during April, before stabilizing to 35-50 a day after the beginning of May, where it has remained since."

So from the military point of view, the hard numbers show that the war is not being won, and that it hasn't even reached stability.

As far as the opinion figures for the various provinces and ethnic groups in Iraq, why are you bothering to report these figures? We've already seen, from the link you yourself brought, that the polling figures for the American population are impossible to ascertain. How much more difficult is the situation in Iraq, which is a less advanced society in the midst of a guerilla war?

The problem in Iraq is that we continue to lose soldiers without a corresponding increase in the amount of territory we control. In fact, there are places that were safe for us a year ago that we can no longer enter. The guerillas have put together several safe zones for themselves, one even in the "Sadr City" neighborhood of the largest city in the country. The war is a disaster.

-- Carl