Looking for Failure

US forces have used more bombs this year than last year, including a major strike recently using heavy bombers. Which has led some critics on the Left to hint darkly of failure and civilian casualties. This view is wrong:

In the minds of these bloggers and in the minds of some journalists (especially in some Arab news outlets), the size of the air strike in the rural date palms and farmland south of Baghdad is evidence that the “surge” of U.S. forces in Iraq, the counter-insurgency (COIN) doctrine being implemented, and the overall war in Iraq, is a failure.

Indeed, even with a dramatic increase in the use of bombs last year (1500 compared to 200 in 2006), we are nowhere near the Vietnam usage:

In Vietnam, over ten million bombs were dropped, that's over a million bombs a year.

And of course, our precision bombs are called in on specific targets. There are no free-fire zones in Iraq. But that doesn't mean that war critics can't imagine this.