Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

Michael Yon writes about the state of medical support in the war, which is surely the best in any war, any time in history.

Yes, that's true, for Americans. It's a little different for Iraqis. In particular, the Sunnis are terrified of the Iraqi hospital network. There they expect to be treated by Dr. Giggles. In fact, one of the American enticements to Sunni allies in Anbar is to transport them to Sunni clinics instead of to standard hospitals.

The Sunnis are well aware that Moktada al-Sadr runs the Health Ministry.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082901680.html

Posted by Jim Harris at October 9, 2007 08:49 AM

Maybe if we hadn't invaded, Iraq would be a better place. I mean it's a HUGE difference being killed in sectarian violence now, as opposed to being killed by Saddam and his henchmen.

Posted by Steve at October 9, 2007 09:29 AM

Well, considering that Saddam killed several million people and the sectarian violence is killing them at about one-tenth his rate (incidentally, the sectarian violence is quite comparable to the ongoing violent death rate in the worst neighborhoods of large American cities) ... yes, it is a huge difference.

Posted by Jay Manifold at October 9, 2007 09:45 AM

Certainly it's a difference for America, because Sadr is much more Islamist and anti-American than Saddam Hussein was. And given that Sadr control the Health Ministry, it should make you wonder which basketball hoop in Iraq scores points for us, if even either one of them does.

And as I was saying in the other thread, it's also a difference for Iraqi bloggers. Most of them are Sunni and they are leaving Iraq for their survival. That includes Omar and Ali Fadhil.

On the up side, sectarian casualties in Iraq are down this year. According to the Health Ministry.

Posted by Jim Harris at October 9, 2007 09:46 AM

Hey Jim,

When posting a link to a article supporting your position on a volatile and rapidly changing subject, please insure that it is timely (the article was over a year old) and from a reputable reporter.

The links below call the reporter's reliability in question. They are also old but far newer then the one you linked to:

http://www.redstate.com/stories/archived/is_wapo_sending_a_fabulist_to_iraq

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2007/07/29/uh-oh-washington-post-sending-repeat-offender-corrections-box-iraq

http://www.scwc.org/What_s_New/vulture_reply.doc

Posted by George Tyson at October 9, 2007 10:15 AM

The Sunnah of Iraq should not have bought into their "right to rule" fantasies.

Now that they have lost their war to re-take power through Saddam's methods, they reap the consequences.

It sucks that tribal politics works that way. But those politics developed over millenia for a very good reason... they worked. It limited the will to power by making the consequences for misjudgment very high.

In principle, I suppose it is possible to abandon one's (Sunni) clan and join a Shia clan within a particular tribe, or to transfer from one tribe to another. BUT, I suspect that is difficult to do when sectarian tensions run high.

----------

You may have noticed that news coverage of Iraq has softened since almost all the Democratic aspirants for President stated that they couldn't guarantee to be out of Iraq by 2013. The political value of Iraq as a Democrat campaign 2008 issue has dropped below zero. Hence, we see Hillary! reverting to tax and spend form.

To you would-be Cassandras...

Don't bet against the US. Don't bet against our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coasties. Don't bet against the fragility of the mullahcracy of the Persian Empire. Don't bet against the desire of Iraqis of all groups to recover the humanity that Saddam's regime tore from their souls.

To you would-be Cassandras...

You have my emnity.

Cheers.

Posted by MG at October 9, 2007 10:27 AM

By way of illustrating my earlier point, grazing (Midwesterners don't surf) over here and here and doing a bit of math shows that the homicide rate among African-Americans in KC was 58 per 100,000 per year for the period 1995-2004.

It's slightly worse now; for 2006 (figures here) it was 61 per 100,000.

Now taking the range given by Iraq Body Count, which covers 4½ years, and doing the same math, I find a rate of 67-72 per 100,000.

So why is what's happening in Iraq the Worst Thing In The World™?

And why isn't what's happening in our own back yards getting this kind of attention?

Posted by Jay Manifold at October 9, 2007 12:33 PM

Jay M:

B/c if we hadn't gone into Iraq, then the bill-y-uns and bill-y-uns we spent on Iraq would've been spent on night basketball programs, and the homcide rate would've fallen, of course!

Isn't that obvious?

Posted by Lurking Observer at October 9, 2007 01:54 PM

B/c if we hadn't gone into Iraq, then the bill-y-uns and bill-y-uns we spent on Iraq would've been spent on night basketball programs, and the homcide rate would've fallen, of course!

Oh, Bog! Lurker, we ARE spending billions on things like night basketball programs -- and free prescription drug benefits, and Mike Griffin's version of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and many more.

Iraq has contributed to the growth in the Federal budget, but it has not been the major cause. The major cause is all those domestic spending programs that supporters say don't count because they are "less than 1% of the Federal budget."

Every government program is "less than 1% of the Federal budget," if you break the budget down finely enough. To paraphrase an old Washington saying, "$17 billion here, $17 billion there -- pretty soon you're talking about real money."

Posted by Edward Wright at October 9, 2007 06:02 PM

When posting a link to a article supporting your position on a volatile and rapidly changing subject

You have thrown up some quarreling over details in stories that have nothing to do with Iraq anyway. It would be one thing if Amit Paley's story about murder by Shiite militias in Iraqi hospitals were some wild new claim, but it isn't. (His stories about student loan corruption or pest vultures aren't either.) Moktada al-Sadr has controlled the Iraqi Health Ministry for as long as Maliki has been prime minister, since 2005. American troops have even raided the health ministry for that reason.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/02/08/iraq.main/

Given that Sadr controls Iraq's hospitals, who could fairly blame Iraqi Sunnis for being terrified of them? As I said, the US in Anbar has offered Sunnis the safety of staying away from the main hospital system if they are injured; it is mentioned in an Anbar article that was treated as "good news" by pro-war bloggers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/magazine/02iraq-t.html

Really none of this is in dispute at all. The Iraqi government that the US supports is controlled by Shiite militias that it opposes. These militias are Islamist, pro-Iranian, and anti-American. The US objective in Iraq is therefore self-contradictory.

