Okay, here is my story of the day….
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The U.S. military has made the decision to send the rest of an Army National Guard unit from Kuwait into Iraq in the hopes of quelling an upsurge in violence in recent days. The remaining 1000+ soldiers are scheduled to deploy in the volatile Anbar provence and the city of Ramadi where Pennsylvania National Guard units have been struggling to contain volatile emotions and increased attacks. In recent days there has been a spike in all kinds of casualties including several journalists and an important Sunni warlord who had been assisting the new Iraqi government with his support. As is usually the case, there are scant resources available to tell us how many Iraqi civilians, frendly combatants, or enemy combatants have been killed of late.
  It’s interesting to note that statistical studies have shown that in order to create a secure situation in a hostile country it is necessary to have a troop to citizen ratio of between 10 and 20 troops for each citizen. At the present time Iraq has a population of 26 million plus. This means that the U.S and Iraqi government and their allies would need to have a minimum of 2.6 million troops available and on duty in Iraq to completely quell any violence. At present there are slightly more than 120,000 US troops. Consider this, Baghdad itself has close to 6 million people. If you combine Iraqi security forces, police, and US troops you come up with about 30,000 troops. This is a woefully short ratio. Ideally to ensure peace there would need to be 600,000! To quell violence in other regions the US has needed an average of at least 1 to 40. To put those numbers in Baghdad would require a lot more forces. For more on this numbers game go here.
 It’s something to think about. Also consider that statisticians point out that when there is what they call a ‘youth bulge’ a society ends up having some sort of reactionary problem. The last time it happened here was in the 1960’s when the baby boomers hit the magic number of 16-25 years old. When this segment represents more than 20 % of the population this is considered a youth bulge. What it means is that young men and women are left without work, money, meaning, and a large enough infrastructure to support them. Picture a bunch of young guys without jobs on the corners and imagine them deciding what to do. Now consider that Iraq and most of SW Asia have a youth bulge that is between 40 and 65 % of the population. Perhaps instead of nation building, pyramid building would be a more beneficial activity.
  Now, here is the point of all this. Deploying 1000 more troops to Iraq is not going to do a bit of good. Now ask yourself this, is it possible that the US military or government is unfamiliar with what I’ve just described? Now ask yourself this, Why are they doing this? Find the answer to that and you find the answer to a lot more.
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