Hope and Body Counts

Iraqis are still dying while under the oppression of 150,000 American soldiers, but there is some HOPE, even though there have been no withdrawals. Barack Obama promised in February that “By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end.”

Up to 50,000 troops would remain under the agreement the Bush administration had to be left with no other option except to sign to leave by January, 2012, which nicely coincides with the start of Obama’s possible second term.

However, let’s look at what Obama said during his election campaign. On his “BARACK OBAMA: TURNING THE PAGE IN IRAQ” official campaign hand-out, Barack Obama promised he “would immediately begin [meaning January 2009] to pull out troops engaged in combat operations at a pace of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of next year [meaning December 2009].” In July 2008, he also announced that the Iraq combat mission would be over by May 2010. Now its September 2010. Nice work, slick. The pdf file that states this appears to have been deleted from barackobama.com, but I will email the pdf I downloaded to anyone.

Afghanis are still dying under the oppression of soon-to-be 60,000 American soldiers, and the 2009 YTD kill rate for soldiers slightly exceeds 2008’s totals. Barack Obama recently announced he would transfer 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. In July 2008, the Barackcuda announced he favored the transfer of 7,000 troops to Afghanistan. This is splitting hairs a bit, as Obama, despite his many pro-peace and antiwar followers, has always resolutely stated he would increase our presence in Afghanistan. He has always resolutely stated he would increase the size of our Armed Forces by 100,000 troops, which are 100,000 more mouths to feed and equipment to supply for the ever-declining “revenue base,” aka American taxpayer, to support.

Vice President Biden was said to have warned against a military quagmire in Afghanistan, but let’s just hope that he is wrong. A little known fact is that the Vietnam War only had 401 US war deaths under Kennedy and Johnson during its first 5 years, which does seem somewhat comparable to Afghanistan’s, see below. However, in all fairness, many Americans had very little idea what was going on in Vietnam, and no major offensives were started until year 6.

As seen below, the Vietnam dead went exponential, leaving a total of 57,000 dead in the years listed. Afghanistan and Iraq together have cost over 4,900 Americans. Over 5,000 if you include the 177 soldier overseas suicides. Perhaps many thousands more if you include the suicide rate of soldiers or ex-soldiers in the US.

(Vietnam data, Afghanistan data, Iraq data)

In the previous writings, I have argued the moral case to stopping both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Like Ron Paul had suggested all along, reviving the power to Letters of Marque and Reprisal granted in the Constitution to the Congress was, especially in hindsight, a far better solution in my humble opinion.

However, in our troubled economic times does it not seem perfectly retarded that we continue to expend the last dying breaths of our military empire amidst the Iraqi desert, the Afghanistan mountains? Or is that the only way our leaders see to remain the world’s superpower? To oppress by force? To be fair, only expect delay after delay from Barackcuda in the future, with luck he will CHANGE his mind in favor of our troops. Well, one can always HOPE, right? Barack Obama: “Chains We Can Believe In.”

If any of this makes sense, feel free to join the rEVOLution at www.CampaignForLiberty.com. The more patriots, the better. If not, thanks for reading this far, and please feel perfectly free to converse below if you wish.