And to get back to the original point, it may be true that trauma care for Americans in Iraq may be as well-orchestrated as a Daytona 500 pit stop. But it is also true that trauma care for Sunnis in Iraq --- even pro-American educated Sunnis like Omar Fadhil --- is as horrifying as Dr. Giggles.

Posted by Jim Harris at October 9, 2007 06:25 PM

bill-y-uns and bill-y-uns

Not even Carl Sagan would pronounce the word "trillion" that way. Bush has already requested $600 billion for the Iraq war specifically. No one now believes that total appropriations will come in under a trillion.

It is also not true that the money would have been spent on basketball, midnight or otherwise. The entire $600 billion so far is on credit. It is all emergency appropriations that have had no bearing on taxes or on other spending. The trillion will be taken out of the valuation of American currency. Not basketball.

Posted by Jim Harris at October 9, 2007 06:39 PM

Yeah, that war's really breaking the bank.

Posted by Jay Manifold at October 10, 2007 04:50 AM

Jay, that chart is beside the point. It's just the defense budget; it doesn't include the Iraq war. The Iraq war isn't breaking the bank, it's breaking the credit card. If the Iraq war were part of the defense budget, or if otherwise it were funded with regular appropriations, then maybe it would be covered with taxes or spending cuts. It would be more affordable than it actually is. Instead, they are paying for it by weakening the American dollar.

Besides, comparing the Iraq war to the entire US economy is an arrogant ratio. After all, Iraq has less than a tenth of the population of the US. What you are unintentionally saying with this comparison is, oh sure, we can survive if we adopt Iraq as the 51st state. We can spend a trillion dollars on it and the Republic won't come crashing down. That is all true, but that doesn't mean that we won't miss the money.

And again, this goes way, way beyond midnight basketball. One month of the Iraq war would fund 300 years of midnight basketball.

Posted by Jim Harris at October 10, 2007 07:55 AM

"The Iraq war isn't breaking the bank, it's breaking the credit card. "

National security has a top claim on the national budget.

In reality, middle class entitlements are breaking the credit card.

Posted by MG at October 10, 2007 12:52 PM

Jim, I stand by my assertion, which reduces to: war in the 21st century is (so far) cheaper than peace was in the 20th. Actually, I should use quotes, thus -- "war" in the 21st century is (so far) cheaper than "peace" was in the 20th, "war" these days being low-intensity conflict with combat death rates barely above those of ordinary garrison duty, and "peace" back in the day being mainly the peace of the grave for the victims of tyranny.

Nothing is breaking the credit card, or anywhere near requiring something like LBJ's surtax to pay for Vietnam (the speech announcing which I remember watching on live TV). Deficits will be gone within three years if Congress leaves well enough alone. The money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan has saved on the order of a million lives already, and to the extent that it prevents, or even delays, a nuclear arms race in that part of the world, may well end up saving tens of millions.

MG's assertion that middle-class entitlements are the greater threat is nearer the mark, but in reality we're probably going to get away with that stuff too, as the double-exponential growth pattern identified by Kurzweil continues. Everybody seems to have their own favorite what's-gonna-eat-our-fiscal-lunch scenario. I've stopped believing in any of them.

The question is not "can we afford X?" The question is "is X the job of the Federal Government of the US?" See The Case for Goliath for extended (and, as near as I can tell, nonpartisan) discussion.

Posted by Jay Manifold at October 10, 2007 04:52 PM

Jim, I stand by my assertion, which reduces to: war in the 21st century is (so far) cheaper than peace was in the 20th.

You can stand by it if you please, but it isn't really true. If you count the Iraq war, then total military spending is now almost as large as a fraction of GDP as it was at the height of the Reagan buildup, and outright more than it was in many years in the 1970s. Moreover, this is once again a very cavalier ratio. The fraction of GDP does not tell you how cheap or expensive something is, it tells you how affordable it is. Both the population and the economy have expanded since Reagan was president. If you fairly account for inflation only, then the George W. Bush military program is more expensive than the Reagan military program.

Nothing is breaking the credit card

Something sure is busting the credit card, given that the American dollar has lost a quarter of its value against a relevant basket of foreign currencies in the past 6 years. The Iraq war is not the reason for most of that massive devaluation, but it is one of several giant credit drains.

The money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan has saved on the order of a million lives already

You have been especially cavalier about tossing around millions of lives lost or saved. If the Iraq war were really such a fountain of life, it wouldn't be so hard to find Iraqi bloggers who (a) agree with that description, and (b) are still in Iraq. Yes, Saddam Hussein killed a lot of people, but so has the Iraq war. Several key Iraqi leaders today are just as willing to kill as Saddam Hussein was, and they are killing a lot of people, but it's not clear how many. Many more than get reported in the newspapers, that's for sure. I don't see that you have any special insight as to which has taken lives at the faster rate.

See The Case for Goliath

"How America Acts as the World's Government in the Twenty-first Century" is a very reasonable subtitle for this book. But the book is very wrong about one thing. The word "abdication" only appears once; it should be an entire chapter.

Posted by Jim Harris at October 10, 2007 11:18 PM

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