COUNTERCOLUMN: The Adjunct of Evil

Things you must know here:

Salient points:

The enemy seems to be running out of anti air assets, and is not getting replenished from outside the country. This is evident in the marked decline in the number of U.S. helicopters downed.

The number of African-Americans among the U.S. dead appears to be underrepresented somewhat, vis-a-vis the U.S. population. This is not surprising, since economics often leads blacks to enlist in support specialties which will hopefully help them get ahead in life; whereas the infantry is largely made up of maladjusted white boys like me.

The total number of insurgents captured or killed so far exceeds the maximum estimate for the number of insurgents at any time, by a factor of 2. So not only have we won the war, and annihilated the enemy, but apparently we've done it twice. OIF III is apparently still working on their quota.

The Iraq prison population has doubled since January.

Saudi Arabia contributes more jihadi warriors than its closest rival, Syria, by a factor of five. I think that's why Saudi security forces fight Al Qaeda so much. The object isn't to capture or kill them, so much as convince them that life is easier in Iraq. Of course, once the United States eventually leaves Iraq, these foreign fighters are going to head right back to Saudi Arabia, and be a problem for them all over again.

Total U.S. troop strength in Iraq is NOT trending down, but is indeed sharply higher than it was in February of this year.

The number of reserve component troops is getting much higher. The Army has not provided figures, for some reason, for the last several months. They should be pressed on this.

Overall trend on attacks on oil and gas pipelines is down, but they still remain a target.

Number of daily attacks is near peak levels, and has maintained there for the last three months.

The total number of Iraqi security personnel increased by 83% last year.

Iraqi GDP for 2004 will exceed 2002, in U.S. dollars. Unemployment is down. Estimated Iraqi GDP grew by 74% year-over-year vs. 2003 estimates.

Next time some uninformed yobsucker kvetches to you that coalition forces haven't been able to restore electricity to Baghdad, point out that currently, nationwide electricity production is actually 15 percent higher than prewar levels. (4541 Mw in July 05 compared to 3958 before the war.) Baghdad hasn't quite caught up to its prewar levels yet (I can hear Riverbend complaining from here), but you must remember that Saddam's government diverted power to Baghdad from all over the Euphrates River Valley and to loyal cities and areas, at the expense of the outlying towns.

The number of telephone subscribers has gone up 4,500 percent compared to prewar levels.

The number of Iraqi internet subscribers is up 3,268 percent over prewar levels.

There are five TIMES more cars on the road since prewar levels.

67% of Iraqis polled believe Iraq is moving in the right direction, vs. 20% believe Iraq is moving in the wrong direction. The overall trend of the favorable response is strongly up since December/January, when 49 percent of Iraqis gave the "right direction" response to the poll.

82% of Iraqis believed their lives will be better a year from now. 2% of Iraqis believe their lives will be worse. The trend of favorable responses has skyrocketed since December.

40% of Iraqis in Sunni areas believe Iraq is heading in the right direction. Last year, that figure was 15-20%.

93% of Iraqis oppose the use of violence toward political ends. Only 2-4% support attacks on security forces and infrastructure. [My take: Of 25 million Iraqis, that translates to roughly 500,000 Iraqis. Divide those in half and you get 250,000 males. Multiply that by roughly 60 percent (WAG on percentage of males of military age): 150,000.

Of those 150,000, only one in ten will have the balls to actually do anything about it, versus talk. That leaves you with 15,000 insurgents, plus another thousand or so foreign fighters.

Roughly in line with previous estimates of 15,000-20,000, out of whom, as noted, we have killed or captured approximately 40,000. We are therefore fighting an insurgency consisting of possibly negative 15,000-20,000 soldiers. And as we kill more and more, the absolute value of the insurgency grows higher every day.

71% oppose the presence of coalition forces in Iraq. 23% support it.

73% of Iraqis polled believe the transitional government is either very representative or generally representative of the Iraqi people. 4% say it is not at all representative.

When asked if lives were better before the war, 60.7 percent of Iraqis disagree or strongly disagree. 37.3 percent felt their lives were better before the war. Residents of Abu Ghraib were apparently not included in the sample.

90.1% of Iraqis say they are hopeful for the future. 6.3% disagree or strongly disagree.

89.4 percent of Iraqis say they believe things will get better slowly. 7.7% disagree or strongly disagree. Iraqis are therefore more hopeful for their future than Blue state residents are for their own.

When asked to prioritize what Iraqis want their government to deal with, electricity was number one on the list. Terrorism was number eight.

That should only surprise people in Baghdad. The vast majority of neighborhoods throughout Iraq are just trying to get on with their lives and rarely, if ever, see a terrorist strike first-hand.

Did anything in this report make the pages of today's or yesterday's New York Times?

No. Not a damn mention.

Splash, out

Jason