News Brief, Jean Genie Edition
Posted by Joshua Foust on 14 Jul 2007 at 4:35 am | Tagged as: Notes on the war, Foreign affairs, Domestic Politics
Cross-posted on The Conjecturer.
The War
- Iraq has failed to meet most of its benchmarks for five years (in a very real way, they’re 0-18), yet the pro-war types keep begging the other 70% of the country to give diplomacy and political processes more time. Kind of like the anti-war movement in 2002, only on the other side. There comes a time at which you question the ability of some people to gauge reality dispassionately; one of those realities is that the Maliki government will never produce a functioning country; so long as he is in power, we are tilting at windmills. Every tiny little improvement we’ve seen can be traced back to Petraeus’ pragmatism, not competence from Baghdad. More here.
- Coincidentally, the reliance on the Iraq Study Group report troubles me. The thing is 8 months old, and one of its fundamental assumptions—being able to hand over control to Baghdad with some measure of confidence—simply isn’t possible, and doesn’t look to be possible in the near to medium term future. So, again: why do we bother?
- I’m sympathetic to the idea of handing off power in Iraq, but not when the police are with the insurgents and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars. Don’t worry though, you have the Instapundit to supply the media conspiracies and Rich Lowry to glow about how President Bush hates the will of the people! We’re on a surefire path to success!
- Meanwhile, the DoD wonders why the insurgents seem to know their plans and movements so well. I would guess it is because of the astounding amount of sensitive material placed on . The men we’re fighting aren’t stupid; what’s more, they’ve learned how to use the Internet and its inherent network effects to vastly increase the utility of their otherwise minor harassing techniques.
Around the World
- Over at Registan.net, I’ve gotten into a running debate with a reporter from RIA Novosti, and co-blogger Daniel Koehler has a great look at how Turkey factors into the Caspian energy calculus. I also took a brief look at religious persecution in the region.
- Robert Mugabe is not going to be saved by our friend Thabo. Thank the gods. If, as Roger speculates, it was international opprobrium which finally stayed the SADC’s hand, then progress elsewhere might be possible.
- More fun times in Pakistan: I posited before that China is the reason the Lal-Masjid mosque was stormed. A Pakistani journalist is now wondering if there wasn’t an additional layer of underhandedness to the siege: a desire to mask the connections between the Pakistani military establishment and the Islamist network. China, it should be noted, is the largest supplier of Pakistani military equipment, and Pakistan has been looking at making inroads into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. So what is Pakistan up to? I can’t say for sure, but it really does look like Musharraf’s iron rule is decomposing.
- Related: why is China upgrading its northern nuclear forces? A lot of analysts have speculated for a while that Russia and China would go to war over the eastern bits of Siberia that are known to be particularly energy rich; now that Russian gas companies can raise their own armies, could China be worried it might be shut out of the far eastern energy markets?
- Two fascinating pieces on Afghanistan: a worrying trend toward a swarm-based insurgency like what we see in Iraq (more on this as I have the time to write), and a critical take by Sarah Chayes at what role NATO might have played if Bush hasn’t been so imperious about Article V commitments early on. I don’t think she’s entirely right in that more NATO troops (if they even existed) would have helped things; then again, I don’t think the military can solve anything on its own, the DoD’s turf grabs notwithstanding.
Back at Home
- Yes, the incredible shrinking deficit sure is something to behold. Of course, the rate at which it is shrinking has slowed, and still the idea of deliberately spend hundreds of billions of dollars more than you make is baffling. Still: since 2004 Bush has bought us $1.2 trillion in debt, the vast majority of which is not actually war spending or pork (the two bugaboos of the left and right, respectively) but entitlements like medicare and social security—something everyone says they want to reform, but something neither party has quite wrapped its head around. At this rate, Bush will have only doubled our national debt since taking over from Clinton (who, it should be noted, reduced the deficit by more while increasing the size of the government by far less and actually generating surpluses).
- Really, it’s like they want me to hate technology: first AT&T gleefully filters the Internet and the iPhone on behalf of the NSA, and now it seems printer manufacturers spy for the Secret Service. And if you even so much as ask, the government harasses you for wondering about your right to privacy. Not that we’re turning into a police state or anything.
- So, I saw this and took it as confirmation that I should continue keeping an eye toward moving back to Denver.
- Lastly, it’s saucy, but I felt we needed something amazing for the weekend. So, enjoy Jonté and his amazing cadre of backup dancing performing his single, “” in NYC. It’s a bit NSFW because of the language, and really gay, but the dancing is absolutely incredible. I don’t know how they dance like that.
7 Responses to “News Brief, Jean Genie Edition”
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I guess with Iraqi deaths and coalition KIA rates down to their lowest levels in a year we’ll have to wait a bit for another of your snide, dismissive comments on the surge. Waiting for full deployment didn’t stop you from passing judgment so maybe the wait won’t be too long.
Huh? As of July 14, there were 648 coalition deaths. In all of 2006 there were 871. It all sounds lovely until you look at per-month casualty rates (which still say nothing about whether or not the occupation is going well)—in 2006, as of the end of July there were only 425 coalition deaths, while again we’re looking at 648 cumulative for 2007, and we still have a few weeks left in July.
Whoops. But please, keep on laughing at how ‘few’ of our soldiers are getting killed for a hopeless cause.
I know you’re emotionally invested and all but Brookings and ICCC both provide data without the theater drama.
By the way, don’t read too much into the name. I’ve been using it here for a while now. And, just as an FYI, the laughing man didn’t actually laugh but don’t let that interfere with the indignation.
Okay, I’ll leave the bravely anonymous name alone. Are my numbers wrong? If not, how are fatalities down by any measure?
ICCC shows coalition KIA rates at their lowest levels since 9/06. Lowest number of Iraqis killed since 7/06. According to Brookings the number of enemy-initiated attacks is trending down since their peaks, 10/06, 1/07. The numbers of multiple-casuality bombings have been trending down since January. By the way, those numbers are for total casualties, deaths, frequency, and type(across the board). I’ll leave the remaining 53 pages to you. I’m sure your finely tuned horseshitometer will do much better than mine at discerning the Bushite fantasy from the truthier elements. Afterall, I haven’t touched mine in ages.
I’m not saying all your numbers are wrong or right. I’m just saying you are clearly motivated. Unlike you, obviously, I’m more than willing to withhold judgment for now.
I got my numbers from ICCC. How are you representing them? I took a cumulative total for 2006 vs. 2007, broken out by month and country. Looking at short term crests or troughs in casualties isn’t very illustrative, as this insurgency, like all insurgencies, is uneven and not easily trend-lined.
I am indeed clearly motivated. The first 2-3 years I was a passionate advocate of the invasion, and now I feel like it was all built on lies and negligence and I’m pissed. Sorry if that offends you, but I don’t pretend to be objective.
In Iraq, battle deaths are a primary measure of two things:
1. The number and effectiveness of IED attacks, and
2. The amount of urban (house to house) fighting to which the US commits.
Using casualty figures to determine anything meaningful about the war would be tremendously assisted if we had any idea about the troop strength or lack thereof of enemy forces, but we don’t. Certainly our losses, as upsetting as they are, are nowhere near the point where US military effectiveness could be affected.
A better barometer of our effectiveness—although far from perfect—would be a territorial assessment: how much territory the enemy controls, how much territory we control, and whether or not those territories are growing or shrinking.
yours/
peter.