One of the amazing things about the war in Iraq is
how successful the war has been for the US. Since this
has been totally overlooked by so many, I just thought
I would throw out these statistics to demonstrate
the point.

First of all the US has had some pretty easy and
short military actions. However in wars that take
some time, say longer than a year, the ease of
the war is sometimes hard to find. WWII took
quite some time and also took quite a toll on the
death count. Vietnam took so long it became known
as a quagmire. It also had an impressive number
of lost lives. The grand daddy was the civil war.
It took years and racked up the largest death toll
of any US war. It also demonstrated the wisdom of
Pogo's often quoted remark, "We have seen the enemy
and he is us".

There is one war though that really stands out as
being safe among these wars of over 1 year in
length and that war is the one in Iraq. This
one has rewritten the book when it comes to
conducting a war with a minimum of danger to the
troops. Of course anyone keeping track of the
figures lately have noticed the US casualty rate
has quietly descended and is getting less and less
with time. But even if you go back some and look at
when things were more difficult, were they really
bad, by war time standards, that is? Lets look backa
some few months to where the casulties were up, possibly
peaking, and see how bad things had got. At the
point where we were into this war for about 2 3/4
years, for example someone was telling me about all
those US casualties and I did this little exercise at
that point.

The exercise:
============================================================
Let's put the casualty rate into perspective. The war, had
gone on for near three years, with perhaps an average of
130,000 troops there, we see that we had averaged 2,000/130,000
deaths in 2 3/4 years.

This works out to be a death toll of less than 1% per year.
The actual figure is 0.55%. To further put this in perspective
lets look at a military unit I was in, in peace time.
We had about 80 people in that unit. During the 3 years
I was in that unit, we lost 4 people to death in various
ways. Two were lost in Aircraft accidents, 1 suicide, and
1 car accident. That works out to be a death rate per
year of 0.66%. This peace time death rate was actually
higher than what we are experiencing in Iraq.
===========================================================

To put this in another light you could compare the murder
rate in a few US cities and get larger numbers than
we lose in Iraq. I wonder if Cindy Sheehan thinks
we should get out of Washington DC, NOW!, with the
murder rate there as bad as it is.

To put it another way. We lost more people on day one
in New York, than we lost in 3 years of fighting in Iraq.
Think about that. With the best that Iraq's 400,000 man
army, and then the subsequent guerilla effort of the
Sunnis, aided by the mass movement of Al Qaeda to take
up arms against us, the best that all these forces have
been able to do in three years of fighting amounts to
a total of less than what was inflicted upon us on day
one of the war. It would appear that the only competent
enemy that has so far materialized was that orginal
handful of knife carrying highjackers.

Also on day one we had been at peace with Al Qaeda
refusing to go after them. Did this achieve safety for
us. No, we had the majority of casualties inflicted by
this bunch before we went to war. Nothing war has
given us since then has given us that many casualties.
If you want safety then you have to admit that the
statistics confirm that being at peace was much more
dangerous than being at war. This being the case why
not choose the safe path and do war?

Yes, I have to say, this has been a marvelous war, as
wars go, generally speaking. It helps to have an enemy
that miscalculates everything. This has pretty well
been the case in Afghanistan and Iraq. Lets face it,
Saddam was no military genius. Osama was a little smarter
and a whole lot more grandiose , but in retrospect, you
have to wonder what he was smoking when he came up
with an idea to dominate the Muslim world, by starting
with a bunch of ragamuffins living in the mountains, and
a strategy consisting of flying planes into skyscrapers.

Osama has now spent his millions, Al Qaeda is broke, and they
lost their country ruled by their model government, the taliban,
which they invisioned to be the model of governments to
be placed in all those Islamic countries of the world who
would follow them and bring "death to the infidels".

