U.S. military says kills 15 gunmen in BaghdadOnce upon a time, official U.S. military publicists avoided "body counts" like the plague - as reminding the U.S. public too much of Viet Nam.
By Dean Yates
23 Apr 2008
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops said on Wednesday they killed 15 gunmen overnight in Shi'ite areas of Baghdad where fighting has raged for weeks between militiamen loyal to Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and security forces.
Sometime in the past year or so (maybe longer - as noted previously, my memory ain't all that great) this policy was scrapped in favor of reporting numbers of bad guys killed. The thought seems to be that maybe U.S. public will perceive that we're in fact accomplishing something: we're killing bad guys.
As in Viet Nam, however, it seems that, no matter how many we kill, there are always more bad guys.
It's difficult to measure progress towards a strategic objective when no strategic objective has been articulated. I guess you have to measure something. Number of bad guys killed is easy.
Stop the madness!
From Tom Engelhardt's Tomgram post last Sunday, 20April2008:
ReplyDelete2. No, there was never an exit strategy from Iraq because the Bush administration never intended to leave -- and still doesn't:
Critics of the war have regularly gone after the Bush administration for its lack of planning, including its lack of an "exit strategy." In this, they miss the point. The Bush administration arrived in Iraq with four mega-bases on the drawing boards. These were meant to undergird a future American garrisoning of that country and were to house at least 30,000 American troops, as well as U.S. air power, for the indefinite future. The term used for such places wasn't "permanent base," but the more charming and euphemistic "enduring camp." (In fact, as we learned recently, the Bush administration refuses to define any American base on foreign soil anywhere on the planet, including ones in Japan for over 60 years, as permanent.) Those four monster bases in Iraq (and many others) were soon being built at the cost of multibillions and are, even today, being significantly upgraded. In October 2007, for instance, National Public Radio's defense correspondent Guy Raz visited Balad Air Base, north of Baghdad, which houses about 40,000 American troops, contractors, and Defense Department civilian employees, and described it as "one giant construction project, with new roads, sidewalks, and structures going up across this 16-square-mile fortress in the center of Iraq, all with an eye toward the next few decades."
These mega-bases, like "Camp Cupcake" (al-Asad Air Base), nicknamed for its amenities, are small town-sized with massive facilities, including PXs, fast-food outlets, and the latest in communications. They have largely been ignored by the American media and so have played no part in the debate about Iraq in this country, but they are the most striking on-the-ground evidence of the plans of an administration that simply never expected to leave. To this day, despite the endless talk about drawdowns and withdrawals, that hasn't changed. In fact, the latest news about secret negotiations for a future Status of Forces Agreement on the American presence in that country indicates that U.S. officials are calling for "an open-ended military presence" and "no limits on numbers of U.S. forces, the weapons they are able to deploy, their legal status or powers over Iraqi citizens, going far beyond long-term U.S. security agreements with other countries."
We don't got to show you no stinkin' strategic objective.
Well, at least the intent to establish permanent bases suggests some strategic objectives ought be achieved to reach the goal. If nothing else, it starts to answer the question, "What country will post-war Iraq most resemble." Seems 3 choices a available: Germany, Japan, Korea. Good - now, how we gonna make Iraq look like Germany, Japan, or Korea? - if that's the aim, at least we have something to work toward!
ReplyDeleteI never meant to imply that defining or achieving "strategic objectives" would necessarily imply our exit from Iraq... only that, lacking clearly stated objectives, it's very difficult to articulate a strategy to achieve the objectives, or to measure progress.
"Establishing long-term military presence" at least provides some basis for defining objectives!