Epistle to Foudroyaume - Installment III

"And of course, there's body count. Iraq has turned into a human disaster."

Let's take a look at body counts for this war and for past wars, shall we.

First of all, there's Iraq Body Count: Latest count of civilian deaths is 91,713, after five years of war. Iraq's pre-war population was estimated to be around 26,000,000. That's .3% of the population. World War II also lasted five years. Death rates for civilian populations in the most war-torn parts of Europe were vastly higher than that.

Austria - 1.59%
France - 1.35%
Czechoslovakia - 2.25%
Germany - 10.47%
Greece - 4.31%
Hungary - 6.35%
Italy - 1.02%
Latvia - 11.38%
Lithuania - 13.71%
Netherlands - 2.82%
Poland - 16.07%
Romania - 4.22%
Soviet Union - 13.71%
Yugoslavia - 6.67%

It's also worth pointing out that the only folks who are wearing uniforms are the American led coalition and the Iraqi Army. The folks doing most of the killing are civilians and many times they kill themselves in the process and will be included in Iraq Body Count's numbers. It's also worth acknowledging that the suicide and remotely detonated bombers are primarily killing civilians, and randomly at that, whereas a real guerrilla force targets are political and strategic.

The intention is to so horrify the American public as they watch their nightly news, that the American government will succumb to public pressure and will pull out and they don't care how many innocent women and children they kill. That's a tactic in which the Main Stream Media (MSM) willingly colludes and which peace-nics salivate over. It worked with the Vietnam War. It's not working this time, as you may have noticed, because people have access to accounts that are not filtered through the MSM, which by the way, is causing the MSM to take a big hit and groups attempting to rally a big anti-war movement to fall flat on their faces.

Of course, Iraq Body Count is not the only one out there. Estimates from the Iraqi government itself, and from other agencies doing extrapolative studies have come up with wildly varying estimates. The Lancet studies, both of which, were on the high side, have faced serious criticism.

"Some critics go so far as to suggest that the field research on which the study is based may have been performed improperly -- or not at all. The key person involved in collecting the data -- Lafta, the researcher who assembled the survey teams, deployed them throughout Iraq, and assembled the results -- has refused to answer questions about his methods." (Emphasis mine.)

"Lafta had been a child-health official in Saddam Hussein's (emphasis in the original) ministry of health when the ministry was trying to end the international sanctions against Iraq by asserting that many Iraqis were dying from hunger, disease, or cancer caused by spent U.S. depleted-uranium shells remaining from the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In 2000, Lafta authored at least two brief articles contending that U.N. sanctions had caused many deaths by starvation among Iraqi children. In one article, he identified malnutrition as the main contributor to 53 percent of deaths among hospitalized children younger than 2, during a 1997 survey carried out at Saddam Central Teaching Hospital. The article cited no health data from before the sanctions, yet it asserted, "We can conclude from results that the most important and widespread underlying cause of the deterioration of child-health standards in Iraq is the long-term impact of the nonhumanized economic sanction imposed through United Nations resolutions." (Emphasis mine.)

"Lafta and his surveyors often worked under brutal political pressure. In January 2007, a Sunni suicide bomber killed more than 70 students at the university, partly because it is perceived as being under the control of Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite religious leader whose Mahdi Army militia crippled Sunni insurgent groups in Baghdad during 2006. Until this fall, Sadr's party and his Mahdi Army also controlled the health ministry, which employed some of Lafta's researchers."

"This is another case of Americans failing to grasp that they cannot beat a guerilla (sic) foe through brute force". Brute force???

"This is another case where American clumsiness and moral immaturity (which is the most neutral phrase I can find for the atrocities that are committed by many soliers (sic) on every side of every war ever fought) are creating a state of terror, rather than eliminating one."

Wow! "..clumsiness and moral immaturity.."??? ...creating a state of terror rather than eliminating one??? My darling Foud. What have you been reading?

The Americans made three mistakes only, namely: 1) they did not seal the borders immediately after the fall of Baghdad. This allowed all sorts of arms and fighters from other countries to enter Iraq;, 2) they grossly underestimated the number of troops required to do the job, and that was primarily Rumsfeld's doing. 3) Bush took far to long to can Rumsfeld. But once he did, and the "surge" in troops got into the field, under the command of General Petreaus, it has made a world of difference. The Iraqi army is up and trained and is now in charge, and doing a fantastic job, by the way. In fact, they are doing most of the combat now. Basra was liberated (General Petraeus in testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee a few days ago: "The people in Basra were rejoicing from being freed from the militia. In fact, a man in Basra told me that now he had been liberated twice in recent years. Once by Coalition Forces from Saddam and now by the Iraqi Security Forces from the militia.") and they are now in the process of mopping up Sadr City. Maliki is in charge. The tide has turned, as you can see: Violence in Iraq falls to lowest level in 4 years. The US has pretty well achieved its objectives and troops are scheduled to be drawn down over the next several months. Iraq is well on its way.

Oh, and if you want to know what sources I use, just take a cruise through the back pages of my blog and follow the links. I would suggest you start in 2006.

And for the bit about the media, go here and here and follow the links. Do you think the media would report this story or this and this? I get my news from blogs and the links the owners and commentors provide. I don't have a television. The old media is history.