Friday, January 11, 2008

Iraq War: Quarterly Update

There is no denying that deaths have fallen sharply over the last three months. It appears to be from a combination of factors:
  1. The American military has begun hiring Sunni insurgents, paying them more money to shoot at somebody else than they were earning shooting at Americans.
  2. The Shi'ite militias have been keeping their power dry. Their ongoing ceasefire has been a major factor in the quiet months.
  3. Ethnic cleansing has been mostly accomplished, there are few remaining mixed neighborhoods.
  4. War casualties from the border fighting between Turkey and the Kurds are not being included into any statistics.
This may mark the beginning of Iraqi acceptance of their colonial status. The alleged Iraq government is as dysfunctional as ever, but, as a colonial puppet government, it has never had to be functional. It is telling to me that when John McCain spoke about the United States occupying Iraq for 100, 1000, a million years it didn't cause a ripple of comment from Iraqis. That is colonial obsequence.

If Republicans (including Hillary Clinton) maintain the presidency long enough the colonial status of Iraq will become permanent. Like the Philippines 100 years ago, the Iraqi mothers will get used to their daughters earning better money as whores than their husbands can earn at honest labor, the young men will learn that the best jobs available to them will be working for the US Army, almost all Iraqis will accept the constant petty humiliations of being second class citizens in their own country, those who don't will be imprisoned or killed for their pride, and the American populous will become used to owning Iraq and will consider it our noblesse oblique.

American Military Deaths
4th quarter 2007 .... 98
4th quarter 2006 .... 303
War Total .......... 3,921

Total US deaths for 2007 - 901 (the highest yearly total of the five years of the war).

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