Some commentators and bloggers look at the numbers of American dead in Iraq, compare them to the numbers of dead in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War and try to make the case that the situation is not as bad as in those other conflicts.  According to these commentators, the “low number” of dead in Iraq relative to other wars is evidence that we are succeeding there. 

However, comparing the statistics from these wars paints a false picture of what is really going on in Iraq because our medical care is far more advanced.  According the U.S. Army Medical Command, the ratio of killed to wounded was one to three in World War II, and one to four in both Korea and Vietnam.  That means that the number of U.S. soldiers, airmen and Marines dead is lower per combat engagement than in other wars and that comparing the number of killed in action by war does not show what the true intensity of combat operations in Iraq really is.

A quick look at the numbers shows that the intensity of combat operations in Iraq is far greater than the number of dead might indicate.  As of this writing, the number of U.S. military personnel killed by enemy fire in Iraq is 1106.  The number of causalities from Operation Iraqi Freedom processed by Landstuhl Military Hospital in Germany by the end of November, 2004 was 17,868.  The number of troops listed as wounded-returned-to-duty (returned to action within 72 hours) at the end November, 2004 was 4503.  All told, this adds up to 22,371. 

If our troops had only the medical care of the World War II, G.I., there would be approximately 7,457 Americans killed in action to this point in the war.  If our medical care in Iraq was only as good as our medical care in Korea or Vietnam, 5593 U.S. troops would have been killed in Iraq today.

These back-of-the-napkin figures indicate that Operation Iraqi Freedom is not going well at all.  Were the numbers anywhere near what they were in Vietnam, Korea, or World War II, the political landscape in this country and in Iraq would be far different. 

Ted Kennedy was right.  Iraq is George W. Bush's Vietnam.  He just has better P.R. than LBJ.

Oh Lord, please explain to me why I can't get enough of Not Nick Nolte's Diary, formerly known as Nick Nolte's Diary.  Perhaps it has something to do with lines like this:

The moon lorded over the ocean like a obscenity.

Washington Times Headline Watch: Bush Seeks 'Full Disclosure At U.N.'  Darhling, have you tried the irony?  It's just delish!

We've seen several trends in the Bush Second Term Cabinet Sweepstakes.  One, well-discerned by Josh Marshall, Doonesbury and Andrew Sullivan is the centralization of power.  Dissenters like Colin Powell are out while Bush loyalists from the White House are in, as in Condi Rice at State, Alberto Gonzales at Justice, and Margaret Spellings at Education.

But a second, more alarming trend is becoming more evident.  Rewarding failure.  Today Bush nominated Bernard Kerik as the new Secretary of Homeland Security.  That's the same Bernard Kerik who oversaw the terrible first months of rebuilding internal security in Iraq and spent $1.2 Billion to train 35,000 Iraqi police whose record has been, well, you know how its been.  Now he's guarding us.

But that's not the worst of it, of course.  Today the White House let it be known that Donald Rumsfeld and his entire top policy team will be remaining at Defense.  Every idiot responsible for the Iraq mess got a promotion.  It just keeps getting worse.

The Yes Men strike again.  Activist Identity Thieves and Identity Correctors hit the BBC.  Posing as a spokesperson for Dow Chemical, one of the boys gets on BBC-TV and says that Dow was responsible for the Bhopahl disaster that killed 3,800 people in a chemical leak in India in 1984.  Its a Beautiful World.

 Hatemonger Fred Phelps is at it again.  The Mississippi native, Calvanist-Southern Baptist fire-and-brimstone preacher and disbarred lawyer has declared that retired NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw is going to hell.  Brokaw will join a distinguished group that includes, inter alia, George W. and Laura Bush, Billy Graham, Elizabeth Taylor, Ronald Reagan, Martin Luther King, Bill Clinton, Barry Goldwater, John Kerry, Mr. Rogers, and all of our nation's service men and women who have died in Iraq.  Why is Tom Brokaw destined for eternal damnation?  According to Phelps, it's simple logic:

On Brokaw's watch, sodomites seized control of America . . . . As anchor and editor-in-chief, Brokaw decided what to broadcast and how to spin each item.  He promoted sodomy with each decision.  Then he eulogized WWII traitors who burped and farted in silly hats while dykes and fags hijacked the US military.

