Posted on 03/22/2006 10:07:51 AM PST by Btrp113Cav
U.S., Iraqi Forces Capture 50 Insurgents in Gunbattle
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq U.S. and Iraqi forces responded to an insurgent attack on a police station Wednesday, fighting a two-hour gunbattle that ended with the capture and detention of 50 of the gunmen.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Prospects of Terror: An Inquiry into Jihadi Alternatives (I)
Daschle is deeply saddened...
"Hmmm.. Never been to Gunbattle.. Hows the weather there?"
Ummmm...it's raining bullets?
95,000? Ask them to show you these mass graves.
Yeah, the questioning is what I'm interested in.
My geography might be wrong, but I think the author has his cardinal directions confused.
Cool! way to go, troops!
Looking at that data, recent fatalities don't seem qualitatively different from before. For example, Oct05 to Feb06 is five months. Using the actual distribution of fatalities per day from another page on that site I generated 100,000 random sequences of monthly fatalities. Of them about 17% had a sequence of five or months of decreasing fatalities.
Although one can hope, it's too early to say, from the data, that something qualitatively new is happening.
A very curious pattern is that, supposing this month continues its low fatality rate, either Feb or Mar of 04, 05 and 06 will have had unusually low numbers of fatalities. I wonder why that is.
To Democrats, this means 50 new human rights observers, 50 new lawyers, and 50 new rooms at the Hyatt.
It is a tribute to our men and women, their TRAINING and the outstanding LEADERSHIP they exhibit and receive.
Might I add a hearty AMEN to that, and say THANK YOU!!
The truth of what you say is seldom said.
There are pilgrimmages in February, but I don't think March. I understand your having found other five month sequences of declining casualties, but I don't think I see a raw decline of this magnitude over other 5 month periods.
For just 2.5 yrs since low scale warfare began, there probably is not a large enough sample size to make any statistically significant assertion about monthly moves, but again, the sheer magnitude of reduction is very much larger than other periods. Not sure how one evaluates that with so few samples available -- and of course it's useful to recognize that the process is not random. It is purposeful.
One other point. 2/06 had a slightly higher rate of fatalities than 1/06. The count was lower because there are 3 fewer days in Feb.
I just think we need to be realistic. Hopeful but realistic.
BTW I saw Fox cover this trend tonight. Someone is reading FR.
I heard this reported on the radio this morning a couple of times. Both times it was attached to a report on today's speech by the President. It went something like "even as the president gave an optimistic spin on events in Iraq, there was more violence around Baghdad, with four Iraqi police killed in an insurgent attack on their police station..."
At the time they weren't reporting the success of the police in repelling the attack and capturing the attackers. Maybe that info wasn't available at the time. It would interesting to know if later reports included that info.
Over a year ago, I wrote to the guy who runs iraqbodycount.org or whatever the ridiculous site is called. We exchanged about 4 or 5 emails. He said that ALL deaths in Iraq since the invasion - whether by coalition forces or terrorists - were included in the count and blamed on us because our occupation is the catalyst for the violence.
I asked him how this can be a problem since by invading the country we prevented the further slaughter of Iraqi's by Saddam. Even by the most pessimistic and pinko standards, the two should cancel each other out. I never got another response.
Getting to the specifics of your question, I would draw your attention to two things that, in my opinion, validate your judgment that the claim is false: "letter-to-the-editor" and "anti-war group".
"At the time they weren't reporting the success of the police in repelling the attack and capturing the attackers. Maybe that info wasn't available at the time. It would interesting to know if later reports included that info."
It still stuns me that NONE of the scum were killed. Wouldn't the responding American force have at least 1 or 2 snipers to burst a few skulls?
The only way this will be reported by DNBC is if the poor terrorists were to trip and scratch their knees.
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
Liberals have a hard time accepting that Marines and Soldiers actually like a good fight.
This can't be true. That would mean we'r having success in Iraq. We're not. Haven't you been listening to Johnny Murtha, the greatest patriot ever?
It's a Halliburton conspiracy!
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