we're winning?

"For every complex problem there is a solution, which is simple, neat, and wrong"
--H.L. Mencken


Lately Republican candidates for the presidency have been crowing about the effect of Bush's "surge" strategy in Iraq, some going so far as to claim "We're winning!" Granted, there has been a decrease in violence lately that can be attributed in part to the increase in U.S. ground troops. But how does one make the leap from this to the conclusion that victory is at hand?

Most on the ground in Iraq see the present lull in violence as just that -- a lull, a temporary situation. Why? Because the conditions which created the sectarian violence in the first place remain. Sure, we can pay Sunni tribesmen ten dollars a day not to kill us, but what if we can't follow through on promises of good jobs in the military and government -- an idea which the Shiite dominated government resists? What if Moqtada al-Sadr changes his mind and ends the ceasefire he's presently imposed on the Mahdi army? What if the Kurds, at the moment preoccupied with border problems with Turkey, return their attention to the de-Arabization of their territories and to control of the Kirkuk oil fields? Iraq has hardly been de-fused by the surge; listen closely and you can still hear the tick-tick-tick.

Let's just suppose the impossible happens and the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds all join hands to sing Kumbaya. Does that mean the United States can claim a victory? Consider: the present death toll for U.S. forces in Iraq stands just shy of four thousand. We have had five times that many wounded. Harper's reports that one in four veterans who have served two tours of duty now has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Also that the projected total cost of medical care for U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is five hundred billion dollars -- a number that matches the total military spending on both wars so far.

Given these staggering statistics, what possible positive outcome in Iraq could be consider worth the cost? "Pyrrhic victory" hardly characterizes it. Out -and -out disaster is more like it.