At the end of the fourth quarter of any football game, you can look up at the scoreboard and see something that looks like this: Quarters 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Final Team Iowa 0 7 14 10 31 Ohio State 7 10 14 14 45 But imagine a scoreboard that looked like this:
Quarters 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Final Team
Iowa 0 7 14 10 31 Ohio State ? ? ? ? ???? From the latter scoreboard, you might find it difficult to determine whether Iowa won or lost. And that’s the way it is in Iraq. The Bush Administration and the American press have given us an "Iraq War Scoreboard" that looks a lot like this: Casualties by Periods: 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Total American Soldiers Killed 140 718 579 715 1,003 3,155 Terrorists Killed ? ? ? ? ? ???? Is it any wonder that most Americans don't know whether we are winning or losing? Is it any wonder that a good many Americans are now absolutely convinced that we are losing the war? Our Defense Department gives us a scrupulous count of American casualties. Because over 3,100 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq, and another 350-plus have been killed in Afghanistan, many Democrats in Congress, and many in the press insist American is "bogged down" in an "unwinnable Vietnam-style war." Have we managed to kill any al-Qaida or Taliban fighters during the last five years? Have we maimed any? Or have all the bombs our planes have dropped and all the bullets our troops have fired missed their targets? Because "body counts" tabulated during the Vietnam era were deemed misleading, our Defense Department does not publish body counts as to Taliban or al-Qaida fighters killed. Instead we are left to get our numbers from the leaders of al-Qaida. In October of 2006, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, shed at least a modicum light on the matter. "We have shed much blood in Iraq: (We have lost) more than 4,000 volunteers from outside (the country), and a much greater number from among the supporters (of Islam within Iraq). Presumably some Taliban and al-Qaida types have also suffered a similar fate in Afghanistan. But again, since the Department of Defense, doesn't publish numbers, hard numbers are hard to come by. But there is one "scoreboard" on which we clearly are winning. The on-line encyclopedia, Wikipedia ("Suicide Bombings in Iraq") gives the details of over 100 such bombings since the beginning of the war in 2003. The following are typical 2007 examples listed: -- Feb. 25: A suicide bomber attacked a college campus in Baghdad killing 41 people, mostly students. -- Feb. 26: A suicide bomber attacked a police station in Ramadi killing 14 people. A suicide bomber attacked a checkpoint near Kirkuk killing one Iraqi soldier. -- Feb. 27: A suicide bomber attacked an Iraqi police station in Mosul killing 7 policemen and wounding 47 people, including 15 other policemen. A suicide bomber killed four people near Mosul. A rough tally of the Wikipedia statistics shows the following "scoreboard:" Deaths by Suicide Bombings 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 In Iraq 126 530 1195 1123 567 In the United States 0 0 0 0 0 The suicide bombing deaths in Iraq are the work of Muslims killing Muslims. Amercan soldiers are not using suicide bombs to kill either Shiites or Sunnis. The carnage is barbaric and deplorable. But if followers of Islam feel compelled to be suicide bombers, I would prefer they kill each other, rather than Americans in the United States. Many in America see the gathering of the terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan as clear proof the Iraq War was a mistake. They correctly point out that incoming terrorists seek to kill our soldiers every chance they get. No sane American wants to see any American soldier killed or wounded. But most rational Americans will agree that drawing the terrorists into Iraq and Afghanistan where our soldiers can deal with them, is preferable to putting our forces in Okinawa and waiting for another 9-11 to happen, and preferable to freeing up the terrorist to train in peace, and cross our porous borders to begin a campaign of suicide bombings here. Is it possible that American strategy just might be to lure the terrorists into a "meat grinder" far from our own shores where our soldiers can kill them before they can kill Americans at home, or suicide bomb in our cities? Has it ever occurred to anyone that each al-Qaida terrorist fighting our troops abroad, or killed in Iraq or Afghanistan is one less terrorist available to attack us here at home? Has it ever occurred to anybody that al-Qaida, the Taliban and their allies are hopelessly bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq? Copyright 2007 John Donald O'Shea Posted Online: Posted on Quad City on Line: March 8, 2007 2:34 PM
Print publication date: 03/09/2007, Moline Dispatch
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