Now three years into the fighting, no world wide uprising
of Islam has occurred, and Al Qaeda can't even field an
Army with any support in the main country of US involvment,
Iraq. Al Qaeda has only succeeded in getting at least
90% of Iraq against them, in addition to getting the US
against them. They became so frustrated with their failed
efforts in Iraq, that they declared war on the Shia, for
having the nerve to side with the US backed new government
being built there. Even the small Sunni resistance is
trying to distance itself from Al Qaeda and they have
the common goal of trying to oppose the newly forming
government, and lets not forget about Saudi. Al Qaeda is
under constant pressure, being hunted down and killed in
Saudi Arabia, a country they used to get financial aid
from, but they now receive only bullets from there.
Also they have lost their sanctuary in Pakistan. Where
they once were able to go and escape the fighting of
Afghanistan, they now find Pakistani troops there
hunting them and sending them scurrying back to
Afghanistan. Al Qaeda has completely missed the mark
that they had envisioned, as witnessed by the fact that
Osama was asking for a negotiated settlement in his last
public anouncement. I wonder what terms he thought
that he might be able to get if the US was stupid
enough to listen. It does show though that Osama is
still grandiose. Does he actually think he might be
able to negotiate something now that he is out of
ammunition, or has he just finally realized he is out of
ammunition, and what little ammunition he has left has
been directed at Muslims who refuse to accept his
leadership?

No need to keep pressing enter, just allow it to rap as you type. Makes it much easier to read from our perspective.

How about the cold war if were going to talk about casualties. If I could of been a soldier during any war, My vote goes to that.

posted by chissler: “ . . How about the cold war if were going to talk about casualties. If I could of been a soldier during any war, my vote goes to that.[Edited by Don W]

The USAF lists 67 men KIA in “overflights” of USSR territory. The Spanish Ameican War and Mexican War were both low casualty conflicts. I am of the opinion the Indian Wars - 1872-1899 - was also a low Ameican casualties. As opposed to Native Americans.

[edit on 4/4/2006 by donwhite]

Civil war in Iraq!

Look out, the sky is falling, the sky is falling,
Iraq is going to have civil war.

I really get a kick out of the individuals that are trying
to make the case that Iraq is heading toward civil war
and because of this the US is loosing the war.

This a perfect example of people that do not understand
the first thing about our strategy. Take a look at our
strategy and it is evident that civil war is at the core
of our strategy, and the key ingredient as to why this has
been one of the safest wars the US has ever fought.

The US strategy welcomes civil war. The US strategy has used
civil war from the start. The first time this became apparent
was in Afghanistan. The civil war there was Northern alliance
against Taliban forces. This strategy of encouraging opposing
elements of Afghanistan was why we were so successful there
and took down the government there in under two months with
only about 2 dead Americans. US special forces were about
the only Americans on the ground there. These guys went
in with backpacks of hundred dollar bills and bought the
Northern Alliance. They also gave the Alliance air support
in the form of deadly air strikes. This civil war in Afghanistan
seems to have been missed by all the people that are shaking
in their boots about the civil war in Iraq.

In Iraq you have at least three factions trying to prevail.
(1) You have the Iraqi majority. These are composed of most
of the Shia, most of the Kurds, and a good portion of
the Sunnis. In total its about 90% of population that
supports the new Iraqi emerging government.
(2) The Sunni insurgents. These are remnants of the Baath
party and they want things back the way they used to be.
(3) The jihadists. This is Al Qaeda and other supporting
foreigners that have moved their focus from Afghanistan
to Iraq.

The only way we can loose the war in Iraq is if the Jihadists
win. It was they (Al Qaeda) who attacked the US and it is
they who have the agenda of setting up one central jihadist
government over all the Muslim world. It is these people that
we originally went to war to counter, as a direct result of
their attack on the US. It is this bunch that has global
aspirations. They are the ones we have to defeat. Iraq is
the hammer that will absolutely crush them.

If The Sunnis win the civil war in Iraq, we could live with
that, as long as the new emerging government was not working
on expansionist policies, like developing nuclear weapons.

You could also say the same thing about the Shia. We could live
with them as long as they were pursuing a peaceful course.

We can probably insure that any Iraq that emerges will not
have expansionist policies if that emerging Iraq is not ran
by jihadists. Also it would be good if the new government
was not a puppet of Iran. In this regard the US is trying
to insure that Iraq has substantial Sunni and Kurd input into
the government. It is also believed by Bush that a democratic
government is less likely to pursue war policies, since
most people don't want war and will not vote for leaders
that advocate war.

