Say Anything Blog

That would not sell their misleading newspapers, nor reinforce their agenda.  I, too wonder where the stories are about how we have "all of a sudden" significantly less casualties?  Where are the follow-up stories?  How about:  Armor has cut our casualties, or insurgents finding it more difficult to kill Americans, or The coalition of 26 countries have turned over the security of Iraq to the Iraqis? 

Chief,

Unfortunately the spin will be "If Bush and Rummy had done a better job earlier, they would have already gotten armor to all the troops and if Bush had trained the Iraqi army earlier or not disbanded it, this would have happened much earlier, etc."

The decline indicates the Iraqis are leading the charge now and we are providing ops and logistical support as opposed to us troops leading things.  We have significantly disrupted the Insurgent’s ability to wage war.  And moreso, the traditional Liberal talking point about Iraq spawning "more terrorists" who hate us and the average Iraqi now becoming an Insurgent or Michael Moore’s BS about Insurgents being Freedom Fighters or Minutemen is proving to be complete crap.  There are fewer insurgents, more Iraqi police and army forces that are leading missions, and the country is much safer now.  The Iraqis have held multiple elections and their government is beginning to take shape and take hold.

But Bush cannot ever be given any credit.  Only blame.  And somehow the Dems will attempt to use this to portray their strategy to duck and cover as being the way to defeat the Insurgency.

I don’t think it matters what they print.  Subscriptions and sales are dropping like crazy.  I was at Wal-Mart a few weeks back and a Houston Chronicle guy was there trying to give away free papers. I didn’t see any takers.

 They’ve starting putting a free one on my driveway about once every two weeks.  Pretty handy for wrapping items to ship and for paint splatters with all the home improvement jobs we’ve been tackling lately.

Also notice they do not emphasize who it is that is murdering innocent people in Iraq. 9 of 10 killed are Shia, 4 of 10 are women or children. The terrorists are unwilling to engage Coalition forces, instead focusing on markets,schools,police and army recruiting offices, and mosques. Such brave and Godly warriors.

I mentioned this a few weeks ago, What matters is that deaths stay low in April and May.  They will

But, this is good and we must trumpet our success in Iraq even if the treasonous MSM won’t.

This bodes well for Fall 2006 if the repubicans will just embrace GWB and his leadership. 

when U.S. casualties have been really high, the media leads off every story in Iraq with a comment like "amidst the highest levels of U.S. casualties in Iraq in three months…" Funny how they never do that when the U.S. finishes a month with the lowest number of casualties in a year.

It doesn’t seem funny to me. It seems really predictable. Did you think they were just going to lie?

This is wonderful news, but for the heck of it, I just ran a control chart.  What it says; there is a half-year downward trend, but it’s not yet statistically significant.  Two more months this way, by the way, and the shift in casualties DOES become statistically significant.

This is the standard media song and dance.

They do it with the economy, crime, etc. 

Under GOP leadership, if the economy is robust or crime is down, not a peep.  As soon as there’s some decline, though, you can bet your bottom dollar that the issue will receive coverage.

The MSM doesn’t even bother with subtlety anymore. 

Robert, I guess I don’t get it…a six month decline in casualties seems pretty significant to me…

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

Saw that the WP had published a story on page A12 headlining the decline in American casualties…thought it odd that they’d bury it so deep in the section….went to the story and discovered that Iraqi casualties are rising while American are falling. Good news for Americans, not so hot for Iraqis I suppose.

Well, that’s a bit of a distortion Mike.  Remember that "ending the violence" in Iraq was never so much the goal as "leaving Iraq in the hands of Iraqis."  That American casualties are down while Iraq casualties are up just indicates the leading role Iraqis are taking in fighting for their country.

It is sad that violence continues, but ending that is going to take a generation or more.  Saddam was in power for a quarter of a century, and things weren’t exactly stable before that.  We have set up the framework for freedom and democracy in Iraq, now it is up to Iraqis to preserve that framework and use it.  It is still going to be a hard slog for that country even after coalition forces depart, but we’ve given them a good start.

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

What is also of note is that Iraqi casualties consist mainly of non-combatants. Yesterday is a perfect example. Three carbombs in a market filled with civilians, 2 of them specicifcally targeting ambulances and EMTs. MSM places very little emphasis on that tiny little detail.

TH9…I’m puzzled by your last comment. In your mind, who does the MSM portray as victims of the violence?

Themselves. No emphasis is placed on the fact that casualties are now predominately civilian. I have spent the weekend trawling news services, the majority of stories indicate that America is killing everyone. Only one mentioned the fact that terrorists are targeting children,women, and the elderly. Your a bright guy. Could you possibly venture a quess as to who points out that little detail? Major media outlets continue their jihad, crying and whining that they are the victims. Screeching about how people are not buying their newspapers and not slavishly staring at their TV newshour shows. They do not give a fuck about innocent children, women and old people being murdered. If they did they would have done something about the million children, women and old people hacked to death in Central Africa in the ‘90s. They don’t give a fuck. All they are concerned about is ratings, the only thing they are interested in is how much advertiser money goes in their pockets. Now, jump right in and defend them.

