Locus Medius

Things Head Downhill for Bush

As the 2006 election season comes to a close, we're starting to see additional criticism of Bush by his traditional supporters.

Since the 2004 election, we've seen his support erode among the military, among some conservatives and even among his journalistsupporters. I have long argued that this eroding support is at least partially the result of election politics. Prior to 2004, conservatives kept their criticisms to themselves, fearing their criticism would result in a Democratic president. Now that criticizing Bush is less likely to affect a future presidential race, conservatives have felt freer to air their grievances.

I believe the same dynamic is playing out as the 2006 election season comes to a close. Now that it is pretty much too late for anything they say to affect Tuesday's outcome very much, we are seeing the first of the next wave of Bush criticism from his traditional supporters.

CNN is breaking the story about an article being prepared for the January edition of Vanity Fair which quotes a number of previous Bush supporters. Richard Perle "now says dysfunction within the Bush administration has turned U.S. policy [in Iraq] into a disaster". Kenneth Adelman states that Bush's national security team "turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the postwar era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional."

In a related story, the Army Times will repeat its call for Donald Rumsfeld to resign. "'Basically, the editorial says, it's clear now, from some of the public statements that military leaders are making, that he's lost the support and respect of the military leadership,' said Robert Hodierne, senior managing editor for the publications' parent company Army Times Publications."

This will only get worse for Bush. Even Republican presidential aspirants in 2008 will be trying to distance themselves from Bush's failures.

Great Medical Care Masking True Intensity of Iraq War

I think one of the factors that gets missed in discussions of the Iraq War is the extent to which improved medical care is masking the full extent of U.S. casualties. This article from CNN points out that the survival rate of soldiers arriving at field hospitals is twice the rate in Vietnam. They do not give enough data to figure out what that means for overall casualty rates, but it is certain that death rates in Iraq are much lower than they would be with the medical care that was state of the art during Vietnam.

I've read previous articles that described some of the advances that have been made. While trauma care has improved, the major advances are in reducing the time before a wounded soldier reaches a medical facility and, even more importantly, advanced medic training for our troops. Apparently, every soldier and marine now gets almost as much first aid training as a combat medic received in Vietnam. Combat medic training has similarly advanced since Vietnam. At every step of the way, starting with their buddy giving them first aid all the way up to advanced trauma care at a combat surgical hospital, our guys are getting better medical care than ever. And that's great.

But we need to remember that saving more wounded solders' lives makes the war look less intense, without making the war actually be less intense.

Good News From Iraq

The nutjobs over at the American Enterprise Institute have published a story in their monthly magazine regarding good news out of Iraq. Given the source, take this with a grain of salt (or maybe a whole salt lick), but plenty of the supporting data they give is from public polls, so there's probably some basis here.

Here's a couple examples of things that no one else seems to be reporting:

Troops wounded in action are down from 7,920 in 2004 to 5,961 in 2005.

...

Economic losses are also moderating. Attacks carried out on oil and gas facilities in Iraq can serve as an indicator of this. There were 146 such attacks in 2004, versus 101 in 2005.

...

In December, Iraqis filed a record number of tips informing on insurgents.

...

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund estimate that Iraqi national income per capita exceeded $1,050 in 2005—up more than 30 percent from the year before the war began ($802 in 2002). One consumer survey by British researchers found that average household income rose 60 percent from February 2004 to November 2005. The IMF projects that Iraq’s gross domestic product will grow 17 percent in 2006 after inflation.

Evidence of growth can be seen in the jump in car usage. The number of registered autos has more than doubled, and traffic is estimated to be five times as heavy as before the war. Purchases of nearly all consumer goods—air conditioners, refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, farm machinery, computers—are soaring. Cell phone ownership has jumped from 6 percent in early 2004 to over 65 percent today.

TV satellite dishes are as ubiquitous as mobile phones, and now sprout from even the rudest abodes in Iraq’s most out-of-the-way corners. Fully 86 percent of Iraqi households reported having satellite TV at the end of 2005. The number of Iraqi commercial TV stations is now 44, and there are 72 commercial radio stations (there were none of either prior to 2003). The number of newspapers exceeds 100.

...

Asked how things are going for them personally, 71 percent of Iraqis now say life is “good,” compared to 29 percent who say “bad.” A majority insist that despite the war, life is already better for them than it was under Saddam Hussein. By 5:1 they expect their lives will be even better one year from now. Seven out of ten Iraqis think their country as a whole will be a better place in one year.

...

According to surveys in 17 nations carried out in 2005 by an organization chaired by Madeleine Albright, support for terrorism in defense of Islam has “declined dramatically” in the last couple years—from 73 percent to 26 percent in Lebanon, from 40 percent down to 13 percent in Morocco, from 41 percent to 25 percent in Pakistan.

Support for Osama bin Laden has plummeted in nearly every Islamic nation. Rationalizing suicide bombing and violence against civilian targets is way down.

What are Sissies condemning us to?

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

            -- George Santayana

What do Sissies like John Murtha think they're doing? Didn't they learn what happens when you leave an Islamic state in a condition of anarchy and sectarian violence?

Oh, apparently the only reason there is violence is because we are there. Poppycock!