So in review:
The main US goal is to deny jihadist victory in Iraq.
The secondary US goal, but not absolutely necessary goal is
democratic government that does not give too great a power
into the hands of any outsiders like Iran.

So how does civil war work into this? Civil war is our friend.
Without civil war in Iraq, we probably would not have had a
chance at taking Al Qaeda out of the picture. Remember,
Al Qaeda's original strategy was to bait the US into a long
war in Afghanistan, so that the Muslim world would unite
to drive the US out of this muslim country. The US played
the civil war card, and triggered a civil war, instead of
doing a large scale invasion and multi year guerilla war in
Afghanistan.

Next, when Al Qaeda could not pursue their guerilla war in
Afghanistan, for lack of US targets, Al Qaeda moved into
Iraq to lead the Muslim world there against the US.
The US had gone to Iraq to insure this rogue state would
be eliminated and with it, elimination of any support such as
furnishing weapons to terrorists.

When Al Qaeda went into Iraq, though, they had more enemy
than just the US to fight. In Afghanistan they had hoped to
have to oppose only the US. This is key to why our
strategy is so good in Iraq. Iraq provided a new enemy to
Al Qaeda. The new enemy of Al Qaeda were the parties in
Iraq who wanted to run Iraq as their own government. This
included the 2 main groups of Sunnis and Shia. A good
portion of the Sunni had planned on, and were conducting
a guerilla war against the newly forming government. It is
important to remember that this newly forming government
is Iraqis. The Jihadists (Al Qaeda) absolutely had to
oppose this new democratic government, if they were to
gain their goal of Jihadist governments throughout the
Muslim world. So Al Qaeda had no choice but to try an
eliminate this US sponsored new government. In order
to eliminate it they joined the Sunni insurgency which
was also opposing it. This actually has proven to be
a major blunder for Al Qaeda. The reason for this is
that Al Qaeda had just sided with a small minority of
Iraq and had taken on the vast majority of Iraq. Now
they not only had to defeat the US, but they also
had to defeat about 90% of the Iraqis.

So you see, if Iraq had not had a division (civil war)
then Al Qaeda would have had no enemies (targets) in Iraq
except Americans. Civil war was an absolute requirement,
in order to give birth to Iraqis who were motivated to
oppose Al Qaeda. If all Iraqis had sided with the US,
then Al Qaeda most probably would have not had a splinter
of a hope of gaining support there. The fact that some
portion of Iraqis split off and fought, was the catalyst
that gave Al Qaeda hope of finding support and allies
in Iraq. The civil war card had once again been played.
This civil war card differed quite a bit from the one
in Afghanistan, though in its size.

In Afghanistan the civil war sides were much more closely
matched. The Taliban/Al Qaeda side was the government and
quite large. This gave them confidence and they attacked
with no hesitation. It was a fatal mistake, because the
Northern Alliance with US air support just rolled right
over them. This made for a very short war.

In Iraq, Al Qaeda though has sided with a very weak
partner. This partner (Sunni Insurgency) does not have
the power to attack without hesitation like Al Qaeda did
in Afghanistan. This partnership has to remain hid and
carry out very limited actions. Any full attack would see
them wiped out in very short order, and they know it, thus
they hide and do an occasional ambush. This weakness has
also served to draw out the duration of the conflict, since
Al Qaeda is really too weak to inflict any meaningful damage.

Al Qaeda has bitten off more than they can chew in Iraq.
Their attacks on the Iraqi police, and army is the vast
majority of their effort. When they kill Iraqis, it makes
more Iraqi enemies. When the Iraqis kill them, it helps
the US effort to eliminate Al Qaeda. If there had been no
split between Iraqis, then any Al Qaeda efforts would have
to have been 100% against the US. See how civil war is our
friend here? It aligns millions of Iraqis against Al Qaeda,
and has diverted Al Qaeda efforts from the US to that of
opposing the new Iraqi government. These millions are
going to emerge as the new government of Iraq. That
is without doubt. The fact that this new government has
fought and actively hates Al Qaeda, will also be in our
favor.

