Sunday Discussion Group

May 27, 2007

Americans have opened nearly 1,000 new graves to bury U.S. troops killed in Iraq since Memorial Day a year ago. The figure is telling — and expected to rise in coming months.

In the period from Memorial Day 2006 through Saturday, 980 soldiers and Marines died in Iraq, compared to 807 deaths in the previous year. And with the Baghdad security operation now 3 1/2 months old, even President Bush has predicted a difficult summer for U.S. forces. “It could be a bloody — it could be a very difficult August,” he said last week. […]

By the end of Saturday at least 100 American troops had died in the first 26 days of May, an average of 3.85 deaths a day. At that pace, 119 troops will have died by the end of the month, the most since 137 soldiers were killed in November 2004, when U.S. troops were fighting insurgents in Fallujah.

As of Saturday, May 26, 2007, at least 3,451 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,817 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military.

We’re in the midst of the deadliest sixth-month stretch since the war began in 2003, and as Sarabeth noted, “For the first time since the invasion, the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq has exceeded a hundred for two consecutive months. Ironic that this ‘milestone’ is reached on the Memorial Day weekend.”

It leads to a few points worth considering.

First, Swopa and Kevin Drum had a couple of interesting items about whether casualty rates should be highlighted to sway public opinion against the war.

Swopa: “The higher casualty rate is a result of Dubya’s ‘surge’ strategy of increasing the visibility of our military presence in Iraq — and if that approach is kept up through the end of his term, 2,000 more Americans will have died by the end of January, 2009…. Every Democrat or other progressive with access to a microphone, TV camera, or keyboard can help by reminding people that those 2,000 lives are the price we’re going to pay for not putting an end to the war.”

Kevin: “We should avoid focusing too heavily on the death toll as a reason for withdrawal from Iraq. Rather, our primary focus should be on why this is a bad war and why our national security would be improved by getting out. Not only is it the truth, but it’s also a more persuasive argument.”

Agree? Disagree?

Also, with another grim Memorial Day upon us, what do you think U.S. policy and conditions in Iraq will look like next Memorial Day?

May 27, 2007 at 9:32 am

I wish I could agree with Kevin. I am less enamoured of using the death toll, because it makes the argument all about American lives and suffering. However, that is all most Americans focus upon, so we may not have an option. We can TRY to reframe the debate, but I am not sure it will be persuasive to the majority.

While I think Kevin is right from an intellectual point of view, realistically arguments about policy only get you so far. The continuing butcher’s bill will dominate war coverage because it has emotional resonance and because it is much easier to convey as a story than abstract arguments about national security. Bear in mind too, that saying the war was a bad idea and that it isn’t making us safer will simply provoke pushback from the administration continuing to assert the opposite. War deaths, by contrast, can’t be gainsaid; they happened, after all, and can’t be denied.

To the extent that troops are being asked to do something besides hiding in their barracks, they are going to be exposed, and more will be killed. This leads to the kind of statistic Sarabeth notes, with our first consecutive triple-digit months. Politically, the administration is in a bind – if they hunker down U.S. forces, the question will be why they should be kept in place if they aren’t doing anything. If the forces are aggressively deployed, there will be many casualties. Without visible progress, the logic of withdrawal gets stronger and stronger.

On the question of where we put emphasis, I don’t think it’s an either/or situation. We can and should continue to say the war was a bad idea and continuing it futile and counterproductive, even though saying these things will only penetrate to a minority of the public. However, it’s the death toll that will strengthen these assertions and give them resonance.

The most basic reality is that Bush will continue the war as aggressively as he can for the rest of his time in office. He’s oblivious to the political damage this causes to him (he’s already in a dire state) or to his party. My guess is that events on the ground in Iraq will be more likely to force withdrawal than anything the Democrats can do in congress.

My optimistic opinion is that the American death toll will be at 5000. The repubs, desperate to keep the WH will be assuring us that victory is finally at hand, if we just stay the course for another F.U. or 2.

My pessimistic opinion is that Bush will have removed all troops from Iraq by way of Iran.

While every casualty is a tragedy, casualties are an unavoidable byproduct of armed struggle and one of the primary reasons why war must only be entered a last resort.

Once a nation sets upon that course, it should have already accepted that there will be casualties, and the focus should be on accomplishing whatever goals were established at the outset. If memory serves, support for an Iraq invasion in the months prior was around 60 percent, with almost half of Americans willing to sustain “thousands” of casualties. Thus, a large proportion of Americans felt that the goal of removing Sadaam (or getting his WMDs or democratizing Iraq, or whatever the hell the goal was) was worth the cost. (While the reasons for invading and the risk Iraq posed were manufactured, that is another matter. The truth was out there and not that hard to find.)

