Tag Archives: combat operations

Americans Still Dying in Iraq

27 Monday Jun 2011

Posted by in Iraq

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

In spite of the alleged “end of combat operations” June has seen both the deadliest day and the deadliest month in Iraq in over 2 years:

“Two American soldiers were killed Sunday in Iraq, the military command said, making June the worst month in combat-related fatalities for United States forces in Iraq in more than two years. The casualties also reflected the dangers ahead as the United States prepares to withdraw all its troops from Iraq by the end of the year.

[…]

In a statement issued Sunday night, the American military said the two soldiers were killed “conducting operations” in the north. It did not elaborate, but that terminology is usually meant to indicate the deaths were caused by enemy attack. In the deadliest single-day death toll since 2009, five soldiers were killed June 5 when a rocket struck Victory Base Complex, the military’s base near the Baghdad airport. A sixth later died of his wounds.”

I guess it all depends on what the definition of “combat operations” is.

The Semantics of Perpetual War

06 Tuesday Jul 2010

Posted by in Afghanistan, Iraq, Obama administration, war on terror

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

I can change my name to Buick and sit in the garage—it doesn’t make me a car. Likewise, whether it’s called “combat operations” or “stability operations” in Iraq—it’s still a war. And leaving 50,000 troops there isn’t a “withdrawal.”

“President Obama has set an August deadline for the end of the combat mission in Iraq…The August deadline might be seen back home as a milestone in the fulfillment of President Obama’s promise to end the war in Iraq, but here it is more complex. American soldiers still find and kill enemy fighters, on their own and in partnership with Iraqi security forces, and will continue to do so after the official end of combat operations.

[…]

What soldiers today would call combat operations — hunting insurgents, joint raids between Iraqi security forces and United States Special Forces to kill or arrest militants — will be called “stability operations.” Post-reduction, the United States military says the focus will be on advising and training Iraqi soldiers, providing security for civilian reconstruction teams and joint counterterrorism missions.

“In practical terms, nothing will change,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen R. Lanza, the top American military spokesman in Iraq. “We are already doing stability operations.”

[…]

“I like to say that in Iraq, the only thing Americans know for certain, is that we know nothing for certain,” said Brett H. McGurk, a former National Security Council official in Iraq and current fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This much IS certain. The end is not in sight for the practice of perpetual war. In Iraq or Afghanistan.