Violence Linked to Elections

[Steve Blair]

BBC has a decent report of VP Cheney's comments about Iraq and the US elections here. One interesting comment in the article:

The White House is particularly concerned that insurgents are using the internet to disseminate their message and give the impression they are more powerful than the US, our correspondent says.

In response the US defence department has set up a new unit to better promote its message across 24-hour rolling news outlets, and particularly on the internet.

[Stu-6]

I am sure that guerillas in Iraq are aware of US elections and in some small way the increase in violence maybe linked but to think it is the major cause seems a bit of a stretch. It seems there are some US politicians and pundits who see everything as revolving around them/us and seem incapable of thinking that something happing oversees has nothing to do with them.

The really cynical part of me thinks this is effort to connect the attacks in Iraq to the election is essentially a product of Republican strategist “If you don’t vote for us the terrorist win”.

[SWJED]

I am sure that guerillas in Iraq are aware of US elections and in some small way the increase in violence maybe linked but to think it is the major cause seems a bit of a stretch. It seems there are some US politicians and pundits who see everything as revolving around them/us and seem incapable of thinking that something happing oversees has nothing to do with them.

The really cynical part of me thinks this is effort to connect the attacks in Iraq to the election is essentially a product of Republican strategist “If you don’t vote for us the terrorist win”.

... an argument could be made that the Dem's opposition is encouraging the scum-bags as well. Damned if you do, damned if you don't...

[Merv Benson]

Without a hint of irony one news report last week said the violence in Iraq was the highest in two years. Let's see what was happening two years ago? Elections? Is that just a coincidence? Probably not.

[Stu-6]

If you look at little closer I think you will find the spike in violence two years ago was during the time period just after the US elections. The election occurred on 2 November, that month did set a record for the highest number of US coalition fatalities but the first of these occurred on November 3rd. If we look at the 30 days that immediately preceded the 2004 elections we see 58 coalition fatalities or an average of 1.93 a day slightly below the 2004 yearly average of 2.47 daily fatalities. Obviously there are other ways of measuring violence but daily attacks, non military casualties, etc. but most all of these are significantly higher now than they ever were in 2004 so I doubt they were the point referenced by the news story.

[Stu-6]

... an argument could be made that the Dem's opposition is encouraging the scum-bags as well. Damned if you do, damned if you don't...

Agreed. For all its good points an open democratic government does have some disadvantages when it comes to foreign policy.

[Jimbo]

Well, if you view insurgency as a means to political end, then if you can knock other players out of the fight you get closer to your desired strategic endstate. so if you can't beat somebody by force of arms, you attack them where their achilles' heel is. In our case it is the political willpower in the United States. Regretably, the political parties have made national security a political issue when we are ina a war. Personally, I think this is a catastrophic mistake. The Democrats should have conceded this issue to the GOP, and focused on other issues that they can get traction on. So the insurgents are playing on our election cycle, not suprised.