Historically speaking, for a four-year struggle, casualties in Iraq have been very low. The problem is that Americans rightfully expect to see some progress for the cost in lives lost over that length of time and have not. Now, Americans find themselves reassessing the initial decision and the false justifications they were given, and deciding that the cost has not been worth what has been accomplished.

As crass as it is to consider war in terms of cost-benefit, I think there’s a certain practicality to that approach. So, to answer CB’s question, I think we have to consider both casualties and accomplishments. To me, that’s why this war has been tragic. We turned a bad situation in Iraq into a disaster, and after four years, have yet to see a positive turnaround despite a sustained rate of losses — with no evidence to believe things will improve.

From a purely political standpoint, I think a more subtle point could be made than just by focusing on the number of American soldiers killed in the war so far: that if the Bush administration were more supportive of the troops (with respect to equipment delivered, rotations respected, and so forth), fewer soldiers would have been killed and fewer will be killed even if we stay in Iraq. That is, at some point–and maybe we’ve reached this point already–everyone who can be convinced that this was a bad war will already have been convinced. How do you reach the hardcore war supporters? Casualty numbers won’t do it, because they’ll just say that these are necessary sacrifices. Arguing that someone more competent should be in charge, to reduce casualties, might offer more leverage.

The war deaths are a symptom of Bush’s ego-maniacal policy and his failure to be able to accomplish anything (except firing those experienced generals and advisors who disagree with him). In the daily death chart I keep, something happened around 1 Sep 2006: the rate which had varied slightly around 2.1 per day throughout the occupation, jumped to 3.0; over the last two weeks deaths have averaged 4.2 per day.

One can quibble (and, in our NRA-NASCAR culture, make a feeble attempt at proving one’s manhood) by noting how low the rate is in comparison with other wars, or the daily death toll on our highways, or whatever. But when a rate doubles, it says something about conditions going from bad to worse (and recently much worse).

If I were betting, based on our previous occupation experience in Vietnam (and the French experience in Indochina and Algeria), I’d say that by next Memorial Day things will have become worse still. And, assuming our next President has the same gargantuan ego as our previous presidents (and most Democratic members of Congress), by the Memorial Day after that the rate will be staggering.

I’m suggesting that — as long as this has gone on, and as many deaths as we’ve seen — what has looked like a fairly straight line may be just the leading edge of what statisticians called the logistic function, aka Verhulst-Pearl Equation, Sigmoid Function, or simply S-curve of growth. The deaths in Vietnam were bad enough to drive LBJ from office, but they were nothing compared to what came later under Nixon-Kissinger. All those who might have had or still have the courage to stop it are laughed at or fired, as they were then. It seems to represent the cost of our continuing to “enjoy” living in what Eisenhower warned us about, the Military-Industrial Complex.

It’s been half a century since World War II and supposedly, through forming the United Nations, the end of war. I heard an economist say just yesterday that we mustn’t let our “sentiments” blind us to the fact that the world economy, based upon an exchange of petroleum for weapons, is booming as never before. I can’t even imagine the kind of world domination it will take to put an end to all this … a computer-regulated global anthill run from China (to whom Bush has so deeply indebted us)?

It’s hard to say it without thinking “oxymoron”, but Happy Memorial Day.

This pathetic excuse of an administration is risking the unimaginable: A four-front war. We’re already fighting in Afghanistan; we’re fighting two insurgencies in Iraq (which is what happens when you’re playing “monkey-in-the-middle” with both sides of a civil war)—and these pickle-heads want to play with Iran now. Doofuses. Total doofuses.

The core issue should be Afghanistan. Al Quaeda—as with any military opponent—cannot be defeated with rhetoric; it cannot be defeated by standing a couple thousand miles off from the “real” battle and playing the “come-and-get-us” game. The cowards in the WH need to understand the difference between “aggressive war” and “offensive war.” But—instead of taking the fight to the enemy, Bu$h is using the entire population if Iraq as a human shield.

Only cowards use human shields. So much for Bu$h the big, bad, and brave, eh?

Iraq is a side issue; it always has been (although I imagine the “dung-wallowing jackals” at FOX would disagree). If Iraq is to become democratic, then it must do so on its own terms, and it must be a democracy that is based on Iraqi ideals and goals—not American.

Well said Steve.

