As the war in Iraq has faded from the front page, and bloodshed in Iraq has lessened in recent months, it’s tempting to think fewer American servicemen and servicewomen are sacrificing their lives in a tragic and mistaken war. Then we reach yet another painful milestone, and we’re reminded of the U.S. troops who aren’t coming home.
A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on Sunday, the military said, pushing the overall American death toll in the five-year war to at least 4,000.
The grim milestone came on the same day that rockets and mortars pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone, underscoring the fragile security situation and the resilience of both Sunni and Shiite extremist groups despite an overall lull in violence. […]
The milestones for each 1,000 deaths — while an arbitrary marker — serve to rivet attention on the war and have come during a range of pivotal moments.
When the 1,000th American died in September 2004, the insurgency was gaining steam. The 2,000-death mark came in October 2005 as Iraq voted on a new constitution. The Pentagon announced its 3,000th loss on the last day of 2006 — a day after Saddam Hussein was hanged and closing a year marked by rampant sectarian violence.
I’m also reminded of the White House’s reaction in June 2006 when the number of U.S. military deaths had reached 2,500. Tony Snow, then the president’s spokesperson, was asked if Bush had “any response or reaction.” Snow responded, “It’s a number, and every time there’s one of these 500 benchmarks people want something.”
Oddly enough, we still want the same thing: an Iraq policy that makes sense.
In the wake of this new milestone, it’s worth noting that recent trends point to increasing, not decreasing, bloodshed. The NYT notes today that “intensity of the violence added to the sense that insurgent and sectarian attacks had been on the rise in recent weeks.”
It’s probably fair to say it’s more than just a “sense.”
VoteVets argued this morning that, just as important as the 4,000-fatalities mark, the last two weeks warrant special attention.
American forces have just experienced the most violent two-week period in Iraq since September 2007. Unfortunately, I’m afraid this fact will be lost in the media coverage over the number 4,000 during the next several days. Of the two significant numbers this week — 4,000 killed during war and 25 in the last two weeks — the latter figure is far more significant with regard to the current situation on the ground.
We hear talk of attacks against Americans “ebbing,” ceasefires holding, and of the situation in Iraq being “not that fragile,” but this is all a bunch of happy-talk nonsense. Between March 10 and March 23, 25 American soldiers were killed in Iraq. The last two-week period in which U.S. forces sustained similar losses was between September 14 and September 27, when 26 were killed — a period that capped off the bloodiest summer of the war.
To go along with the American casualties, this news came at the end of a day in which more than 60 Iraqis were killed in Baghdad and just north of the city. […]
Perhaps this will give John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Joe Lieberman pause to stop patting themselves on the back for five minutes in order to realize that they are not vindicated, they are still wrong, and any sort of resolution in Iraq will require a serious change from the current short-sighted Bush administration strategy of “pay them off until I’m out of office.”