… then I’d hate to see what “out of control” looks like. In the first twelve days of April, 73 Americans (the number increased as I wrote this) and 2 other coalition soldiers were killed in fighting. That makes this month the deadliest for Americans, even more so than when the fighting was at its worst in the initial invasion. 65 Americans died in 12 days of fighting when the invasion started in March 2003.

Think about it: we’ve been in Iraq for a year now. And yet American soldiers are dying more today than they were when Saddam Hussein was in control, and we were invading from the outside. How can it be that we have Iraq “under control” now?

The Iraqi people, even those who welcomed Americans at first, are now feeling humiliated, threatened and angry. They see more and more Iraqis, all too often innocent “collateral damage” victims, all too often children. They are an occupied country, and despite the machinations of the Bush press offices in Washington D.C. and Baghdad, things for them are not better than they were under Saddam. They see a foreign force installing a puppet government and establishing more than a dozen permanent military bases, and do not much wonder where the oil profits are going to. The religious factions of Sunni and Shiite are actually united, but not to form Bush’s desired government, rather to fight the coalition. Al Sadr has become a new national hero. No wonder more and more Iraqis are deciding to fight.

Then there are the points about our sources. Already tired, demoralized, and upset about being in a place they never thought they would have to go to for a far longer time than they thought they would ever be required to be, the hot, dry summer is coming and fewer and fewer trained soldiers will be replacing them–non-active, lesser-trained reserves will be the bulk of the replacements. Then there are the lost jobs, lost marriages, and suicides, the Veterans’ benefits weakened by the GOP, and the prospect of being called back as our men and women will be there in numbers at 14 permanent bases for at least 10 years. And then there’s the explosion of violence and conflict. Rumsfeld said last week that if the American generals in Iraq want more troops, all they have to do is ask. Well, they’re asking. Rumsfeld is still silent.

And now there is the Iraqi army, which was supposed to pick up some of the slack from the coalition forces, telling the American command en masse that they will not be going into Fallujah, thank you very much, because they did not sign up to roll in and kill other Iraqis.

I was interrupted for about an hour and a half and came back to this. In that time, another soldier was reported killed. 74 for 12 days in April, perhaps more by the end of day.

This is “under control”?