One odd thing about the news coming out of Iraq these days is how few insurgents seem to be among the deadly daily death toll.

Typically, as in this article,
(link...)
the amount of insurgents conquered or destroyed seems miniscule compared to the civilian or Iraqi military deaths, or even the coalition count. It seems pretty clear that the insurgents are only losing a few people at a time. At this rate, it will be the year 3007 before all the insurgents that exist now and all the new insurgents being drafted into this war will be killed or conquered.

I'm not aware of anyone keeping a daily toll of Sunni versus Shite deaths, but this would be an interesting count. Sometimes I suspect we have sort of chosen sides, so we don't care all that much if Shites kill Sunnis, as long as they are sneaky about it. The Iraqi police force seems to be about as two faced as they can get, and the Army not much better.

Is there a covert American strategy to let the civil war in Iraq settle enough scores, to eliminate enough of one side (mostly Shite maybe?) to create a new population of survivors friendly to and supported by us? This article hints at that. (link...)

Read more after the jump...

The war in Iraq is shrouded in mystery and news from there is often manipulated by our media, but over time the amount of civilian deaths (often labeled inurgent deaths) seems to be mounting, while the insurgent death toll seems very small. Recently, especially since the surge, this has begun to look somewhat like a US-assisted genocide and this worries me--or could we not be choosing sides, but letting the civil war continue on purpose?

Reporter Sean Kennedy, in the above mentioned article, says, "It's time to consider a critical question; might it be in the best interests of the U.S. to let the war rage and allow the participants to exhaust themselves? The old axiom is "the enemy of my enemy my friend." With both groups hostile to the U.S., as long as they're fighting one another instead of us, don't they both become our friends? A peculiar logic indeed, but perhaps useful nonetheless."

In Iraq the only goal now might be peace again at any cost. We wiped out Saddam, but are we helping the Shite majority establish a government that looks pretty much the same as his did?

The scariest thing is the loyalty of the leaders we are installing in the Middle East. In Afghanistan and Pakistan that loyalty is questionable to say the least. Especially when we start stepping on any plans those leaders might have to rule their own countries.

Our engagment in Iraq has gone from what might have been a noble idea to a greedy political war fought for oil resources and political power. Many Americans complain we have no strategy, but perhaps we do have one. If enough people on the weakest side die and we can buy the alligence of the survivors--wallah! we've won. But what a dreadfully ignoble victory that would be.

Keep your eyes on the death count of insurgents and Shite versus Sunnis. Dead bodies are discovered every day in Iraq through murder and military actions, but who are the victims? Ironically it seems the insurgents are dying far less frequently than any other faction.