Geez.  Can you imagine what this guy will say when Dan Rather signs off next spring?

For those of you unfamiliar with Pastor Phelps, he is the man who wants to erect a monument in a park in Casper, Wyoming, to commemorate the murder of Matthew Shepard, who, according to Phelps, is in hell even as I write.  Phelps and his flock tastefully picketed Matthew Shepard's funeral.  In fact, the proud Bob Jones University alumnus claims that his Westboro Baptist Church has conducted over 22,000 such demonstrations since 1991.

Phelps calls his demonstrations “love crusades.”  Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, huh?

UPDATE:  For those of you who are curious, this is the somewhat nebulous story surrounding Phelps' disbarment, according to the Anti-Defamation League:

Trained as a lawyer, Fred Phelps was disbarred in 1979 by the Kansas Supreme Court, which asserted that he had "little regard for the ethics of his profession." The formal complaint against Phelps charged that he misrepresented the truth in a motion for a new trial in a case he had brought, and that he held the defendant in the case up to "unnecessary public ridicule for which there is no basis in fact." Following his disbarment from Kansas State courts, Phelps continued to practice law in Federal courts. In 1985, nine Federal court judges filed a disciplinary complaint charging him and six of his family members, all attorneys, with making false accusations against them. The Phelpses fought the complaint but lost. In 1989, Fred Phelps agreed to surrender his license to practice law in Federal court in exchange for the Federal judges allowing the other members of his family to continue practicing in Federal court.

In essence, Phelps was disbarred for slander, libel, harassment, and extortion.

To his credit, Phelps was awarded a special honor from the NAACP for his work in civil rights advocacy.  However, unbeknownst to the NAACP at the time, Phelps used the civil rights cases as a front for extortion.

There's much, much more to write about this charlatan.  Watch for a future post.

Today's Washington Times Headline: Bush Calls For Global Cooperation

Backstory: Gee I screwed up this Iraq thing.  What do I do? 

Hmmm, when it looked like I'd go to Vietnam, what did I do?  I called Daddy for help and somebody sent me to the Air National Guard.

Hmmm, when I screwed up Arbusto Energy, what did I do?  I called Daddy's friend  Philip Uzielli, who bought a 10% share of the company for $1,000,000 even though the entire company was worth only $400,000.

Hmmm, when I blew the successor company of Arbusto, Bush Energy up, I got two of Daddy's friends, William DeWitt Jr. and Mercer Reynolds III to merge their successful company Spectrum 7 with mine and make me CEO.

Hmmm, when, as CEO of Spectrum 7, I drove the company into the ground, what did I do?  I got Alan Quasha, owner of Harken Energy Corp. to trade his good shares of Harken for the nearly worthless shares of Spectrum 7.  I also got a good job on their board.

Hmmm, now that I've really screwed up this thing, maybe I can “call for world cooperation” and get the world to bail me out of this jam.  

Nope. This time you'll be cleaning up your own messes, Georgie boy. 

The Ukrainian Parliament brought down the government of current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, who is the disputed President-Elect of Ukraine.  Yanukovich's election was seen by outside observers as being marred by massive fraud.  Although exit polls showed his rival Viktor Yushchenko winning by a very large margin, the vote tally suspiciously showed a win for Yanukovich. 

The vote of no confidence greatly strengthens the hand of the Yushchenko supporters in the battle over a possible new vote.  

Coming soon, according to Underneath Their Robes, a gossip(?) site about the Federal Judiciary, the newest super blogger is Judge Richard A. Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals: 

Incidentally, here's a scoop for your blog. Gary Becker (famous University of Chicago economist) and I are starting a blog, probably next week, called The Becker-Posner Blog. We will be discussing a variety of current topics of mutual interest, but initially just once a week.

Wherein we learn that Judge Posner's nickname on the bench is The Giant Hedgehog.  (True)

If you know anything about the judiciary, Posner is about the most intellectually dynamic judge in America.  I rarely agree with him, but he's always annoying fun to read.

Update, Wed, 2:54 PM Here's the URL.

Bush, acknowledging his unpopularity:

"I want to thank the Canadian people who came out to wave, with all five fingers, for their hospitality,"

Sometimes the bubble just isn't thick enough.

