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Home Front: Politix
WaPo Sunday - Four for Four
2006-10-08
AoS: link added at 11 am EDT.
Fourth in a row,Sunday-above-the-fold, front-page, Bush hit-piece in a row. But the quagmire doesn't come until the last sentence.
U.S. Casualties in Iraq Rise Sharply
Growing American Role in Staving Off Civil War Leads to Most Wounded Since 2004

The number of U.S troops wounded in Iraq has surged to its highest monthly level in nearly two years as American GIs fight block-by-block in Baghdad to try to check a spiral of sectarian violence that U.S. commanders warn could lead to civil war.

Last month, 776 U.S. troops were wounded in action in Iraq, the highest number since the military assault to retake the insurgent-held city of Fallujah in November 2004, according to Defense Department data. It was the fourth-highest monthly total since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The sharp increase in American wounded -- with nearly 300 more in the first week of October -- is a grim measure of the degree to which the U.S. military has been thrust into the lead not unless you've got some Iraq casualties to compare to of the effort to stave off full-scale civil war in Iraq, military officials and experts say. Beyond Baghdad, Marines battling Sunni insurgents in Iraq's western province of Anbar last month also suffered their highest number of wounded in action since late 2004.

More than 20,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in combat in the Iraq war, and about half have returned to duty. While much media reporting has focused on the more than 2,700 killed, military experts say the number of wounded is a more accurate gauge of the fierceness of fighting because advances in armor and medical care today allow many service members to survive who would have perished in past wars. The ratio of wounded to killed among U.S. forces in Iraq is about 8 to 1, compared with 3 to 1 in Vietnam.

"These days, wounded are a much better measure of the intensity of the operations than killed," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Posted by:Bobby

#4  Not everyone SpecOp35, not everyone...

This snippet from Sgt Stryker on an Iraqi translator and why he wants to go back to Iraq...


People in my community tell me I should not be in the Army because I will get killed. I tell them “So what?” (DR: Punctuation added) if I do. I will have died doing something good and my family will understand and they will thank me and know I was doing something I wanted to do. But I don’t think I will be killed. I will be with the Army and not just someone who isn’t in the Army. I don’t know if I will want to go back to Iraq if my family does. I like it in America. I want to get my citizenship and go to school. But I think I should be in the Army because if I don’t I will get all this without earning it.


As they say, RTWT.
Posted by: Tony (UK)   2006-10-08 19:09  

#3  This was quite predictable when Bush agreed to send our guys back to the slums of Baghdad. He should have told this Maliki bum that he had people trained and it was his problem alone. Besides, the more of these asses who exterminate one another is merely one less we have to kill. We did not kill nearly enough of them on our initial intrusion. These idiots have to be whacked real good over the noodle just to get their attention. What's their population ? 28 million? Should have wiped oput 10% on initial go. Then told them 10% more would be gone if they didn't settle down. That's the only way to win these backward "hearts & minds".
Posted by: SpecOp35   2006-10-08 12:13  

#2  for the, not of rthe

Lysdexia strikes again! (H.T. Seafarious)
Posted by: Bobby   2006-10-08 11:01  

#1  AoS - are you tellin' me I forgot the linky thingy?

Again?

Well, I wuz a little torqued by the WaPo.

Sorry of rthe mistake, and thanks for fixing it!
Posted by: Bobby   2006-10-08 10:59  

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