By David T. Pyne (07/07/05)
An increasing percentage of the American people and U.S. congressional and military leaders are coming to the conclusion that the United States is losing the counterinsurgency war in Iraq. Car bombings and attacks by insurgents killed 80 U.S. troops in May. An additional 47 U.S. soldiers were killed during the first half of June. A total of 1,730 of our troops have died in Iraq thus far and at least 13,000 have been wounded, many very seriously, according to Pentagon figures with no end to the war or the carnage in sight. These casualty numbers resemble the U.S. military casualty count during the first four to five years of the Vietnam war between 1961 and early 1966.
Thus far, the $300 billion that has been shelled out for the Iraq war alone is roughly equal to the amount of money expended on World War I or the Korean War. This despite the fact that we may be only a couple years into a decade long commitment which may well exceed what the U.S. spent on Vietnam during ten years of fighting within the next couple of years.
An increasing number of our retired generals and political leaders come to the conclusion that the U.S. is losing the war in Iraq due to a failure of both strategy and leadership and that merely “staying the course