American Deaths In Iraq At 2 Year High

U.S. Troop deaths in Iraq reached a 2 year high this month. The death toll for May was the 3rd highest monthly toll of the entire conflict. The increase was predicted after Bush announced his surge plan.

Baghdad is still in chaos despite the surge. The latest McClatchy report on Iraq shows that the surge is having minimal impact on the daily violence there.

Juan Cole has been keeping a close eye on developments in Iraq.

In the latest sign that the neo-cons have no clue about what they are doing in Iraq, Bush has stated that the South Korea model should be used for Iraq. That has to be one of the dumbest things to come out of Bush & Co. in a long time. The two nations and the two situations are completely different. We are talking about two historical backdrops that couldn't be anymore different. We have a different political situation, different cultural scenarios, different geographical factors, different military factors, and so forth.

South Korea had a stable government from the start....the U.S. didn't have to build it. Jihadism was also not a factor in South Korea. Furthermore, we were in South Korea as welcomed guests of the South Koreans....not as occupiers. And more importantly, (as brutal as the Korean war was...and even though it was not vital to U.S. Security) the U.S. was operating under the authority of the UN Security Council and was functioning within international law. That can't be said for Iraq.

When will the neo-cons get a clue about what is going on in the World? They don't even know the differences between Iraq and the Korean Conflict.

Juan Cole offers his take on this comparison.