The average person has no concept that the main Bush
strategy has been to split the Muslims. This is not
too hard to understand, because Bush never mentions
it. He always camoflages his strategy with some other
rhetoric. If your main strategy is splitting the
Muslims (civil war) does it not make good sense to
camoflage this, and what better camoflage than even
saying, "There is no civil war there". This is just
about as good a camoflage as one of his others, when
he repeatedly said "I want to bring democracy to Iraq".
The jihadists really became inspired to move to Iraq
with that proclamation. Democracy is not compatible
with their ideas of instituting jihadist Islamic
governments throughout the Islamic world.

Wars just don't get any better than this one. In short
we have a small incompetent enemy that has declared
war on millions who they wanted as allies. You can
think of the Al Qaeda effort as this:

The blind leading the quaduply dismembered on a long
hike in the desert and with no water.

PLEASE stop pressing enter. It makes your argument harder to follow.. you want people to read what you write..yes?? IMO, you just asked a rhetorical question? Basically put out a question then answered it or changed viewpoints through a long winding reply?

In just 4 months there have been 3044 Iraqi police killed.. 761 avg a month.

8015 wounded American soldiers (unable to return to work after 72 hours of injury)

Reported Iraq civilian losses MIN 33821 MAX 37943

Contractors 314 deaths

Many journalists, Many other countries (such as UK deaths), UK and other countries injured.

Now it may just be me but how in hell is that safe?!

This war is almost a non war, because there are not real batles, when the enemies face each other, and has been this since the begining, so I think it is "normal" to have less casualties than a "normal" war.

And please, MajorCee, hit Enter only when creating a new paragraph, it may look better for you when you write it but it looks realy bad to us.

Casulty wise i suppose it is the safest war you have ever fought, but i don`t think the servicemanswho have died families would agree. But in the long term it is the most destabalising terroist creating war fought in the whole history of man. So it aint really that safe as it will come back to haunt you like it did with Spain and England.

Yes I think the war has been relatively safe.. better tactics/technology have helped greatly.

I am not arguing against you in anyway, compared with previous wars it is extremely safe.

All I am saying is we are at a stalemate.. Many more deaths will be required before the final conflict is over.. In a way a battle has been won.. but the war?? Well, it's not over yet.

Thats a quality signiture Knights that film is quality, though not quite as good as ID me thinks

its not exactly the safest war... more than 2100 americans died. thats reason enough for some people to insist its time to pull out now. i dont blame them.

Originally posted by chissler
No need to keep pressing enter, just allow it to rap as you type. Makes it much easier to read from our perspective.

Major aint hitting return. He is using some other programme to write and then pasting it here. Thats why you get the format you see.

posted by worksoftplayhard: “Its not exactly the safest war . . more than 2100 Americans died. That’s reason enough for some people to insist its time to pull out now. I don’t blame them. [Edited by Don W]

Well, at 2,415 GIs, I stopped my count. It’s clear this Republican Administration does not want the constant influx of dead American’s flag draped coffins at Dover AFB, to be seen on commercial tv. Propagandizing the public, as in Dr. Joseph Goebbels of old time fame. “A big lie, told often, becomes truth.” Or, the kid’s jingle, modified, “What you don’t see, won’t hurt you.” Wrong!

It hurts me that no one here mentions the 15,000-45,000 Iraqis who have been killed since March 18, 2003. Despite the various insurgents and rogue militias, I’d suppose the majority were killed by the United States Armed Forces. Followed in number rank order by the Brits. Most of those we have killed we labeled “collateral damage” of course. That is, unintended. As if that somehow excused it. But just as dead. We admitted killing 1,000,000 Vietnamese but they claimed we killed 3,000,000. Hmm?

A Safe War? Only in the mind of a GOP sycophant or a Neo Con ideologue. And straight out of the VP Cheney play book. As orchestrated by the Oberfuhrer.


[edit on 4/8/2006 by donwhite]

First, as for your claims about safety, you sure you're not speaking too soon? The wars not over yet, you know. BTW, were you there recently? A lot of the stats paint a false picture because they don't include wounded. And I agree with the previous poster who commented on the sadness of a lack of Iraqi figures in those stats.

