23 November 2003


American death toll in Iraq....

According to Harper's Magazine, more U.S. soldiers have died so far in Iraq than in the first three years of the Vietnam War.

Here. (Scroll down.)

Mogadishu revisited....

Responsibility for these ghoulish, tragic deaths should be laid squarely at the feet of President Bush.
MOSUL, Iraq - Gunmen killed two American soldiers driving through this northern Iraqi city Sunday, and then a crowd swarmed the scene, looting the soldiers' vehicle and pummeling their bodies, witnesses said. Another soldier was killed in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad.

[…]

The 101st Airborne Division said its soldiers in Mosul were shot while driving between U.S. garrisons. Several witnesses also said the soldiers were shot during the attack in the Ras al-Jadda district, though earlier reports by witnesses said assailants slit the soldiers' throats.

Bahaa Jassim, a teenager, said the soldiers' vehicle crashed into a wall after the shooting. Several dozen passers-by then descended on the wreckage, looting the car of weapons and the soldiers' backpacks.

After the soldiers' bodies fell into the street, the crowd pummeled them with concrete blocks, Jassim said.
Publicly, the U.S. government is insisting that the rising death toll in Iraq will not lessen its resolve to remain in occupation of the country. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the U.S. military deputy director for operations, said the coalition was "not worried in the least" by the continuing attacks on its forces. "We have nothing at this point that causes us to be concerned," he said. "This is an enemy that cannot defeat us militarily."

Uh...wasn't that true in Vietnam, too?

Complete story here.