The lunatic fringe

The script never changes. It is, of course, democratic politicians who have long been held hostage by the dirty fucking hippies on the left -- the anti-war "loonies," the teachers' union, etc., etc. Rarely do we hear a peep from the punditocracy about the fringe element on the right who hold republican politicians hostage, even if it means the deaths of more soldiers and more strain on our stretched military. From Froomkin:

Doyle McManus writes in the Los Angeles Times: "To buy time for his buildup of more than 28,000 troops to show results, Bush asked his commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, to deliver a progress report to the nation in early September.

"That helped stave off Republican defections as Congress debated whether to impose a timetable for troop withdrawals. But it also established September as a deadline for clearer military and political progress in Iraq, a tactical concession for a White House that long has refused to accept any benchmarks or timetables for evaluating the war, now 4 years old.

"Democratic and Republican members of Congress already are focusing on September as their next major decision point on the war -- planning hearings to debate Petraeus' findings and, in the Democrats' case, promising new attempts to force Bush to withdraw troops.

"By September, the troop buildup will have been underway for more than six months. Unless there is dramatic improvement in Iraq, public support for the war will probably have eroded further. And by September, skittish Republicans will be four months closer to starting their reelection campaigns. . . .

"Several moderate Republicans have warned that they are preparing to switch sides unless the troop 'surge' shows results."

But Jonathan Weisman writes in The Washington Post: "The experiences of the few Republicans to vote against the war help explain the remarkable unity that the party has maintained in Washington behind an unpopular president. Just four Republicans -- two in the House, two in the Senate -- voted last week for a $124 billion war funding bill that would require troop withdrawals to begin by Oct. 1, legislation that Bush has vowed to veto.

"That cohesion reflects the views of the GOP's core voters, who see the war in Iraq in fundamentally different terms than Democrats and political independents do, said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Voters from those groups tend to see unremitting gloom, but Republican base voters continue to see a conflict that is going reasonably well, with a decent chance of military success."

As I said, the lunatic fringe.

"Reasonably well."

BAGHDAD, April 30 -- The deaths of more than 100 American troops in April made it the deadliest month so far this year for U.S. forces in Iraq, underscoring the growing exposure of Americans as thousands of reinforcements arrive for an 11-week-old offensive to tame sectarian violence.

More than 60 Iraqis also were killed or found dead across Iraq on Monday. Casualties among Iraqi civilians and security forces have outstripped those of Americans throughout the war. In March, a total of 2,762 Iraqi civilians and policemen were killed, down 4 percent from the previous month, when 2,864 were killed. Iraq's government has yet to release any monthly totals for April.

Attacks killed a total of nine U.S. troops over the weekend, including five whose deaths were announced Monday. The weekend's fatalities brought the toll for the month to 104 Americans killed, in the sixth most-lethal month for American forces since the U.S.-led invasion four years ago.

Under the new counterinsurgency plan, many U.S. forces have left large, more secure bases to live in small combat outposts and to patrol hostile neighborhoods where the risk of insurgents targeting them has multiplied.

Highlighting the vulnerability of American forces, a series of explosions Monday night rocked Baghdad's Green Zone, the most heavily secured enclave in the capital and home to thousands of U.S. troops, Western diplomats and Iraqi government officials.

"There is a duck-and-cover going on right now," said Lt. Col. Christopher C. Garver, a U.S. military spokesman, before quickly getting off the phone. Later, Garver confirmed there had been an assault on the Green Zone, but it was unclear what had happened. Local Iraqi television stations reported 10 explosions inside the zone. There were no immediate reports of casualties, Garver said.

In eastern Baghdad on Sunday, a roadside bomb killed three U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter who were on patrol, the military said. Attackers shot dead another soldier in the same section of the capital on Saturday. Meanwhile, a Marine was killed in the Sunni insurgent bastion of Anbar province, west of Baghdad. On Saturday, the military reported four U.S. soldiers had been killed on that day.

Before the deaths announced Monday, 99 U.S. soldiers had been killed during April, according to iCasualties.org, an independent Web site that monitors military deaths. Nearly half have died in and around Baghdad, with the next greatest number of deaths occurring in Anbar and Diyala provinces. In December, 112 U.S. soldiers were killed.

With 11 combat deaths, April also was the deadliest month for British troops in Iraq since the beginning of the war, when 27 soldiers were killed in March 2003. This month's British casualties highlighted the growing tensions in southern Iraq as Shiite groups clash for power and Britain prepares to draw down its forces.

"A decent chance."

The number of terrorism incidents in Iraq -- and resulting deaths, injuries and kidnappings -- skyrocketed from 2005 to 2006, according to statistics released by U.S. counterterrorism officials yesterday.

Of the 14,338 reported terrorist attacks worldwide last year, 45 percent took place in Iraq, and 65 percent of the global fatalities stemming from terrorism occurred in Iraq. In 2005, Iraq accounted for 30 percent of the worldwide terrorist attacks.

The figures, compiled by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and released with the annual State Department Country Reports on Terrorism, showed that the number of incidents in Iraq rose 91 percent, from 3,468 in 2005 to 6,630 in 2006.

Almost all of those incidents involved the death, injury or kidnapping of at least one person. All told, the number of people killed, injured or kidnapped as a result of terrorism in Iraq jumped 87 percent, from 20,685 to 38,713.

For the republican base, there has never been an issue with Bush's "stay the course" policies. Karl Rove knows this; it's why, just before the 2006 election, he cited "the math" to confidently predict a GOP victory. Little did he know how small the base really had become. That doesn't make it any less powerful.