US and the World

Timing and body count and. . .

Top News Article | Reuters.com

Hey, am I th eonly one who fears there's a soprdid connection between our agressive stance in Iraq yesterday and the president's losing of the foreign policy debate?

Oh - and what about body counts. Notice that we are now into that business when at the start of the war the Army kept saying it wasn't going to do it. (Body counting became absolutely notorious in Vietna,)

Finally - whose bodies are we counting? Suspected enemy soldiers? Or real ones? Civilians caught in the crossfire? (Or are they still being ignored unless they are killed by the insurgents? Notice how everytime an insurgent attack occurs we hear about all the civilian deaths - and we should - but when w attack we hear about how many insurgents - or suspected insurgents - we kill? You think no women and children are getting in the way of all that firepower we bring to bear on a broad target area?

And notice in this toughest of fighting, that the kill ratio is 100-1? I don't want more Americans getting killed - I would just like to know what that says about the determination of an enemy that still fights when the odds are so horrific? Are they ignorant? Desperate? Fanatical? Or extremely brave? If the Russians were on the attacking end and the people resisting them were dying at a ratio of 100-1, how would we label those resistors? Crazy? Hell no. Theyw ould be "freedom fighters." So how do we think the rest of the world sees this battle?

Does anyone have a clue? Is there any press coverage of the other point of view? Obviously our press doesn't cover it - but does the Arab press? And if so, what is it reporting? Is any of it reliable?