Is the Bush Administration Certifiable?

[bemildred]

I know, it's Libertarian, but the Libertarians share my
contempt for the Imperial Reich.

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We are getting our butts kicked in Iraq, and Bush wants to invade more countries? It is clear as day that we do not have enough troops to deal with Iraq. The 12,000 additional troops "to improve security" are being acquired by extending the combat tours of troops already on duty in Iraq. More US soldiers were killed in Iraq in November than in any previous month. The US is so hard up for troops that the Pentagon is deploying soldiers who have lost arms and legs in combat. On December 1 the Washington Post reported: "US armed forces have recently announced new efforts to keep seriously wounded or disabled soldiers on active duty."

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According to the US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, the hospital has treated 20,802 US troops for injuries received in Iraq. According to the Pentagon’s figures, 54% of the wounded are too seriously injured to return to their units. If that figure is correct, it would mean that the insurgents have put 11,233 US troops out of action. Add in the 1,254 US troops who have been killed for a total of 12,487. That’s 9% of our total force in Iraq and a much higher percentage of our combat force.

There is no indication that we have put 12,487 Iraqi insurgents out of action. Indeed, until very recently the US military estimated that there were only several thousand active insurgents in all of Iraq.

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For all our firepower, we are not winning the war. Fallujah has been destroyed, but the US military can claim only 1200–1600 insurgents were killed. Many of the dead counted as insurgents are probably civilians killed by the US military’s indiscriminate use of high explosives. But even if we assume the military’s estimate of enemy dead is accurate, it is an unimpressive figure in view of the 850 wounded and 71 dead Americans. US Fallujah casualties of 921 is a strikingly high figure considering the heavy armor, artillery, helicopter gunships, jet fighters, and sophisticated communications that back up US troops.

LewRockwell.com

[teryang]

1. We are getting judo flipped every day

...what about the tens of billions in resources wasted there? The casualties are bad enough, but the operation is not fiscally sustainable either. The entire political agenda of our nation is being dictated to by the requirements of a military campaign that is doomed to failure. The number of Iraqi's who's lives, families and business endeavors have been destroyed aren't even measured. The truth is that we have created millions of new enemies and have alienated the entire Islamic world.

Er, mission accomplished?

[googly]

2. The current Iraq war is a typical urban guerilla warfare....however

compared to previous urban guerilla warfare history, we are doing better by orders of magnitude in terms of speed of victories and ratio of enemy killed to our casualties.

[teryang]

3. Let's do body counts, oh I forgot...

...we don't do body counts.

[The Doctor.]

4. What's that ratio?

If we're talking orders of magnitude - it must be 10 to 1.

So we've killed nearly 12,000 insurgents then.

Really - what's the ratio?

Let's hear it.

[googly]

12. I think in hand to hand, house to house, urban combat,

the military expects almost even number of casualties on both sides, which is why this is the most dreaded form of combat. I don't have exact stats but in the recent Falluja offensive, we killed aprox 1200 vs our killed are less than 100.

[bemildred]

6. "typical urban guerilla warfare"

Would the acronym be "TUGW" maybe?

We are getting our ass handed to us on a plate, in terms of
guerilla conflict, as was predicted before this fuckwit display
started, and the political "leadership", and I use that term
loosely, does not give a shit because their primary agenda is
domestic politics, i.e. remaining in power a bit longer and
running the country into bankruptcy, or as near to that as can
be managed.

[The Doctor.]

8. Ready for something ugly?

Go do a study of 'reserve currency' in relationship to our national debt and who holds a bunch of it and a VERY scary picture will emerge.

Especially since what emerges from that picture is... this administration thinks they are going to SAVE us. (from ourselves)

Essentially by getting into an illegal invasion rather than playing on a level field... pretty typical of these Neo-cons... oh yeah - and they SUCK at 'saving us'

[bemildred]

9. Yep, I know. nt

[LastDemocratInSC]

5. Libertarians share every person's desire for a free lunch

Enough said.

[bemildred]

7. Try to be coherent.

What are you trying to say?
Libertarians are Socialists, or welfare queens, or what?

[LastDemocratInSC]

10. Try this link

I don't endorse EVERY point made here, but I think it is, in the main, a good representation of how I feel libertarianism.

I would, for example, get rid of the "stupid" label and replace it with "ignorant" (that is a lame attempt to make you feel better).

http://www.amadan.org/blog/archives/000077.html

[bemildred]

11. OK, I agree.

Some of their "thinking" is shallow, narrow-gauge stuff, and
the Ayn Rand worship makes me want to puke, and I think governments
can be versatile and useful myself, politics doesn't have to be
a zero-sum game.