[antimedia] antimedia: The Iraq Index report is out....

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Posted by antimedia:
The Iraq Index report is out....
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1149309131.shtml


   ....and unlike previous months, I'm not going to go into too much
   detail. (You can [1]read it yourself.) I will point out that, despite
   the media coverage and the morose attitude generally portrayed about
   Iraq by many on the left and in the media (but I repeat myself),
   fatalities are not as high, for our troops, for Iraqi security forces
   or for Iraqi civilians as they have been previously. You'd never know
   it, to read the reports, but the level of violence in Iraq today is
   not nearly as high as it was last year.
   [2]One example. In 2004 we lost 848 KIA and 7992 WIA in Iraq. In 2005
   we lost 846 KIA and 5945 WIA. To date, in 2006, we have lost 294 KIA
   and 1523 WIA. If the violence doesn't lessen, by the end of the year,
   the annualized rates would be 706 KIA and 3677 WIA. Clearly we have
   improved, year to year.
   Make no mistake about it, our men and women are making sacrifices in
   Iraq. However, the Iraqis are paying [3]a much higher price. Since
   February 22, 2006, 621 Iraqi police and military and 3132 civilians
   have been killed.
   It is the greatest of ironies that women and children are slaughtered
   like sheep daily in Iraq, yet the world is outraged by the possibility
   that Marines may have killed 24 civilians in a city filled with
   insurgents who were slaughtering the very same civilians daily.
   Let's not forget Haditha was where six Marine snipers were killed in
   one day and fourteen more Marines died in roadside bombs in the single
   worst day for Marine deaths in Iraq. Haditha was the city were
   insurgents [4]hung Iraqis daily for the "crime" of not supporting the
   "insurgency".

     The executions are carried out at dawn on Haqlania bridge, the
     entrance to Haditha. A small crowd usually turns up to watch even
     though the killings are filmed and made available on DVD in the
     market the same afternoon.
     One of last week's victims was a young man in a black tracksuit.
     Like the others he was left on his belly by the blue iron railings
     at the bridge's southern end. His severed head rested on his back,
     facing Baghdad. Children cheered when they heard that the next
     day's spectacle would be a double bill: two decapitations. A man
     named Watban and his brother had been found guilty of spying.
     With so many alleged American agents dying here Haqlania bridge was
     renamed Agents' bridge. Then a local wag dubbed it Agents' fridge,
     evoking a mortuary, and that name has stuck.

   Marines may have committed a war crime in Haditha. If they did, they
   will be convicted after a thorough investigation and a fair trail. No
   such fairness or consideration was given to the Iraqis that will
   killed by the "insurgents".
   Is there much difference between the children of Haditha, who cheered
   as Iraqis were beheaded, and the people now crying for the heads of
   Marines?

References

   1. http://www.brookings.org/iraqindex
   2. http://icasualties.org/oif/
   3. http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx
   4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1553969,00.html