Since "the Surge" started, 950 American soldiers have died.

[Zynx]

In excess of 5,000 have been wounded. Even if the reduction in violence holds, it has been at best a pyrrhic victory. I want McCain to say this vast cost has actually been worth it with a straight face and not that condescending smirk.

[elocs]

1. Plus, has the "Surge" really reduced the violence

or is it because the Iraqis have retreated to the relative safety of their own enclaves? Being a prisoner in a hood ain't my idea of a grand democracy.

[babylonsister]

2. Iraqi Blood, Dirt Cheap - I wonder what the Iraqis think about the 'success' of the surge...

Iraqi Blood, Dirt Cheap

Posted by Fatih Abdulsalam, Azzaman at 3:36 AM on July 21, 2008.

Iraqi blood started flowing in buckets, then barrels, then streams and then rivers.


Five years ago, international media weighed Iraqi blood drop by drop. Every drop that was shed was newsworthy and occupied their highlights.

That was with the start of the U.S. invasion of 2003.

But as the invasion which the occupiers -- the U.S. and the U.K. -- sold to us as 'liberation' turned into one of the most devastating and destructive military campaigns in man's history, Iraqi blood started flowing in buckles, then barrels, then streams and then rivers.

It was too much for the media to accommodate. It became commonplace and in media terms no longer newsworthy despite the lakes and oceans that began forming as the streams and rivers started discharging their blood.

Iraqi deaths are no longer important. Their numbers attract no more attention. If the deaths are too many, then a subtitle will do the job.

Iraqis are being killed, injured and maimed in droves on a daily basis. But still that is not enough reason for the media to care.

more...

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/92150

[Zynx]

4. Indeed. There is of course the Iraqi toll as well to be considered which has been very high.

[Motown_Johnny]

3. It is also impossible to prove that 'the surge" caused the decrease in violence, it could have been

the Iraqi people and the natural evolution of events, such as relocation and segregation of the population, that caused this. If that were true then many of those 950 deaths (if not all) were unnecessary