27.4.04
Better off dead?
So, that is the question being asked by doctors attending to the high rates of wounded soldiers. We brought this up back in September.
Either way keeping the casualty count (deaths) down is important enough to the people running this war (think how hard they want to avoid the comparison to vietnam). Like the overall war, its a story of mortgaging the future for a failed policy. Think of what casualties like these cost the taxpayers! I mean, Im all for saving lives, but most people really don't understand how bad things are because of the accounting standards.
Anyway, right now it looks like the US is invading all these cities. The main point though, strategically, is that Americans are finding they have less and less mobility in Iraq. Whenever they try to move, they get popped. They are being held outside certain cities (they wanted to leave anyway, but now leaving means losing key transport routes and creating safe bases for insurgents). This is extraordinarily significant militarily. [Also, ironically, mobility is what Rumsfelds "new" military transformation was supposed to be all about, so these resistance successes hurt the US all the more].
The US is losing this one militarily, and the saddest thing is that Kerry, who is going to win the election hands down, isn't positioning himself to get out. Even Nixon positioned himself to get out of Vietnam, and it took years... Perhaps it was foolish to take comfort in the fact that the media was beginning to report actual news from Iraq. The power elites are so spineless, ineffective, and soft that they cannot be relied on to do anything, even when inaction counters their own interests.
So, that is the question being asked by doctors attending to the high rates of wounded soldiers. We brought this up back in September.
"We're saving more people than should be saved, probably," Lt. Col. Robert Carroll said. "We're saving severely injured people. Legs. Eyes. Part of the brain."It's not clear if these doctors thinking it would be better for the soldiers if they died, or for the Army.
Either way keeping the casualty count (deaths) down is important enough to the people running this war (think how hard they want to avoid the comparison to vietnam). Like the overall war, its a story of mortgaging the future for a failed policy. Think of what casualties like these cost the taxpayers! I mean, Im all for saving lives, but most people really don't understand how bad things are because of the accounting standards.
Anyway, right now it looks like the US is invading all these cities. The main point though, strategically, is that Americans are finding they have less and less mobility in Iraq. Whenever they try to move, they get popped. They are being held outside certain cities (they wanted to leave anyway, but now leaving means losing key transport routes and creating safe bases for insurgents). This is extraordinarily significant militarily. [Also, ironically, mobility is what Rumsfelds "new" military transformation was supposed to be all about, so these resistance successes hurt the US all the more].
The US is losing this one militarily, and the saddest thing is that Kerry, who is going to win the election hands down, isn't positioning himself to get out. Even Nixon positioned himself to get out of Vietnam, and it took years... Perhaps it was foolish to take comfort in the fact that the media was beginning to report actual news from Iraq. The power elites are so spineless, ineffective, and soft that they cannot be relied on to do anything, even when inaction counters their own interests.
