|
|
Saturday, August 25, 2007 - 12:00am Troop Surge Clearly NOT Working Don't believe everything you hear on the state-run Fox Network. Despite all the hype and spin, the truth of the matter is that the troop surge in Iraq is not working at all. Just take a look at the differences from the summer of 2006 to now. It's not even close. By most measures, it is far more dangerous today than it was a year ago.
In terms of the insurgency itself, it has grown by more than 250%. That makes sense of course. No country wants to be occupied and the longer a foreign army stays, the more likely it is for the public to rise up against them. Infrastructure is deteriorating as well. There is far less gas and electricity available today than only a year prior.
The spinmeisters in Washington like to point to the only metric that is declining; the number of Iraqi civilians killed. While that is an improvement, the raw figure is still extraordinarily high. Over 5,000 Iraqi civilians were murdered in the last two months. That equates to nearly 90 people each day.
You'll continue to hear that this troop surge is working, but the truth is a far different story. Politicians are famous for telling the public what they want to hear. The GOP wants to get re-elected and a failure in Iraq is not something they're willing to admit. Let's hope they wake up before our military breaks.
Political Critic - political blogs, conservatives, liberals, democrats, republicans, blog, political opinion. |
|
The
most alarming metric is the number of American troops killed and
wounded. In June and July of 2006, a total of 104 soldiers were
killed and 983 wounded. In June and July of 2007, the figure rose
to 187 killed and 1,423 wounded. There were also significantly
more Iraqi military and police killed this summer over last.