I was recently thinking about the revolution taking place in Iraq and our troops' futile effort to put it down. One thing that occurred to me is we see a lot of news about deaths when, in fact, deaths are not really the most important measure of our ability to fight. We know that there have been a steady trickle of American troops killed these past few days (the exact number seems hard to come by), but even so the number is pretty small compared to how many troops we have there.
Keep in mind, I'm looking at this only from a logical/tactical perspective. I still, and always have, felt it to be a shame that even one life had to be lost on this grandiose farce.
However, from a practical standpoint the number of deaths are not that important. Instead it's the number of killed
and wounded that determines our operational effectiveness. Whether you're dead, or just have your arm or leg blown off, either way you can't fight. It seems to me that we're getting a lot of information on troops that are killed, meanwhile other "lesser" casualties are getting swept under the rug.
My point is, things over in Iraq may well be going worse than we might think. Although only a relatively small number of troops have been killed, more have been wounded. As more injuries occur, there will be fewer troops over there to fight. And to make matters worse, we're already overwhelmed as it is.
I really question how long our forces in Iraq will be able to withstand a continued uprising against them.