I’m not sure what I’m exercising – something about the comaprative death rates of combat verus a US city – maybe.

To answer. Because non-hostile deaths occur stateside and are a by-product of a naturally dangerous peactime job (like fighter pilot). Check out my amigos at Joint Task Force 160 sometimes. But I would not argue that there may be a slightly higher probability of death from non-combat factors in Iraq than stateside – but not all that much. And I don’t question your figures (we’re close anyway). I found some quick numbers on a web cite and did some back of the envelope calculating. Its all when you tally the numbers.

Dugger

You both may have a point. Roughly 1700 US dead in Iraq over a 2.25 year period = 756 per year. Roughly 1/4 of those are non combat (-189) = 567 deaths per year. But total troop strength was higher. Say average of 150,000. That equals a combat death rate of about one per every 265. Wash DC is known as the murder capital of the US. In 1990, the city had 2,245 homicides. At about 600,000 people that equates to a rate of one homicide per every 267 people. Almost exactly the same for the Iraq war (US). But lately the homicide rate has been much lower, around 600, so the rates would not (now) be quite as comparable.

Dugger

If you want to use the 25million Iraqis as a figure, then find me a city where there have been 30000 (conservative figure) homocides, or a city with that crime rate.

For NYC, 1/3 size of Iraq, they would need to have 10,000 homocides to equal the same rate.

Again, JD, find me a city as dangerous as Iraq, or admit you were wrong.

Quaker,

Good question but the answer is greatly complicated by the fact that we are there – now, and that possibly/likely a precipitous US withdrawal would result in a bloody purge that would dwarf what has happened so far and encourage extremist movements around the globe. Or you and I may be flat wrong and the neos right. Bottom line: no easy answers anyplace. And probably no better answer than to train the Iraqis as best we can; phase them in while phasing us out, and then one day anounce we are leaving/have left – but actually leave a lot of “advisors” in place.

Binky,

The elections were a milestone but they did not create competency or stability and to use them as an excuse to pull out wouldn’t work. The unfortunate thing is that we can’t commit to “milestones” with a hard point in time – because we have no real idea how long (if ever, unfortunately) it will take to give the Iraqis a fair shot at maintaining stability – on their own. Again, I hope I’m wrong on this, but I can’t help thinking how we once thought Iran had liberalized under the Shah (and they seemingly had) and in one fell swoop they reverted back to a 19th century brutal theocracy. But rather than ask for a withdrawal timetable, maybe a fair question to put to the neos is when will we know? What is it that will tell us what our decison should be? X number of trained Iraqis? A major operation by Iraqi forces? Put it this way: I don’t think Bush can leave office without a hard number or date. If he does leave and all is up in the air, the Democrats will sweep the field.

But if I were a card carrying neocon I would say: we have established a major presence in Iraq, an area at the core geographically of the WW terrorist movement. We have overthrown a brutal dictator. We are near setting up a model, democratic government and once thats done, it will/may have a (good) domino effect in the mideast (as can be evidenced by Libya). So, says the neo, the price is high, but the long term payoff is even higher – the modernization of the mideast and the “curing” of the last major source of WW terrorism (the overall backward, brutal mideast).

Dugger, the Long Winded

Now I ask if another milestone can be created that would be equivalent in the future to give the same possibility of a “handoff”.

How does the US stop meddling in the Iraqi government and just pull out from here?

And this ignores the traps and pitfalls of “winning” or “losing”.

At some point we have to pull the plug and leaver, and the people over there who are willing to die in droves and commit suicide and mass murder for their side – our enemy- will come out of thw woodwork, say  boo and the new government will fall in their lap.

That is indeed a pessimistic view, Dugger, but I think it’s the most probable outcome.

Now: how many more American soldiers should we ask to die for this result?

I think we do have a plan: train the Iraqis to take over. That is ongoing. If you want to argue it may not work or is going too slow, I probably would agree; but what else is there?
Just my $0.02, but if we put aside all of the Bush lied stuff and look at the war, there are viable, non-tin foil criticisms to be made. We had enough time to devise a master plan -if you will- “we go in under these circumstances and we leave under these circumstances”. That should have been stated ahead of time and there should have been a way stated for us to get out, I think (may be dead wrong here), short of a full-up, democratic Iraq, which may never happen. I am troubled that the neocons may be wrong here and that Iraq, though not a Vietnam-like quagmire (its really not close in most respects), is nevertheless, never going to (in our lifetime and our kids’ lifetime) – liberalize. At some point we have to pull the plug and leaver, and the people over there who are willing to die in droves and commit suicide and mass murder for their side – our enemy- will come out of thw woodwork, say “boo” and the new government will fall in their lap.

Dugger, Pessimist to the Core

They also don’t need potable water, thats just for pussies.

Oh, and Dugger, every political action should be reviewed in the international forum, it serves as a check and a balance. Don’t bother asking yourself why France, Germany, Russia and a few other big countries said no to Iraq, immediately superimpose your beliefs of corruption and poof! you don’t have to care that they think anymore. You can go on your little way, believing in American superiority without ever really asking yourself how stupid you look from the outside.

In NYC, we are on the pace for 465 homocides in a city of 8 million.

And if Iraq isn’t in chaos, why do our soldiers keep coming home in body bags? Why do soldiers (12,000) come home without limbs?

My friends in Basra would differ with your OPINION that it is in chaos. My brother in Baghdad would differ with your OPINION that it is in chaos. I know it probably makes you feel better to make your assertions as fact, but the simple fact is that you want to believe those things, so you do.

You are quick to claim that we are losing this war, but exactly what have we lost? Where are we suffering military defeats?

You are quick to throw out the number of deaths, but how about we compare the number of deaths in Iraq to the number of murders in a similarly sized and populated area of the US. I suspect that though Iraq is dangerous, it is not quite as horrible as you would have us believe.

How does some homicide bomber going on a kamikaze mission into a bunch of Iraqi civilians mean we are losing?

Staying the course means sticking with it until the Iraqis do it. No timetable. I fail to see another viable alternative at this point to that course – unless Reid means escalating. I don’t believe the Rs or the Dem moderates would permit cutting & running. So what did he mean? BTW, I agree Bush is a bad speaker. In my lifetime the great Pres speakers were JFK (best) and Reagan. Good were Nixon (better than people may realize), Clinton. Not so good: both Bushes, Ford LBJ, Carter.

Hey Binky

Why do we need “world” support to cut and run. How is it that we are, per the left, going it alone and yet we can stop what we are doing alone w/o world approval. Makes no sense. Right or wrong the R position is that we stay until the Iraqis are ready. I’ve heard no viable altrenative from those to my left or the Buchanan-eers to my right.

And from here on out, I promise to superimpose only my well thought out positions on every one to my left ( a whole lot of people I might add) – this being the first. On you. You are now being oppressed by my superimposed positions. I am the (cyber) MAN.

Dugger, What We’ve Got Here is a Failure to Communicate

And wow Dugger, can you please stop superimposing your poorly thought out beliefs about liberals and applying them to everyone left of you? The only time we could have cut-and-run with any kind of support from the majority of the world would have been right after the elections in Iraq. Now that that moment has passed and isn’t as momentuous as you wanted it to be, just following the “more of the same” mentality is only going to get us further mired down in the quagmire that is Iraq.

Now that Republicans are touting the mantra that by “cutting and running” is degrading the deaths of our fine soldiers. That isn’t opening any new ideas or thoughts into the direction of the conflict, its just “more of the same” “more of the same” and a little bit of “more of the same”.