Originally posted by MajorCee

So how does civil war work into this? Civil war is our friend.
Without civil war in Iraq, we probably would not have had a
chance at taking Al Qaeda out of the picture. Remember,
Al Qaeda's original strategy was to bait the US into a long
war in Afghanistan, so that the Muslim world would unite
to drive the US out of this muslim country. The US played
the civil war card, and triggered a civil war, instead of
doing a large scale invasion and multi year guerilla war in
Afghanistan.

Yep. Civil war was all part of the plan. Because of course the Bush administration could never actually mess anything up. They could never, for example, forget to notice just how well civil war served the British in Mesopotamia. They soon learned the difference between assessing safety in terms of numbers of their own troops dying and safety in terms of leaving behind an insecure nation to fall apart and upset the balance of power in the region.

The average person has no concept that the main Bush
strategy has been to split the Muslims. This is not
too hard to understand, because Bush never mentions
it.

I don't suppose you have any proof of this?

Because, it seems maybe as if you are so blinded by disbelief at how poorly Iraq is going for Iraq, the US, and the region and world at large that you are grasping at some really flimsy straws in your denial- the the extent that you're not even believing the administrations own line! I suppose you can't be blamed if that's the case- I doubt any two people can give the true reasons we're in Iraq right now, given how elusive Bush and pals have been on this topic. It's pretty hard to know just what the line is these days.

The only way we can loose the war in Iraq is if the Jihadists
win. It was they (Al Qaeda) who attacked the US and it is
they who have the agenda of setting up one central jihadist
government over all the Muslim world. It is these people that
we originally went to war to counter, as a direct result of
their attack on the US. It is this bunch that has global
aspirations. They are the ones we have to defeat. Iraq is
the hammer that will absolutely crush them.

If The Sunnis win the civil war in Iraq, we could live with
that, as long as the new emerging government was not working
on expansionist policies, like developing nuclear weapons.

You could also say the same thing about the Shia. We could live
with them as long as they were pursuing a peaceful course.

We can probably insure that any Iraq that emerges will not
have expansionist policies if that emerging Iraq is not ran
by jihadists. Also it would be good if the new government
was not a puppet of Iran. In this regard the US is trying
to insure that Iraq has substantial Sunni and Kurd input into
the government. It is also believed by Bush that a democratic
government is less likely to pursue war policies, since
most people don't want war and will not vote for leaders
that advocate war.

Fighting the jihadists should not be hard. They make up a small minority of the actual combatants in Iraq - the reason Iraq is degenerating is because it's mostly disenfranchised and fearful Sunnis and, then, Shi'ite militias who are responsible for the violence... communal, ethnic warfare. That's been what's making things so hard in that region. Would have been easier fighting jihadis if we just kept supporting Saddam, if that's your only concern.

And oh yeah, the best part! If anythings better than civil war, you seem to think, it's when one side finally defeats the other and gets the power! You say it would be OK if one side or the other claimed control of Iraq? Do you know what happens in nations with ethnic violence, when a nationalist strongman falls, and in its place one ethnic group with no nationalist pretensions takes power? You would call that a victory - just as long as they weren't "expansionist"? Where is a civil-war wracked Iraq going to expand to? Iran? Saudi Arabia? Turkey? These are some pretty hard core regional powers compared to a country that will likely resemble a cross between South Vietnam in terms of its corruption and the former Yugoslavia in terms of internal discord... are you seriously concerned about expansionism? I think as well as "safety," you need to look at just what would constitute a "peaceful course" - it's not just about the WMD's and terrorists, you know.

Also, regarding democratic governments, do you really want to be telling these two sides in Iraq right now that they have to set up organized parties the express purpose of one is to demonize the other? And fledgling democracies often do go to war with their neighbours.

[edit on 8-4-2006 by koji_K]

Talking about a good war is like my friends ex-in-laws talking around the dinner table asking why there weren't more stories about the good Nazis did. Anyway, I guess we should never have gone to war in Iraq but put the effort into making this country safer to go to the mall. I don't think the 2300+ (which does not include civilians who are doing what work used to be done by soldiers) include the suicides. Perhaps having your face or all limbs blown off in past wars would have been certain death, but now you can go home faceless or limbless and be thankfull? How many deaths counted in prior wars, if they had had modern medicine, would not have been counted?

