Chapomatic posted a link that I thought was rather fascinating; Iraq war casualties - a visual map. It blips up the casualties resulting on each day since the coalition invasion in 2003 took place. It puts the conflict into perspective when you realize that the overwhelming majority of casualties take place not only in the Sunni Triangle, but in and around Baghdad.
Is that a major surprise to anyone? Not really, but why is this continuing to be the case? I would posit that the terrorists recognize the importance of getting their deadly handiwork on TV and in newspapers and since the media is overwhelming based in Baghdad, the terrorists respond by doing their business there - instead of forcing the journalists into the rest of the country where they'd see life going on normally (or vastly improved from where they were under Saddam). Journalists continue to get played by the terrorists - and the public doesn't know any better because that's all the media is reporting.
The terrorists know that they've got only one way to win this war, and that's to get the US public sick and tired of seeing these images. They figure that if we see enough bloodshed, we'll tuck tail and run. The terrorists have a supply, but not an endless supply, of suicide bombers, so to maximize the effect, they've got to run higher risk operations in and around Baghdad in order to get the bombings onto the nightly news.
No comments:
Post a Comment