Given that Saddam’s "body count" among the civilians was probably in the range of 50/day based on the size of the contents of all the mass graves, what’s new?

The only issue is one of visibility not quantity. 

TH9…I have no difficulty finding stories about innocent Iraqis being killed. I agree that we are seeing less stories attributing the killings to terrorists or even insurgents but I figure that’s because the media is catching on to the fact that the killings have a sectarian character to them. Stories about killings of civilians by Americans are rare because I assume it’s not happening much. I agree that the media is trying to sell their product and boost their ratings but that’s the free markets for you.

so less Americans are getting killed and Iraqis are killing each other but it is still not a civil war?

Care to define how it IS a civil war?

Iraqis are killing Iraqis. Wow. Americans kill Americans every single day; I guess WE have a civil war too.

There’s a whole bunch of dead French from their recent (politically-motivated) riots; why aren’t you off telling THEM about THEIR civil war?

It is hilarious, Graeme, to see people like you contort yourself to get on the negative side of any news coming out of Iraq.

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

DaveP asks

Care to define how it IS a civil war?

If one takes the rough position that the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds make up the major groups competing for power in the post-Saddam Iraq and if some of these groups engage in viloent acts intended to intimidate or negate other groups’ pursuit of power or power sharing then one can make an argument that civil war exists. Whether we call sectarian violence "civil war" or not makes for good debate but the violence is what it is…competition for power. The impression I get is that the attacks on the Americans have declined,the attacks on fellow Iraqis have increased and that the game is now less terrorists/US than it is Sunni/Shiite with the Americans stuck in the middle or off to the side…for the most part anyway. 

Colombia, Peru, etc., have had insurgencies bordering on civil war for many, many years…Iraq may end up being similar.

Mike, up thread you make my point for me. Glad to see your onboard. The fact is they rarely make the point which group is doing the majority of the killing. Hint, it is niether the Sunnis, Shias, or Kurds. It is Wahabis. They merrily kill everone near them, children and women being their favorite targets, cowards never fight men and they damn sure don’t attack anyone who can fight back. As for the media playing to a free market, why are they losing market share? If what they keep harping and manufacturing is what people want they would be gaining. Not what is happening. If they want to gain readership they will have to put down their white wine spritzer and granola bars, leave their heavily guarded compounds and start reporting what is actually happening, not paying stringers to tell them only what they want to hear.

TH9…I doubt that it is Wahabis doing the majority of the killings…that may have been true earlier in the conflict but I honestly think that cirumstances have changed and we’re into a new phase. As for the media…so many outlets now for news and information. The pie isn’t getting any smaller but the pieces sure are.

Rob, it’s wonderful news, but the chances of a six month decline happening "just randomly" are about one in thirty-two—with a time period of 36 months now.  You’d expect this kind of pattern from time to time with this many samples, and hence the statistical conclusion that one must draw from this is that, while this is again wonderful news, there has been no fundamental change that should lead us to believe that this will be a permanent reduction in fatalities.

And again, hopefully the next couple of months will show even lower fatalities and make this statistically significant.

Ah, ok.  I get where you’re coming from now Robert.  Thank you for the explanation.

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

This nonsense the msm and bloggers have reported on the decline of US casualties. They have also reported on increased civilian casualties.

The problem seems to me you are selectivly reading what you want to hear and not a cross section of all information available. 

You moron.

Do you not notice that for every single downward trend in that chart, there is a spike of casualties after it?

Idiot.

What the MSM is quiet about are the actual total numbers of Iraqi civilians killed since the start of the invasion.  No one knowledgeable thinks the number of documented deaths is more than a fraction of the total.  The Lancet report gave good reason to think the 100K mark was passed a long time ago.  It certainly is in the tens of thousands, at an absolute minimum, and the new figures are horrible.  Juan Cole links to the story that 1,000 Iraqis are displaced from their homes EACH DAY, and points out that the move to neighborhood militias parallels the start of the civil war in Lebanon.

The US is playing the part of Israel in Lebanon, folks.  

Quick correction to my earlier posts; what I should have said is that the data do not prove that something has fundamentally changed, not that "nothing has fundamentally changed."

Tubino, perhaps you ought to take a look at the estimated civilian deaths annually under Saddam.  While certainly a lot of people are being victimized by terrorist groups there, the fact of the matter is that the death toll is significantly reduced, even if the study you cite is correct.  Moreover, there are other estimates which indicate that there are probably some significant problems with your source.

guess it was just the calm before the storm.

Guess the casualties are down.  link

Yes, Rick… casualties are back up.  My point about the media being really quiet when casualties were down holds though.

And, frankly, it’s a little disgusting seeing you get this excited about troop casualties going up.

Fucking sicko.

The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.

fuck you

I’ve never been ‘excited’ about people dying - that’s you sicko pro-war, ‘must have an enemy to kill’ right-wing nutjobs.

Three nationwide elections and counting.