When we were told that we invaded Iraq to fight terrorists, a Phillipino colleague was genuinely saddened, asking why we had not helped the Phillipines, as they had suffered from terrorists for years. We # in Iraq to attract flies?--we "used" the Iraqi people for our good?--how selfish.

Cheney also seemed confused re Iraq and 9/11.

Hitting return after small lines is my prefered way to write and to read. This comes from years of reading news and magazine format where there are narrow columns. This sort of format is very easy to go from line to line and maintain your place. When you have long lines then it can become difficult to go down to the next line when coming to the end of a line. On top to of this many people use small computer screens or just do not like using the full screen presentation on a large screen. When they use small screens something that often happens on many web pages is that the software is unable to get an entire line on one screen and the software truncates the display and only shows a part of the line. To see anything beyond the end of the screen they you have to schroll horizontally on each line. This makes for a very annoying display to read. I really hate these horizontally strung out displays that are hard to maintain your place when going to the next line, and I hate even more when you get the condition where you have to manually scholl horizontally to read each line. This condition is often set up by having a long continuous word with no spaces like perhaps a long link to a web site that will not fit on one line. The software handles that by expanding horizontal display size to greater than screen size and you then have to do manual horizontal scrolling. Putting the returns in after each line eliminates this phenomonon from happening. Also this situation is not controlled by me, because I cannot keep someone else from including a long link in some post that happens to come up on the same web page, so I control it by using returns.


Edit by ATS: Yeah, we get the point. Please keep any link, real ones please, so that they don't distort the page.[edit on 9-4-2006 by intrepid]

Edit by MajorCee: I put in that long link to demonstrate. Others put in long links that are
actual links but long. These also give the phenomonon that I described above. What
is more, they screw up every post on the page. And yes I know that this link would
not have screwed up the page if I did not put it in. I put it in to demonstrate to the
point for full understanding. Other people often put in actual long links that do the
same thing. Anyway I'm glad you get the point. I still prefer the shorter lines.
Research has show that shorter lines aid in keeping a persons place. That is why
they are used in papers and magazines. By the way, the designer of this page
could have avoided that problem by defining a much more narrow table for this
column. It actually should have been designed that way in my opinion, because
there are very many common smaller displays that are still use. I know these
facts because I have some extensive background in designing web software,
and I also have a bachelors degree in computer science.



[edit on 9-4-2006 by MajorCee]

[edit on 9-4-2006 by MajorCee]

The only reason you have to horizontally scroll now on this page is because of the extra long html link you pasted...

I love having a of lot feedback on my posts. It shows you're
interested. As long as you are interested I am willing to
give my opinions. I will start with this one. Someone
asked how do I call the war safe when we have all those people killed:
3044 Iraqi police
Iraq civilian losses MIN 33821 MAX 37943
etc.

A very good question and I would like to clear this up for all
who do not understand. Quite simply I think it shows that when
the other side has lots more dead than our side, that this is
reason to believe from our standpoint that the war is safe.
True we did kill thousands upon thousands of armed Iraqis
early on in the war and true we do kill lots of them when
they make the mistake of engaging us now. This can be construed
to mean the war is unsafe for the enemy but in war this is usually
considered to be the desired outcome. It in no way though
reflects on the safety from the American point of view.

Also there is the point that many Iraqis are killing each
other as pointed out in the stated figures. I can see how Iraqis
would call it unsafe, but that is really their problem, after all they
are killing each other.
It is unsafe because all these Iraqis make it unsafe by squabbling over
who is going to rule. They could vote and settle things that way.
This is what the Americans recommend and endorse, but many Iraqis
would rather kill than vote. Apparently its not the Iraqi way
to vote. Still this is their problem. Also as long as it is their
problem, nothing like the hand wringing of all you people who want
to stop this killing is going to stop it. Wring your hands all you want,
these Iraqis are going to kill each other. Maybe you should make
videos of large groups of hand wringers and send it over to them.
Maybe seeing all this grief they are causing among the hand wringers
of the world will give them incentive to see the light, and make them
rethink their killing ways and they will stop. The US can not accept
responsibility because these people can't get along. America
is not responsible that these people have no compassion for their
fellow Muslims. This is something they have to work out on their
own, and apparently their way of working it out requires that they
kill each other. I can handle that for as long as they can. We
can't make them love each other.

