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Lord Merciless
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I'll wait at least 3 months before making such claims.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:30
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quote:
Originally posted by DAVOUT
Is the decrease in casualties resulting from a decrease in the number of attacks, or in less efficient attacks? |
Reports indicate a decrease in the number of attacks - the decrease apparently began some weeks ago, but was not reflected in casualty figures, due to an INCREASE in the efficiency of attacks. Fewer attacks, but a greater percent by real pros, and the pros are constantly learning.
Thats why, pace Boris, this looked significant - lots of metrics - effective raids by US forces detaining militia leaders and capturing arms, decreasing tempo of attacks, increase in number and quantity of info provided to coalition troops even in heart of sunni triangle, even in Tikrit, improving law and order conditions in Baghdad, etc all point to genuine improvement - it was the US death toll that was LAGGING these other indicators. Plenty of reason for it to decline.
But again, as GEPap said, you cant say anything much from a weeks worth of numbers. Theres clearly alot of random variability in daily numbers. Less than 5 deaths in 3 weeks would be better news than zero deaths in 4 days, etc.
I think some folks seized on the 5 days of zero US combat deaths, in response to the pessimists constant citing of the daily casualty count as evidence " americans are killed every day, this proves this is a quagmire" - so its assumed that if several days go by without americans being killed, that disproves this argument and shows its not a quagmire. In all probablity both arguments are wrong. We need to look at the big picture. The problem with looking at the big picture is that most measures of it are subjective. The BBC, Guardian, and New York Times always manage to find folks in Iraq who will tell you that hostility to the US is growing, while US officers and will tell you about improving relations with ordinary iraqis, declining tempo of attacks, and that almost all attacks are ex-baathists or foreigners, not ordinary iraqis. The US military does not have tremendous credibility with many who remember steady lies during Viet Nam. OTOH the more dovish elements of the media do not have much credibility with hawks, in view of both their recent cries of quagmire in Iraq and afghanistan, and a record of misreporting military affairs that goes back, yes, to Viet Nam.
So the only thing people follow is the on undeniable metric, combat deaths. But in doing so they probably fall into the McNamara fallacy of over focusing on what is most easily measured - surely something we should have learned about from Viet Nam.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:30
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quote:
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
It's a perfect sort of target.
A way of telling everyone "they don't control what happens here, they can't make you safe"
There's a limit to what the US can physically secure over a country that large, with the manpower we have in place.
Whether things are dying down, changing gears, or this is a resupply and redeploy phase, we'll know a bit down the line. |
thats why we need Iraqis to secure the country.
For example (from Centcom):
"An Iraqi guard at a power station in Baghdad observed three individuals placing a burlap bag along the side of a road. 1st AD soldiers investigated and determined the bag contained an improvised explosive device. The IED exploded before the explosive ordnance team could detonate it. "
whats amazing is that the flow of info from Iraqis to coalition forces has increased in the last few weeks, despite the abundant evidence that coalition troops cant keep them safe.
Why?
1. The reports about iraqi info coming in are all Pentagon lies
2. The iraqis are responding to the attacks on them by increasing the flow of info to the coalition. They are either acting out of anger at the baathists, or are putting their country and community ahead of individual safety
3. Things arent as unsafe there as they look (well at least prior to Jordan embassy bombing) Few friendly Iraqis are illed, proportionate to number of friendly iraqis, and many iraqis who are killed in baathist attacks have nothing to do with the coalition, so helping the coalition doesnt reduce ones safety all that much.
4. Some other explanation
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HershOstropoler
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quote:
Originally posted by DAVOUT
But we cannot exclude that the Baathist resistance will never get the momentum required to expand the operations and recruit new fighters.
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I think it's just a matter of time until the islamists take over.
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HershOstropoler
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Islam as a political ideology.
There are several potential sources: Sunni frustration, Shiites wanting to take over the country, and foreign fanatics drawn by US troops on a silver plate like moths by the light.
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:30
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quote:
Originally posted by HershOstropoler
Islam as a political ideology.
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So if someone says they believe in progressive taxation cause islam believes in charity to the poor, does that make them Islamist - that seems to be much of the approach of the current "islamist" govt in Turkey - a muslim equivalent of Christian Democracy.
Or how about imposition of Sharia law as FAMILY law for muslims only. Thats already the case in most muslim majority countries, and is the case in Israel as well - is Israel Islamist?
No, the real concern is a either an imposition of Sharia law in a wide variety of normally secular areas, or the establishment, as in Iran, of a formal role in govt for the religious hierarchy - neither of which is very likely.
quote:
There are several potential sources: Sunni frustration, Shiites wanting to take over the country, and foreign fanatics drawn by US troops on a silver plate like moths by the light. |
the shiites as a group will run the country, effectively, since they are the majority. However many Shiites are secular. And many of the Shiites who are not have seen the Iranian model and dont like it - including apparently the most respected Shiite cleric in the country, ayatollah Sistani. And even some of those who like it in theory realize the friction it would mean with the Sunnis and so will not push for it.
As for frustrated Sunni arabs, there arent enough of them to push this through.
And the foreigners will just get themselves killed.
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JohnT
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Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:30
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quote:
So the only thing people follow is the on undeniable metric, combat deaths. But in doing so they probably fall into the McNamara fallacy of over focusing on what is most easily measured - surely something we should have learned about from Viet Nam. |
I have been reading about the career of that man (Robert McNamara), and your "McNamara fallacy" is as succinct a description of everything that man did wrong in his career as anything I've read. 
Reminds me of the time when he was at Ford. One Monday he brought in a set of figures that he had doodled while sitting in church. These numbers represented a new car that McNamara thought Ford should build, figures that included the weight, price, length, weight, profitability, etc of the car. When he showed the piece of paper to the head of design (name unknown, though I can look it up if you care) and said that this should be Fords newest model, the man looked at him and said:
"But Bob. There's nothing here that tells us what type of car to build."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, is this a sedan, is it a hot rod for the teens, is it a pickup truck, what? Who are you selling this to?"
"Oh. I can see why that would be important."
Poor Bob. America's most successful failure, other than in the selling of Bob McNamara.
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06-08-2003 20:35
) thought there was a general uprising by the Iraqi people.
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