tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8812043282272915800.post5295709837029635451..comments2024-02-15T21:24:23.524-08:00Comments on Today in The Endless War: War News for Friday, March 9, 2012Cervanteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11302076828795198187noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8812043282272915800.post-46247366968479122512012-03-09T07:31:04.298-08:002012-03-09T07:31:04.298-08:00US Army's top soldier talks victory in Iraq
B...<a href="http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/international/04-Mar-2012/us-army-s-top-soldier-talks-victory-in-iraq" rel="nofollow">US Army's top soldier talks victory in Iraq</a><br /><br />By now, the results of the Iraq War are more or less clear. The numbers alone tell a rather unambiguous story. Hundreds of thousands of casualties through violence or indirect causes like the destruction of the public health system, a lack of access to urgent medical care, and malnutrition, according to the best estimates available. Some 1.3 million internally displaced by the war and 1 million others who fled to now civil war-torn Syria. A jump in the number of Iraqis living in slum conditions from 17 per cent before the American invasion to 50 per cent as of last year, with 7m of Iraq’s population of 30m living below the poverty line. The grim statistics go on and on.<br /><br />And what it took to get to this level of success is equally well-documented. The myth of David Petraeus’ so-called surge aside, the key to tamping down the violence to what the US considered an acceptable level was handing over large quantities of cash to the insurgents who had been killing Americans for the previous several years. About $360m was paid out in one year alone, transforming yesterday’s terrorists into “true Iraqi patriots”, as one American general put it.<br /><br />On the day I spoke to Sergeant Major Chandler, Iraqi insurgents unleashed a coordinated wave of small-arms attacks and car bombings across the country, with the worst of the violence centred in the country’s capital, Baghdad. More than 140 people were killed or wounded in the attacks, which targeted police officers, security convoys and government buildings. “Iraq will be like this for 10 or 15 years,” 52-year old Abdul Razaq al-Zaidi, one of those injured in the attacks, told the New York Times. “We are used to it. This is a part of our lives.” It wasn’t, however, before the American invasion.<br /><br />It was in the hours before Iraqis headed into that day’s charnel house that Chandler and I spoke.Dancewaterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16733269960341895623noreply@blogger.com