The Iraqi Face

Its hard to resist marking up Iraqi casualties as non-critical when following war coverage in Iraq. Lets be honest here, most of us seeing "Iraqi's killed" instead of "American's killed" can shrug the incident off. When Iraqi police are killed instead of our Soldiers some strange gut reaction of "whew, our plan to put an Iraqi face on the occupation is working" is the internal reaction of many.

But the events in Iraq, as they are unfolding must force us to drop that notion. The insurgents are not fighting in the same time frame we are. The insurgents in the "Sunni triangle" win, if the moderate population becomes further disenfranchised in our efforts for Iraqi Democracy, and swell the ranks calling for what essentially boils down to a call for civil war.

Their efforts although more pressing as the election approaches, will not stop after the election, or for years after. And the civil war they call for will not have a formal declaration.

As the various armed groups in Iraq increase the Iraqi body count, the state of the Iraqi nation moves slowly further toward a state of 'low intensity' civil war.