I’d just post a quotation of Sam Damon’s speech from Anton Myror’s Once An Eagle that seems appropriate:

I hope you will forgive if I sound a little confused.
Five short days ago I was in Japan, walking along the
shore of the Inland Sea. It used to take five days to
drive from here to Big Sping in a buckboard when I was
a boy…I’ve been away a long time—almost 30
years–and the world has shifted under my feet. Under
all our feet. It is not the world we knew in 1916.

I must apologize for staring, it’s just that you
reminded me of–people back home..

You have asked me to assist in the dedication of this
memorial; and I am greatly honored. But I know you
will understand if I avoid the use of words like
gallantry or valor or glory. I will leave them to
those who have not had to add up the ledger of
violence and misery. My own heart is too full of
losses today. We are assembled here to honor the men
whose names are inscribed on this tablet. Let us,
then, do them the simple honor of honesty. This
war…was a long, lonely, dirty job as these men
seated here behind me can attest. They fought it with
courage and fortitude and the hope of better days, and
what they did cannot and will not be forgotten. But
there is nothing glorious about killing one’s fellow
man or being killed by him, passing many, many days in
hatred and misery and fear. And whoever says it is a
matter for glory lies in his teeth.

We like to say that war is cruel. But no one knows
how cruel it is-how deeply, monstrously cruel it
is-unless he himself has walked thru the fire and felt
it sear him. The men recorded on this tablet have
done that. Many of them died horribly, some of them
needlessly. Yes needlessly because what is most
hideous about war is its waste: destruction of goods
and homes, waste of life and hope and that dream of
individual dignity we cherish as the particular
achievement of America. A country’s treasure is in
its young men, and their loss is terrible beyond
measure because it is irreparable. It is as shocking
as the loss of innocence or self respect. And more
often than not, it is not the good man that goes: the
large act, the spendthrift heart. The medic who goes
out to bring in a wounded man, the automatic rifleman
who covers his patrol’s withdrawal, the officer trying
to prevent panic, the gunner who throws himself on a
grenade meancing his friends…

There they are, arrayed on the face of the stone. All
that is left of their eager faces, their dreams, their
inviolable souls. They are dead now. They were
singularily trusting. They asked no collateral on the
prompt surrender of their lives, they demaned no
social privledges, no distinctions, no seats of power
or influence as they walked steadily into the valley.
They demanded nothing. What about us, the
beneficiaries of such profligate bounty? Will we be
so callous as to scheme and despoil for these things
again–and mock their death, their slow immeasurable
agony?

Power, we have it now. In our two hands, a clean
slate. These young men have made a downpayment on
it–and it was a bitter payment, I can assure you.
Bitter as gall. And they did not make the payment for
a world of rockets and bombs and barbed wire, or a
world of overseas markets and a favorable gold balance
and the wolfish gutting of what we are pleased to call
underdeveloped nations. Old friends, we can build a
new Jerusalem–but we will only reach what we seek…

Let us remember, then. They would want us to
remember–if only because it may cause us to
strengthen our resolve not to sow the dragon’s teeth
again. The naked sword we hold so proudly is two
edged: it is as dangerous for the wielder as the
recipient.

We stand at an immense fork in the road. One way is
the path of generosity, dignity and a respect other
races and customs; the other leads most certainly to
greed, suspiscion, hatred and the old, bloody course
of violence and waste–and now, god help us, to the
very destruction of all the struggles and triumphs of
the human race on earth. My old friends and fellow
townsmen; what will it be?

Forgive me, if you can, for so somber an address on
this beautiful September day, when the whole nation
echoes with triumph, but I am weighed down with
losses–I am constrained to cry , like another soldier
sick of slaughter and folly: The weight of this sad
time we must obey; Speak what we feel not what we
ought to say…

Screw it. Just focus on Bush/Cheney as evil idiots who have condemned thousands of Americans AND hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (our allies right? They should count) to TOTALLY USELESS AND WASTED DEATHS.

No more Mr Niceguys.

National public opinion is already against the war. The problem is that we don’t have the votes in Congress to bring the war to an end. We need to bring pressure on the representatives and senators who do not support withdrawal. This pressure is best applied by the constituents of said representatives and senators. One would need polling data at the state and district level to determine how local public opinion breaks down. This data could be used for targeting advertising designed to bring about the pressure needed to get the votes in the Congress to bring this debacle to an end.

I don’t really care if the arguments used in these advertisements mirrors the logic which I have used to arrive at my opposition to the war. I only care that they be effective in bringing an end to the war.

What will be happening next Memorial Day? I am not optimistic My guess is that we will still be arguing how to bring this war to a close and solders, marines, and Iraqis will still be dying.

It’s funny what behind-the-scenes considerations these differences in policy and differences in result come from.

