Rising Rate of Attacks by Iraqis on U.S. Troops

The NYT has a front page article on how attacks on American troops have increased again after having been down for a while. Of course they've increased! Boy George has brought more troops back into Baghdad.

Are they carrying out military missions? No. They are acting like policeman trying to keep two warring gangs apart. They weren't trained for that role, and their presence will only make the insurgency more anti-American than sectarian if it continues.

The only way to stop the sectarian civil war would be to crack down hard on the centers of the death squads. We would have to "Fallujah" the Mahdi Army and Sadr City to have any chance of stopping Shiite death squads. Just like invading North Vietnam, that is no longer politically possible.

Why? Because the Bush Administration has staked its strategy for a "free Iraq" on a coalition, unity government that is supposed to work everything out amicably. That would be quite a feat since the unity government has representatives of the death squads as members of the government.

So now the Bushies are guilty of the same strtategy as they (as Young Republicans) criticized the Democrats and the peace movement for during the Vietnam war. The military is not being allowed to win the war anymore. There are too many political constraints on what it is allowed to do in order to win.

A military that is forced to be a police force is a sitting duck. Expect American casualties rates to start rising rapidly again. If you can't win, get out: now.