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Down They Go
The greatest story never told, indeed:
The results of the surge, or "the escalation" as Harry Reid derisively called it, have been obvious in the Icasualties.org numbers. Before the surge, a bad month would claim the lives of roughly 3,000 Iraqi civilians and security force members. In February '07, the exact number was 3,014 Iraqi casualties. In March, the figure was 2,977. As the surge began to have its effects, that number dropped to 1674 in August. In September, with the surge taking full effect, the numbers showed a profound change--the Iraqi death toll plunged to 848.Happily, September's figures don't appear to be an aberration. October has seen 502 Iraqi casualties so far. If the trend continues though the end of October, the final number should be around 650 for the entire month. That represents better than an 80 percent improvement from the war's nadir.
YOU'D THINK THIS would be a big story. After all, the mainstream media makes such a show of "supporting the troops" at every turn, you'd think it would rush to report the amazing story of our soldiers accomplishing what many observers declared "impossible" and "unwinnable" not so long ago.
It hasn't worked out that way...
Crow all you want about my propaganda and cherry-picking, but go take a look at that graph on the second page of the article and then tell me something good isn't going on.
And then there's this:
There will not be a sectarian ""civil war" in Iraq, perhaps best evidenced by the fact that the media—excuse me, actual reporters in Iraq, not plaintive Times editorialists—have quietly let the claim die. Just as quietly, they have stopped wondering if Iraqi security forces will be able to hold together, and instead focus on corruption in the higher ranks.At the present rate, the only way the media could shift goalposts faster is if the crane moving the goalposts was attached to Jeff Gordon's stock car.
I noticed The Washington Post started moving the goalposts at about the time Yon started to report positive things. Nice to know, in a "but-not-really" sort of way, that I'm not the only one who saw it.
While I am first to admit and agree that casualties have indeed fallen, I feel the need to point out:
During the War in Southeast Asia, those of us old enough to remember watching Uncle Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News (and I assume ABC's and NBC's evening news), we were similarly treated to a nightly reports of battlefield casualties in that godforsaken part of the earth. They always went something like this:
150 Vietcong killed
87 North Vietnamese killed
2 US killed
I remember remarking, as a somewhat precocious 8-year-old that "if this keeps up, there won't be ANY people left in that country".
Of course, years later, we all found out that the DoD inflated the battlefield casualties of the enemy (and presumably deflated ours).
I'm not saying this is happening now, but I am saying that numbers never tell the whole story, and like any statistic, they can be bent to reinforce whatever you want to be reinforced.
Just saying.
Posted by: Mark on October 24, 2007 04:31 PMMark: No. Don't even START that shit. You KNOW that if attacks, or violence, or casualties were UP, the media would make sure that we heard all about it. "Violence in Iraq reaches new levels!" "Death toll mounts!" "October deadliest month on record!"
Posted by: DensityDuck on October 24, 2007 05:12 PMWell, this is true. The Media would--and has in months past--make a field-day out of such a story.
But my point is: who provides these statistics? Presumably not DoD.
Posted by: Mark on October 24, 2007 05:22 PMActually, that's what's most interesting about the article. The statistics are compiled by an organization famous for its opposition to the war. When an organization that counts *every* fatality as a casualty and the graph **STILL** shows a precipitous drop, well, what else is there to say?
Posted by: scott on October 24, 2007 06:41 PMThe anti-war argument that I saw on Fark tends to have a few different points:
1 - but the US soldier death toll is up, so how can it be better? Note that this group never mention that, as I understand it, General Petraeus has decided that instead of massive patrols, he'll do many more smaller patrols (among other things), which actually puts more of our soldiers in harm's way. However, for that risk, we're seeing a HUGE benefit to the Iraqi people.
2 - None of these people would be dying if we weren't there. Not necessarily true, either. Seems that Saddam and his sons were generally killing folks one way or the other, anyway. Along with the raping, etc.
In the big picture, things are much better now. Much better and trending in the right direction. My biggest concern now is the PKK and their idiocy.
Posted by: ron on October 24, 2007 07:38 PMGood to hear... glad the stats are coming from an outside source rather than the Pentagon. And if they're coming from an organization famous for its opposition to the war, then so much the better.
Which of course means that even the nay-sayers have to [grudgingly] take notice.
Posted by: Mark on October 24, 2007 07:53 PM