Take a for-instance: if people working for the government thought that it was in the country’s best security interest that there be a totalitarian conservative take-over in the United States, or that they foment a race-war against blacks, and they used their positions to manipulate people or policy to try to reach those results, of course they would think that it was a matter of national security that these remain classified.

For most of the rest of us, exposing these things would be what we’d consider to be in the country’s best security interest. Keeping them secret, on the other hand, would be insane.

A Memorial Day Quote

“The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who ‘d really fought.”
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

May the passionate voices of those who have served guide our efforts and lead us out of this tragic war.

FWIW, here is my response in the comments of Kevin’s post:
———-
I completely agree about national security as the best reason for leaving Iraq; indeed, I was hammering on that very point dating back to 2005, and made a particular point of trying to emphasize it last fall.

In broad public terms, though, I think that argument has already been won — not because Democrats argued it prominently, but as a simple matter of psychological self-protection. As people recognized that we were losing in Iraq, they also concluded that “winning” there wasn’t essential to our national security.

The point of emphasizing the lives at stake — importantly, not just those already lost, but those not yet lost — is to give some urgency and salience to the withdrawal argument, pushing back against the Friedman Unit, “let’s give the latest strategy a chance” argument. As I wrote in the post you linked to, noting that 2,000 more U.S. troops could die by January 2009:

What will have been accomplished by the loss of those 2,000 lives?

That’s the question I want posed to anyone who thinks we should stay in Iraq any longer: What hard proof can you give me that six months or a year from now we won’t be in exactly the same situation as now (which hasn’t changed fundamentally in at least three years), except with several hundred more grieving families? It’s the moral reasoning that gave rise to the Powell Doctrine — you don’t throw lives away based on “Hey, let’s give this a shot, maybe it’ll work.”

As susceptible as Democrats have been to criticism for not grounding their policies in an overall vision of national security, they’ve also been vulnerable to making their arguments too bloodless and abstract (see Dukakis, Michael).

The philosophical argument matters. But the lives matter, too.

CB – I really think it’s a combination of the two positions, i.e., that all of these deaths are so utterly pointless since we are not increasing our national security and are actually making the situation worse.

I think the war deaths are a big deal. The whole backstory to this war was the near 3,000 killed on 9/11. Bush promised America that he would prevent further mass casualties of Americans by … causing the mass casualty of an even greater number of Americans and an unconscionable number of Iraqis. And these mounting deaths don’t seem to bother W.

By trying to counter an enemy that we are constantly told have no regard for human life, Bush and his cronies have prosecuted this occupation and conflict with even less regard for the living on either side, as if by proving that we’re crazier than the crazies we want to defeat we will prevail.

The Bushie mantra about the “war on terror” is that he and he alone can prevent death and injury from coming to us, but the cost of that is the death and injury of a select number of us and of even greater numbers of others with no connection to the original killings. The blood of the innocents spilled over in Iraq for our comfort has enormous potential to boomerang back to us.

Focusing on the death wrought by Bush is a good thing because it points out the inherent irony in the whole reason for the Iraq situation … and why it doesn’t make sense and must change. The whole goal of US response to 9/11 was to prevent further bloodshed and instead we now have a steady stream of death. We need to say “Enough with all the killing.”

From the perspective of a former combat veteran, I can say that concerning war most soldiers simply want the truth revealed to any and all – including the American people.

The truth, in this case, holds both elements of the stated arguments as well as other points. I also believe, in their heart of hearts, most people (soldiers included) have security (world and US) somewhere in their concerns. Therefore, it would be prudent to add to the two stated perspectives the argument of a more effective strategy in dealing with, what amounts to the American people, a new world paradigm of the real possibility of terrorism.

People aren’t stupid. Leaving those with partisan agendas aside, most people, given the facts, can see for themselves the truth. Simply tell the truth over and over again – the whole truth. Lies cannot withstand the truth. People, given the choice, will eventually see the truth and gravitate toward it.

This isn’t a political game. People crave leadership. People recognize sincerity. Leadership, ultimately, is courageous. Someone needs to be courageous, stop the political posturing, trust people and step up and tell the truth, and lead and let the chips fall where they may.

Both sides of the aisle have consistently languished behind the people on so many issues (including Iraq) as they continue to “pose,” “spin” and continue to try and keep the money interests happy while still trying to appear to have the “greater good” in mind.

Meanwhile soldiers keep dying and people’s lives keep getting shattered and people keep waiting for true leadership.

