New war, old adage

Will Oremus has another article in The New York Times about Iraq:

A remarkable thing happened in Iraq in August: not a single one of the 48,000 United States troops stationed there died. It was America’s first fatality-free month there since the war began in 2003. In all, some 4,500 American soldiers have died over the course of the eight-year campaign, including more than fifty since combat operations officially ended a year ago.
The calm August followed an alarmingly bloody June that saw fourteen American troops killed in Iraq, the highest monthly total in three years. The New York Times examined a variety of potential explanations for the drop-off in violence. American commanders attribute it partly to increased vigilance by Iraqi security forces, who came under pressure from the Americans to clamp down on Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias after a spate of attacks in June. Previously, the Shi'ite-led government had focused its efforts on al-Qaeda and other Sunni insurgent groups, a spokesman told The Times.
Charts compiled by the independent website iCasualties.org show that Coalition deaths have dropped sharply from their peak in 2007, the year of Bush’s troop surge. But spikes in April and June had the death toll for 2011 set to surpass 2010, a worrisome development given that Obama is aiming to withdraw troops by the end of the year. Time will tell whether August was a turning point or an aberration.
Of course, there are other people in Iraq besides Americans. And they weren’t all so lucky in August. Working from the same data set as The Times, Reuters Africa came up with a story far more pessimistic in tone. It noted that at least 2,600 civilians, police, and soldiers have been killed in violence in Iraq since combat operations concluded in September of 2010. The civilian toll for August was 155, according to the Iraqi Health Ministry. Low points included coordinated attacks on 15 August that killed at least sixty, and a bombing of a Sunni mosque on 28 August that claimed 32. “Iraq remains a very dangerous place,” Major General Jeffrey Buchanan said.
According to Iraq Body Count, over a hundred thousand civilians have died in Iraq since the invasion began.

Rico says that General George S. Patton, who knew a thing or two about war, summed up the premise pretty well: The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.