Day By Day

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Wretchard on Casualty Counts

Wretchard over at Belmont Club analyzes the statistics on casualties in Iraq. He notes that US casualty levels have not changed much over the past two years but that Iraqi casualties have risen dramatically during that time.

He concludes that the statistics show that 1) the enemy has shifted its strategy from attempting to subvert Iraqi defense forces to trying to kill and intimidate them, 2) both the US and the Iraqi defense forces are now on the attack, carrying the fight to the enemy and in the process incurring high casualties.

Read it here.

In a followup post Wretchard argues that the great weakness of the US plan is that we have not significantly damaged the enemy bases of support in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Syria. We are unwilling to militarily attack those bases, and are substituting "democratization" for military action, but the progress of democratic insurgency is maddeningly slow.

Read it here.

These are both interesting perspectives. The first post provides an answer to those critics who argue that the IDF is hapless. The second reconceives military strategy in a broader sense than is usually considered. Both are worth reading and thinking about.

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