Iraq's elections are approaching.  Yet it seems impossible to provide security for the thousands of polling stations that will be needed.  

Election time and the period just before it are where the rubber hits the road, folks.  The Pentagon needs a plan to win the war, not just reduce attacks to 56% of the previous total.  We learned today that casuality reports indicate that the number of U.S. troops killed in November will either tie or surpass the previous record for most U.S. troops killed , set in April of this year. 

However it appears that we are going to get more of the same--no changes in plan, elections to move forward.

What needs to be done?  The Iron Mouth has a few suggestions:

(1) Train Iraqi troops and police in Turkey or Jordan.
(2) Ask Europeans to help train the police in Turkey or Jordan.
(3) Stop telegraphing our next offensive against the insurgents for political purposes back home.
(4) Take a more active role politically in bringing ethnic and relgious factions together for talks.
(5) Spend many millions on free schools with free textbooks for the Iraqis.  An educated population understands what they have to lose.
(6) Reactivate French and Russian oil contracts with the former Iraqi regime in exchange for troops and political support. (Tough shit Halliburton!)
(7) Ask European countries to contribute a couple of commando teams to help in counter-terrorist operations in Iraq. Once they are there for a while and involved in some operations, start asking for larger bodies of troops.
(8) Publically, in a speech to the U.N. indicate that the U.S. will never seek permanent military bases in Iraq.
(9) Stop the use of air power and artillery in counter-insurgency actions in population centers. Operations to clear areas need to be done by infantry only. This will expose our troops to more fire at first, but the resentment caused by civilian causualities will be lessened.
(10) Use social workers and ethnologists as much as possible to advise our troops so as to reduce conflict during house to house searches and other interactions with the Iraqi populace.  No effort is to be spared in making sure our troops' actions do not increase resentment.  This is politically necessary.

Some of these might just do the trick.  I hope we can salvage something from the mess.

It appears that the Battle of Fallujah is far from over.

"It's still a very dangerous environment," Wilson said of this city 40 miles west of Baghdad. "Just when you think you have an area cleared, someone comes out of a tunnel, a spider hole and starts shooting."

Marines continue to fight sporadic gunbattles with insurgents as they clear the streets, homes and buildings.

Maj. Jim West, a Marine intelligence officer, said that as a result of the Fallujah offensive, "attacks of all sorts overall in the area of Fallujah have decreased by 44 percent."

Down 44%?  I guess that means that 56% of the attacks are still going on. 

Thirty years have passed since the day Nick Drake died at the ridiculous age of 26.  Far too many people know his music only from a Volkswagen ad.  Far too many know him not at all.

I have always regarded him as one of the greatest singer-songwriters.  He is most certainly the greatest songwriter who fame mysteriously bypassed.  He was Van Gough with an acoustic guitar. Artists as varied as Beck, Chris Martin, Thom Yorke, Lucinda Williams, Elton John, Peter Buck, David Byrne, Jim White, Robyn Hitchcock, and Vic Chesnutt would certainly agree with me.  And the gifted Elliott Smith followed Nick Drake’s tortured footsteps to a tragic end.

For me, Nick Drake’s music is a perfect score for autumn days.  Cool, crisp, and classy.  Hues of sepia, orange, and ochre.  A sometimes sunny, often cloudy, preface to a long, harsh winter.  But having lived in Drake’s native land, I know his songs are more like the English summer.  A fresh sunny morning with clouds rolling by a Northern Sky, followed by a hazy afternoon.  And always foreboding rain.  Drake’s music and life epitomized the transience of happiness, the fleeting nature of contentment.  Ennui, loss, and despair await their turns.  And one hopes for the patience and toughness to endure until the cycle renews.

Drake’s debut album, Five Leaves Left, epitomizes this truth.  The album opens with Time Has Told Me, a song filled with fresh, if somewhat guarded, optimism.  “Someday our ocean will find its shore,” Drake assures his unnamed lover in the song.  But the hopeful prelude does not last.  The album closes with the straightforward, haunting line, “But Saturday’s sun has turned to Sunday’s rain.”  Five Leaves Left was recorded while Drake was still a student at Cambridge.  Though only 20 at the time, Drake’s lyrics show a remarkable maturity and wisdom reminiscent of Keats.  As so often in Shakespeare, Time is the prevailing theme of the record.  The music is flavored with jazz, folk, baroque, and even Elizabethan styles, displaying Drake’s remarkable range and sensitivity.  For those of you unfamiliar with Nick Drake’s music, begin with this record.

