It's All About The Body Count
Jeebus. George Bush is now touting the number of dead Iraqis as a measure of US progress in the War on Terra. Why start tossing out body counts? Well, according to Tony Snow, it's "to offset concern about U.S. casualties and deaths." Tit for tat.
But let's do some math on the tit for tat*. Let's say for argument's sake that US forces did kill or capture 5900 of "the enemy" in October and November. Now, Iraq's population is supposed to be about 27 million, although over 50,000 of these have died from war related violence, and continue to be killed at the rate of about 3500 a month. Also, 2.3 million of these - including up to 40% of professionals - have fled the violence there. Let's say there are 25 million people still there, who are leaving at the rate of 2000-3000 each day.
So, 2500 leaving each day, another 115 or so civilians killed by insurgents, and another 100 or so insurgents getting killed or captured by US forces - according to The Decider. At this rate, it will take about 25 years to empty the country completely.
Now, with 100 or so US troop casualties every month in Iraq, we would only lose 30,000 US soldiers over those 25 years - you can see why Bush likes the odds. 27 million of theirs for only 33 thousand of ours? Brilliant.
Until, of course, you start thinking about all the angry refugees who are flooding out of the country and feeling upset about their loved ones maimed, tortured and/or killed during the US occupation. Hmmm. So 2.3 million refugees now, plus another 900,000 or so each year ... about 78,000 of the ones still there (civilian and insurgent) get killed each year ... so let's figure that each refugee knows at least a couple of vicitims of the US invasion and its aftermath. What if - for argument's sake - every 100 dead Iraqis pushes one refugee over the edge into vengeance mode? That would be around 780 new bloodthirsty terrorists created each year.
And here's where it gets scary. Al Qaeda had about 200 members on its roster when it crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and killed nearly 3000 people on American soil. 200 members was all it took to come up with 19 kids crafty enough and committed enough to kill thousands of Americans right in the middle of Manhattan.
So, if a 200-member Al Qaeda could cough up 19 highly effective murderers, and if we are adding 780 or more new angry, vengeance-driven refugee jihadists to the global population every year, then we are looking, it would seem, at the potential for about 4 more 9/11-style attacks each year over the 25 years it takes to empty Iraq. Assuming the terrorists don't get smarter.
So, 4 more attacks each year ... 12,000 US civilians each year ... which means that while we drive Iraq's population down to 0 over the next 25 years, we will lose 300,000 of our own people (on top of the 30,000 soldier casualties).
Of course, that would still leave us with more than 300,000,000 people at the end of the day.
So I guess we would win, after all.
* I'm a poet, not a mathematician, so feel free to correct my numbers in the comments ...
But let's do some math on the tit for tat*. Let's say for argument's sake that US forces did kill or capture 5900 of "the enemy" in October and November. Now, Iraq's population is supposed to be about 27 million, although over 50,000 of these have died from war related violence, and continue to be killed at the rate of about 3500 a month. Also, 2.3 million of these - including up to 40% of professionals - have fled the violence there. Let's say there are 25 million people still there, who are leaving at the rate of 2000-3000 each day.
So, 2500 leaving each day, another 115 or so civilians killed by insurgents, and another 100 or so insurgents getting killed or captured by US forces - according to The Decider. At this rate, it will take about 25 years to empty the country completely.
Now, with 100 or so US troop casualties every month in Iraq, we would only lose 30,000 US soldiers over those 25 years - you can see why Bush likes the odds. 27 million of theirs for only 33 thousand of ours? Brilliant.
Until, of course, you start thinking about all the angry refugees who are flooding out of the country and feeling upset about their loved ones maimed, tortured and/or killed during the US occupation. Hmmm. So 2.3 million refugees now, plus another 900,000 or so each year ... about 78,000 of the ones still there (civilian and insurgent) get killed each year ... so let's figure that each refugee knows at least a couple of vicitims of the US invasion and its aftermath. What if - for argument's sake - every 100 dead Iraqis pushes one refugee over the edge into vengeance mode? That would be around 780 new bloodthirsty terrorists created each year.
And here's where it gets scary. Al Qaeda had about 200 members on its roster when it crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and killed nearly 3000 people on American soil. 200 members was all it took to come up with 19 kids crafty enough and committed enough to kill thousands of Americans right in the middle of Manhattan.
So, if a 200-member Al Qaeda could cough up 19 highly effective murderers, and if we are adding 780 or more new angry, vengeance-driven refugee jihadists to the global population every year, then we are looking, it would seem, at the potential for about 4 more 9/11-style attacks each year over the 25 years it takes to empty Iraq. Assuming the terrorists don't get smarter.
So, 4 more attacks each year ... 12,000 US civilians each year ... which means that while we drive Iraq's population down to 0 over the next 25 years, we will lose 300,000 of our own people (on top of the 30,000 soldier casualties).
Of course, that would still leave us with more than 300,000,000 people at the end of the day.
So I guess we would win, after all.
* I'm a poet, not a mathematician, so feel free to correct my numbers in the comments ...
posted by SouthJaw at
1:55 PM
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