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The cost of the “War on Terror”...  It is a terrible landmark. We are told by the Pentagon that the number of US military deaths in the 'war on terror' is greater than the death toll from Nine-Eleven. There's only one word for that: Terrifying. The latest dead include an as-yet unidentified soldier killed after his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad. Combined with 278 deaths in Afghanistan, that surpasses the 29-hundred-73 victims in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Almost ten times more Americans have died in Iraq than in Afghanistan. The Pentagon reports 56 military deaths and one civilian Defense Department death in other parts of the world from Operation Enduring Freedom, the anti-terrorism war distinct from Iraq. Altogether, three-thousand and 31 have died abroad since Nine-Eleven. Usama bin Laden has not been captured, although there are rumours he might have died. The elephant in the room... Iraq has become the elephant in the room. Its droppings might stink to high heaven, be very bloodstained through civil war, drive by hits and roadside bombs, collateral civilian destruction, but our leaders are still preaching 'freedom and democracy.' Nobody dares to say there's an elephant in the room. Oh, and perhaps 48-thousand Iraqi civilians have gone to Allah, but who's counting them, not to mention the thousands of children who died from the sanctions. We seem to be concerned more about the loss of a market for our wheat than human life. We are being 'scripted' by our leaders. Sometimes, however, the script has holes in it.
President Bush has now launched a new round of personal diplomacy aimed at patching up the tense relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where a resurgent Taliban insurgency is posing new challenges for an administration already struggling to pacify Iraq. Bush met at the White House with Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who assured the US president of his desire to root out the Taliban and other extremists. The visit came amid controversy over Musharraf's claims in a forthcoming memoir that the Bush administration threatened to bomb Pakistan "to the Stone Age" if it failed to cooperate with the United States against al-Qaeda and the Taliban after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. At least 31 people have been killed when two explosives-laden barrels were set off in a Shiite militia stronghold in east Baghdad, hours after Sunni Muslims began the fasting month of Ramadan. Police say the blast at a service station in Sadr City has also wounded at least 34 people. It is one of the deadliest explosions in recent weeks in Iraq. And so the sorry tale continues. British Army reaction... The head of Britain's Army says the Taliban are proving to be a more difficult adversary for troops in Afghanistan than they expected. British forces have been engaged in fierce combat in recent weeks as the country faces its bloodiest violence since the Taliban government was removed in 2001, notably in the Sangin area of Helmand province in the south. "It has proved to be a more dangerous and difficult job than we had anticipated," chief of general staff General Sir Richard Dannatt told BBC radio. "The Taliban have been more resilient than we had anticipated and sadly, we've had to kill more of them and their supporters than we would have wished to have done. "But it is a fact we have won every tactical engagement over the last two or three months against the Taliban." How much longer are we going to listen to military chiefs putting a brave face on things ? General Dannatt says he is saddened a middle-ranking officer serving in Helmand, in a leaked e-mail, has described air force pilots there as "utterly, utterly useless" and said more troops were needed. "If the odd person has had a disappointment in that the air strike they've called in has identified the wrong target, then that is understandable in the fog of war," he said. "But it is unfortunate a member of the team has seen fit in a private e-mail to criticise other members of team - we don't need that." Afghanistan... He says troops are "coping" in Afghanistan but are working to maximum levels. There are more than 5,000 British troops in Afghanistan as part of a 20,000-strong NATO force, charged with providing security to bolster reconstruction and economic development. It's only a matter of time before Australian soldiers are killed in Afghanistan. It is tragic that many of the American military dead are from the poorer classes of people who hope to get a reasonable income to send back home, and finally a chance at a college degree. How must these families feel when their hero comes home in a box? Nine-Eleven was an enormous tragedy, and so is Part Two of this catastrophe. About time the guns fell silent and ears opened to the Pope of Peace. We must stop this festival of blood while there is still time. Peace be with you. Cliff Cliff Baxter can be contacted at: ©2006 Clifford Baxter |
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