Drake’s second record, Bryter Layter, is often called his most accessible record.  It is also the most criticized.  The orchestrations arranged by Cambridge University mate Robert Kirby are lush and, unfortunately, sometimes drown out Drake’s expert guitar picking.  There are some Muzak moments as well, particularly in the title track, which would sound right at home playing in a hotel lift.  But two songs in particular provide beautiful and haunting revelations of Drake’s vulnerability.  In Fly, Drake completes an emotionally exhausting journey in less than three minutes.  He at first pleads with his unnamed listener for forgiveness, supreme unction, and a new identity.  He is sinking.  Then he swiftly shifts to seeking a quiet recompense.  When that doesn’t work, he attacks: “Please, tell me your second name/ Please, play me your second game.”  Finally, he resorts to a dignified, if dour, resolution, come what may.  Drake is at once melancholy, disillusioned, romantic, introspective, indecisive, fatalistic.  He is Hamlet.  Fly is Drake’s most graceful and beautiful melody, and if you aren’t choked up by the end of this song, then you’re lacking a soul.  Northern Sky, the ninth track on Bryter Layter, is a simple love poem underscored by a mellifluous melody.  The first verse, reprised at the end, speaks with such simple elegance, that I will reprint it and add nothing more:

I never felt magic crazy as this

I never saw moons, knew the meaning of the sea

I never held emotion in the palm of my hand

Or felt the sweet breezes in the top of a tree

But now you're here

Brighten my northern sky

After Bryter Layter received a dearth of publicity and sales, caused in part by Drake’s refusal to promote his own record, Drake grew disillusioned with the music industry and with life.  He also sank into a heavy depression.  His final album, Pink Moon, recorded in two nights, reflects his wounded psyche.  It is Drake’s most terse and economic record.  Aside from some piano in the title track, the instrumentation consists entirely of Drake’s voice and acoustic guitar.  Drake’s music is stripped bare of artifice, and he reveals his soul.  Gone is the melancholy and lighthearted young man of Five Leaves Left.  Intense despair swathes Drake’s voice.  The result is Drake's best and most pure work. Then he abandoned music for almost three years.

Made To Love Magic is Island Records most recent release by Nick Drake.  This is welcome news, for Drake’s music is receiving an appreciation he never experienced in his lifetime.  Perhaps Volkswagen and Wes Anderson can share some credit, but I suspect this renaissance reflects a deep longing by people for good music written by a good singer-songwriter to combat the Ashley Simpson American Idol blues.  Made To Love Magic consists of album outtakes, alternative versions, and several songs Drake recorded shortly before his untimely death in 1974.  Though merely a hodgepodge collection of Drake’s music, the record gives a broad, solid overview of the songwriter’s talents.  A particular gem is the song Mayfair, recorded in Robert Kirby’s dorm room at Cambridge in 1968.  Mayfair, “full of fame but lacking love,” is a fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek ditty reminiscent of Noel Coward.  Drake’s wit is on full display, and he gives a memorable epitaph for the oh-so-posh London neighborhood: “Even the trees are wealthy here.”  This album rounds out Nick Drake’s collection nicely, and serves as a painful reminder of music’s profound loss on a late November morning in 1974.

If you haven’t experienced Nick Drake’s music, now is the perfect time to do so, as Autumn slowly darkens the Northern Sky and passes into Winter.

Once again, from today's White House Press Conference:

Q That's not really what we're looking for, Scott.

MR. McCLELLAN: You've had your turn.

It'd be hilarious, if it wasn't so agonizing.

From today's White House Press Conference:

Helen, go ahead.

Q Why are we killing people in Iraq ? There are many men, women and children being killed there. I mean, what is the reason we are there, killing people, continuing. It's outrageous.

