What Americans feel about GI loss

NEW YORK: United States military chiefs told war-weary Americans and increasingly critical media organisations not to look at the 2,000th death in Iraq on Tuesday as a milestone in the two-year-old conflict, yet there was a howl of anti-war protests across the nation and beleaguered President George W Bush saw his approval rating plummet to an all-time low.

Sergeant George T Alexander, 34, died in hospital in Texas of wounds he received when a bomb hit his vehicle in Samarra on October 17 and officially became the 2,000th death. But here is a grimmer, and often glossed over statistic - unofficial estimates put Iraqi civilian deaths at 25,000 since the US-led invasion began in March 2003.

"The 2,000 service members killed in Iraq supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom is not a milestone," Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan of the American-led multinational force told AP news in a lame attempt at killing political introspection after two years of deaths and disappointments.

"It is an artificial mark on the wall set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives." It appears that a surprising number of Americans have an "ulterior motive."

Media reaction

CNN described the new death toll as "a tragic milestone" and observed that Americans were increasingly feeling it was a mistake for Bush to invade Iraq. A Harris Interactive poll published in The Wall Street Journal found that 53 per cent Americans believe the Iraq war was the "wrong thing to do."

The Washington Post blasted Bush: "The grim milestone was reached at a time of growing disenchantment over the war among the American public toward a conflict that was launched to punish Iraqi President Saddam Hussein for his alleged weapons of mass destruction. None were ever found."

Ratings down

According to a Gallup Poll, declining support for the war has weighed heavily on Bush's approval ratings, which are currently hovering around 40 per cent, their lowest in his presidency. But political analysts say it is unlikely that support for Bush - or the war - could sink much lower as the president still has a "committed group" behind him in the Republican bastions of the Midwest, the South, Texas and Arizona.

Anti-war protests

However, Americans especially those living in Blue states are beginning to sit up and listen to people like anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, mother of a US soldier killed in Iraq, who called for civil disobedience to demand the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. "What I think it's going to take now is non-violent, peaceful civil disobedience all over the country," Sheehan told reporters.

Large anti-war protests led by activists like Sheehan have even put pressure on Congress, including Democratic Party leaders who have castigated Bush's handling of the war but refrained from backing a deadline for withdrawal.

Recruitment down

In a telling sign of enthusiasm waning among Americans to sign up for the Iraq war, the US army is now stepping up its recruitment drive to attract immigrants.

Quick American citizenship has been a draw. The number of people of Indian-origin serving currently in the US army has grown to 500 from a hundred five years ago.

Two months ago, specialist Hatim Kathiria, a 23-year-old Gujarati computer engineer who was serving in the US army was the second Indian to die in Iraq.

In November 2003, Sergeant Uday Singh, 21, became the first Indian-American to die in Iraq. 

Ricky Singh, director of a veteran's service centre for social justice in Brooklyn told DNA that over 20 percent of those serving in Iraq would suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Haunting nightmares and stress are the biggest repercussion from the war in Iraq because soldiers in that hell hole are fighting a guerrilla war. They can't turn their back even on children. The constant tension can take an enormous toll," Singh, a naturalised American citizen who was born in India, told DNA.

With the number of US soldiers killed mounting and Iraq veterans showing signs of wear and tear, there are rifts emerging within Bush's own party. A senior Republican senator, Chuck Hagel, has said publicly that the war in Iraq is starting to look like Vietnam.