On top of that the group of Jihadists, Al Qaeda, are
finding it completely unsafe. But its okay in my mind if they
find it unsafe. These guys love things being unsafe. They love
it to the extent that often they choose to die in one of their operations.
When they strap on dynamite and blow themselves up in the middle
of crowd of innocent Iraqis, it pretty much defines that they
have very little reqard for safety, even their own. That being
the case I don't care if thousands of them die. Actually I have
no sympathy for them.

So to make it short, I call it safe because compared to any previous
American war casulties against this size of enemy, we have never
had it so good.


There were a number of other arguments made as to why this
war is not safe, but there were so many I can't answer all at
one time unless I am willing to spend a long time doing it.
Have patience though, and I will respond to each point made
against my argument just as I did above.

Todays further explanation is dedicated to Souljah.

====================================
Lets start with Souljah's words here:

As we can see our dear Major is absolutely Delighted by the way the Iraq
"Liberation" is going. Yes, apparently it has been such HUGE success!
Haven't you people heard that? And it's the SAFEST war of them all!

Yep, I'm delighted. This shows good perception on your part
to figure it out and point it out in case someone missed that
fact from my posts.
=======================================
Next:

Firstly Major, with all due respect WAR and SAFE can not be used in the same
sentance.

Sure it can. Also you used the words in the same sentence.
I find it particularly gratifying you prove the falsity of your
assertion in the very sentence that you assert it.
=========================================
Next:

Secondly, why didn't you mention that the Iraq War Disaster is also the Most
EXPENSIVE War of them all?

No I did not mention that. My subject was the safety of the war.
Now that you mention it. Its expensive. Actually so is food and
shelter. Most of my budget goes for those items. Its an expense
I can handle, and it didn't slip my mind at all. I gladly pay this
expense just like I gladly pay for food and shelter, and to do
without this war that I like so much would be to me no smarter
than refusing to buy food and shelter. As a tax payer paying for
the war it does not bother me. I wonder why a non resident like
yourself is worried about American taxes.
=======================================
Next:
This next piece of analysis by Souljah really blows me away.

if you did not notice, Iraq IS in the middle of a Civil War, and no
matter how much you try to deny that
....
....
And PLEASE read the numbers that mister Knights provided, which are a clear
indicator that Iraq has entered Civil War long time ago...

This above shows just how little my post was comprehended..
I clearly said in my post that the civil war was a fact
there, I was not trying to deny it. Here are some snipets
that give my specific langauge stating that civil war is there
and what is more it favors us.
Look at my quotes proving this:

Take a look at our strategy and it is evident that civil war is
at the core of our strategy, and the key ingredient as to why this has
been one of the safest wars the US has ever fought.
.....
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The US strategy welcomes civil war. The US strategy has used
civil war from the start.
.....
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In Iraq you have at least three factions trying to prevail.
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The only way we can loose the war in Iraq is if the Jihadists
win.
....
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Civil war is our friend.
Without civil war in Iraq, we probably would not have had a
chance at taking Al Qaeda out of the picture
....
....
So you see, if Iraq had not had a division (civil war)
then Al Qaeda would have had no enemies (targets) in Iraq
except Americans. Civil war was an absolute requirement,
in order to give birth to Iraqis who were motivated to
oppose Al Qaeda.
....
....
If there had been no
split between Iraqis, then any Al Qaeda efforts would have
to have been 100% against the US. See how civil war is our
friend here? It aligns millions of Iraqis against Al Qaeda,
....
....
If your main strategy is splitting the
Muslims (civil war) does it not make good sense to
camoflage this,

So as you can see you made it up that I was denying
that there was civil war. This is your complete non
understanding, to say that I deny it.

I made the case repeatedly that it was not only fact but
a good part of the winning strategy that is making this
one of the safest wars we have fought.
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That is it for today, but I will answer each one of these
talking points as time goes on, and thank you, Souljah, for
giving me the opportunity to restate my points. If you did
not understand them, others probably did not also.