MR. McCLELLAN: The reason we are there is the same reason the international community is, is united in helping Iraq -- the international community is united in helping Iraq move forward on a free and peaceful and democratic future. I think you can look to the recent commitments from the United Nations, from the European Union, from the recent meetings in Sharm el-Sheikh last week, there is a united front from the international community in working together to help the Iraqi people realize a free and peaceful future. There are terrorists and other Saddam loyalists who continue to seek to derail that transition to democracy, but they will --

Q They are fighting for their own country.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- they will not prevail. And we are there to partner with the Iraqi people as they work to realize a better future, one that stands in stark contrast to the past of Saddam Hussein and his brutal regime.

At one time, reporters didn't have to ask such loaded questions, because the press would do their job and report the news, instead of trying to be “fair” to “both sides of an issue.” 

Having problems illustrating our problems in Iraq while discussing the war?  Just remember: Kidnappings average seven a day in Baghdad.

Trombone, Tuba, Drums. (MP 3)  Iggy & The Stooges.  Two great tastes that go great together.  The Ridiculous Trio: Plays the Stooges.  Oh, and IT ROCKS. 

From the Department of Far From God:

Townhall columnist and “pastor“ of “Clash Church“ (no relation to Joe Strummer and the boys), Doug Giles recently penned a missive to the flock he is attempting to gather.  In “Dirty Harry Goes To Church,“  Giles wonders aloud, while describing the visit of Detective Harry Callahan to an “effeminized church” :

There has got to be a church where a man doesn’t have to sacrifice his masculinity in order to be a believer. 

Last week, in “Do You Have A Pit Bull Attitude?“  Giles described the ideal Christian leader:

God intended His believers—especially Christian leaders—to be spiritual warriors, to be pit bulls who smash demonic strongholds, stand for truth and bring life, light and healing to this great planet.

And his Church?  Read on:  

For men, we embrace a masculine spirituality.  We believe God created men to be men without apology.  We believe that Biblical masculinity is necessary for the church to be the overcoming organism God intends for it to be.  Therefore, we avoid the feminization of men and the spiritual emasculation of God’s rowdy warriors that usually accompanies most evangelical churches.  

We are Clash Christian Church.

Mr. Giles' words echo those of other right-wing Christians, the so-called “Deutschen Christen“ or “German Christians” who emerged from the early days of the Nazi seizure of power in Germany:

The “German Christians“ described their creed thusly:

“Christian faith is a heroic, manly thing.  God speaks in blood and Volk a more powerful language than He does in the idea of humanity.“

Like Mr. Giles, they were political--see this description of a church election from Victoria Barnett's For The Soul of The People:

Church elections were planned to be held in all regional churches on July 23, 1933 to elect delegates to a national synod that would officially elect a new Reich Bishop.  In a few regional churches, the Young Reformation Movement, an opposition group, placed its candidate on the ballot; but in many regions, the lists of candidates were almost exclusively “German Christian.”  The Nazi party open supported the “German Christians.”  Three days before the elections, party chief Rudolf Hess ordered all party members to get their names on the elections lists in their parishes, reminding them that “participation in the election is mandatory.“  On election eve, Hitler himself openly supported the “German Christians“ in a nationally broadcast radio speech.  Church members entering their churches to vote were confronted by rows of SA members wearing sandwich boards carrying the names of the “German Christian“ candidates.  Nationally, the “German Christians“ won two-thirds of the vote, giving them the majority in regional synods throughout Germany. . .

Protestant outrage reached its peak after the national “German Christian“ rally, held at the Berlin Sportspalast on November 13, 1933.  A series of speakers called for the removal of all pastors unsympathetic to National Socialism, the formation of a separate church for Christians of Jewish descent, and for implementation of the “Aryan paragraph“ and the removal of the Old Testament from the Bible.

If seeing these passages next to Mr. Giles' lines isn't enough to chill your veins to ice, then think this over:  Look to see the ideological cohesiveness of the Church corrupted by those who see it as a popular vehicle for their own purposes.  In such a situation, there will be a free-wheeling adoption of Christ's name to any number of causes, including political movements of all kinds.

These times present great dangers to lovers of freedom.  That is why we must fight with everything we have now.  We can and will be triumphant, but vigilance, wisdom and strength will be needed.