Say Anything Blog

Again with the numbers.

These were 73 brave, patriotic, American, human beings.

1 (one) is way too many.

General Schwarzkopf wept openly on national TV because he lost 148 soldiers in combat during Desert Storm. That is a true General.

July 2007: 77
July 2006: 46
July 2005: 58
July 2004: 58
July 2003: 49

Military Fatalities: By Month

I only hope that another Tet like offensive is not in the making. If the insurgents were to have a large scale offensive right before General Petraeus was to go before congress to report on the surge it could play into the Democrat’s hands.

WOOF, that’s called undersampling your data...which is a form of statistical fallacy.

If you want to divide it into yearly blocks, you need to do it by year...not just by decimation.  I guess you “reality-based” lefties neglected to take any math courses…

Five Julys are better than one.

US Casualties By Calendar Year
Year US Deaths US Wounded
2003 486 2409
2004 849 8002
2005 846 5948
2006 822 6398
2007 650 3801
Total 3653 26558

If you know the math, you can do the standard deviations, chi squared tests and regressions,

Here’s Rob’s statistics broken down into 6-month running averages… this is just for illustration’s purposes, not to argue any particular point.

Feb 2007 - Jul 2007 94.5
Jan 2007 - Jun 2007 96
Dec 2006 - May 2007 97.8
Nov 2006 - Apr 2007 88.5
Oct 2006 - Feb 2007 88.8
Sep 2006 - Jan 2007 87.3
Aug 2006 - Dec 2006 84.6667

Of course it’s not surprising that a sudden downturn in causalities in a the last month of the war doesn’t affect a six-month average, is it?

This is all just to say that there are mathematically correct ways to generate trends, and others that are just mathematical garbage.  Asking for a trend across July’s is plain old-fashion garbage...regardless of who is doing it.

How come your six month averages don’t start and end in the same month each year?

General Schwarzkopf wept openly on national TV because he lost 148 soldiers in combat during Desert Storm. That is a true General.

So I guess General Eisenhower isn’t a “real general” unless he cried on D-day.

These were 73 brave, patriotic, American, human beings.

Nobody is claiming otherwise.  The point of this post was more about media spin than anything else.  Day after day we get indicators like this from Iraq which show that we’re making headway, and day after day the media spins.

It’s pathetic.

1 (one) is way too many.

If that’s true, this country is in a lot of trouble.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Because I was using running averages… Here are the 6-month running averages, at six-month spacings:

Feb 2007 - Jul 2007 94.5
Nov 2006 - Apr 2007 84.7
Feb 2006 - Jul 2006 55.8
Nov 2005 - Apr 2006 74
Feb 2005 - Jul 2005 59.5
Nov 2004 - Apr 2005 87.7
Feb 2004 - Jul 2004 63.8
Nov 2003 - Apr 2004 46.5

(Technically this should be three month intervals, but this is close enough...)

Of course, all this points out is that we’ve had a higher causality rate since the surge...that is an obvious consequence of putting our people at risk.

Sorry, I read your post wrong. 

However I don’t find it suprising that as summer gets hotter deaths get lower, as all activity gets lower.  I think its a little early to declare victory.

Nice strawman, Lestat, but who is declaring victory?

This is the problem with the left.  It’s like we’re not even allowed to be the least bit optimistic about Iraq.  You say “Hey, maybe this strategy is working” and in return you get accused of “declaring victory.”

Maybe if you libs hadn’t tied yourself to the idea that Iraq is a failure you could be a little more open-minded.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Lestat:

However I don’t find it suprising that as summer gets hotter deaths get lower, as all activity gets lower.  I think its a little early to declare victory.

I happen to agree with the latter part of your statement but not the former.

Clearly we have overwhelmed the insurgents with our recent surge.  Whether they are really destroyed or just regrouping to attack us again remains to be seen.  In the past, they’ve proven to be a very smart, versatile opponent. 

If they lose, it will be because the Iraqi people turn against them.  Of course there are strong signs of that in both Diyala and Anbar province.  It appears that some of the al Qaeda in Iraq at least have overstayed their welcome, and that many of the rest of the insurgents are willing to fight with the US against a now recognized common enemy.

See for example this from the New York Times and this from Michael Yon.

There is a sea-change going on in Iraq.  Whether it is permanent remains yet to be seen.

There is a sea-change going on in Iraq.  Whether it is permanent remains yet to be seen.

This is where I’m at, but what I’m cynical about is that Bush’s political opposition in this country is so entrenched in their “Iraq is lost” position that they aren’t going to recognize any progress in Iraq regardless of the facts on the country.

And by “political opposition” I mean most of the press too.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Rob:

This is where I’m at, but what I’m cynical about is that Bush’s political opposition in this country is so entrenched in their “Iraq is lost” position that they aren’t going to recognize any progress in Iraq regardless of the facts on the country.

You and I are very much in agreement on this.

In fact the “lost in Iraq” is so entrenched among the left, they almost get violent when I show them some of Michael Yon’s writings....  I suppose they just feel.. betrayed when they see the NYT and other mainstream newspapers publishing “pro-Iraq isn’t a hopeless quagmire” stories.

Here’s my prediction: Nothing major is going to happen in Iraq until September.  In the build-up to Petraeus’ report to Congress in that month, there will be an active but subtle attempt to run Petraeus down.

Then, when Petraeus finally does give his report, it will be spun.  His report will have some negative aspects to it (nobody is expecting things to be perfect in Iraq by September) and that’s what will be focused on regardless of the rest of the contents of his report.

The media will spin, the Democrats will grandstand, key Republicans will lose their spine and the war will be lost.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

I only hope that another Tet like offensive is not in the making. If the insurgents were to have a large scale offensive right before General Petraeus was to go before congress to report on the surge it could play into the Democrat’s hands.

Actually, the original Tet Offensive was a huge defeat for the VC, but the US media lied about it, which turned the American public against the Vietnam War.  They lied us out of Vietnam.  The only real danger to us in Iraq is the MSM and the Dems.  The terrorists can’t defeat our military, but the Dems could create defeat by lying, like they have been doing all along.

"If the good men are silent only the wicked are heard.” - Edmund Burke

Actually, the original Tet Offensive was a huge defeat for the VC, but the US media lied about it, which turned the American public against the Vietnam War.  They lied us out of Vietnam.  The only real danger to us in Iraq is the MSM and the Dems.  The terrorists can’t defeat our military, but the Dems could create defeat by lying, like they have been doing all along.

My point exactly, but you explained it much better.