Get a load of this crap. So what if a thousand die to protect millions. They died so 10,000 of thousands wouldn’t get killed here at home. They sacrifice their lives to keep these terrorists from coming over here and killing innocent men women and children who are not able to fight for themselves. They died to protect our way of like. We must fight them now, stand up against them now because they will nuke our cities and destroy us. Rep. Boehner cried because he understands that in spite of any sacrifice we must make a stand now. Boehner cried, When are we going to stand up against them ? When are we going to get them who attacked us on 9/11? This is the war we must fight.

Excuse me while I throw up. There is no justification for this occupation or these deaths. I will not support funding troop destruction. I will not support funding a failed policy that is killing our soldiers needlessly. I will not support funding that wastes the lives of our soldiers. I will not support funding the war profiteers who make thousands in profit on each soldier’ tour.

I do support a law that states if you are a representative or a senator or part of the executive branch of this government then your children, grand children, brothers and sisters that are of military age must join the military in a time of war.

Each time a soldier from Your district dies then their picture should be sent to their reps and senators as a reminder of what is being sacrificed by their policy and funding support.

If only we could throw their blood on them they would be drenched. Then throw dollars on them to stick to the blood. Now that’s a true policy mirror.

I want to know about each soldier that dies because here is another that could have lived. We need to be reminded daily, just like Nam.

What can we expect to purchase with the expenditure of each life? If one believes that whatever could be accomplished militarily by the US in Iraq has been accomplished, what do we expect to gain from one more death, one more catastophic, life-altering injury? What is it that we hope to salvage by remaining in Iraq and divesting ourselves of hundreds of promising souls every month (to say nothing of the promise drained from the Iraqi culture by death and departure)? Bush said he weighed the “risks and the rewards” of an invasion of Iraq before deciding to go with it. Each passing day, the cost of the risks keep piling up, and the “reward” (a vulgar word in this situation IMO), keeps getting dialed down; how long before it becomes utterly meaningless?

I believe Bush see’s the outcome in Iraq as a means to salvage his place in history. He will spend blood and borrowed treasure for as long as we the people allow him to. He keeps lowering the bar of “success” in Iraq, keeps re-defining what “total victory” means. He seeks vindication over all else. Perhaps the hardworking and well-meaning soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen serving in Iraq will find a way to give it to him. This is an outcome for which Bush devoutly wishes.

So, I do not believe national security enters into the bargain Bush makes with himself every day when it comes to his Iraq policy. But, that is what he is selling, so I do not think we can ignore it. I think we must continue to ask whether it is worth it to keep digging this hole into which the Dear Leader has led us. Will we climb out on the backs of those who will be killled or wounded between today and the day we finally put down the shovel? Sadly, the “is it worth it” part is measured in lives lost or forever altered by injury. How do you tell someone he / she was the last to die to vindicate (as he defines it to himself) a President?

I like Kevin Drum, and usually agree with him, but I think here he’s making the classic Dem mistake of elevating policy debates over emotional appeals. Only wonks, who make up at most about 10% of the population, get policy debates. The other 90% respond to emotional appeals, and tune out policy. The Republicans have shown over and over again that they get this, and the Dems have shown that they don’t, and that’s a big part of the Republicans’ success (which enables them to support policies that are directly opposed to the interests of most of the population).

– Would you like condensed milk or honey with your bread? – Piglet asked
-Both – replied Winnie (and, so as not to sound too greedy, he added: But don’t bother about the bread, please)

Like many commenters above, I’m for using both arguments — the deaths and the lack of security. And any others that we may not have thought of yet , for good measure.

I keep track in a slightly different way than Ed Stephan does; I watch for the “Names of the Dead” boxes in NYTimes. before the splurge, there were days when there were no new deaths and the box didn’t appear. Now there are no such days. Before the splurge, a bad day was 3-5 names; now it’s 7-8.

And the lack of security isn’t an abstract concept, either, when you consider that not every one sent out there is combat troops. There’s also the National Guard, together with their equipment. Their being sent out leaves the country “with bare ass to the ice” (to use a Polish phrase). Where are they when a hurricane or a tornado strikes here? They’re out there. Where are their helicopters which are supposed to be lifting people here? They’re out there too.

Both those arguments would have fairly immediate appeal to the selfish side of eveyone. And for those who think in broader terms (democracy in Iraq, ungrateful bastards, etc)… I’d like to see, more often, the numbers of the dead Iraqi. In the 25 yrs of Saddam’s rule and in the 5yrs since the “liberation”.

Some people compare these casualty figures with Vietnam’s and find that they aren’t so bad. I compare them and see how terrible they are and realize even more now than then just how horrible Vietnam was.

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