President Bush and his sycophants have been touting the surge in troops because of a deluded feeling that Iraq is getting safer. John McCain made a heavily protected appearance yesterday in order to back up that misbegotten belief. Unfortunately, along with the escalation of our troop numbers in Iraq, the death toll for Iraqis continues to climb higher.
From Juan Cole:
For all those journalists and politicians who keep insisting that there are new "glimmers" of "hope" in Iraq because of the new security plan started 6 weeks ago, here is a sobering statistic from the Iraqi government. (I'm looking at you, John McCain. See below for more on McCain).
Iraqis killed in February: 1806 (64.5/day)
Iraqis killed in March: 2078 (67/day)
As the wire services report, that is a 15% increase if figured by the month. I provided the figures, above, to show that it is an increase even if figured by the day (4%). (I should have, in the earlier version of this post, highlighted the latter in the exposition rather than getting carried away by the wire service headline, as some readers have kindly or sometimes acerbically insisted.)
The reality on the ground is, as usual, far different from what many Republicans are trying to claim. No matter how many troops we put in harm's way, the killing will continue. Sunnis will terrorize Shias and vice-versa. This civil war is beyond repair for our soldiers to fix. We need to pull out and look for a diplomatic solution. It is not our place to be caught in the crossfire.
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