Objective Measures of Defeat—How to Measure Victory
It is difficult to hit a moving target. When the mantra from the left is “Iraq is not worth even one American life” does that mean if Americans stop dying there, the cause will be worth it?
Better framed--when the body count in Iraq was rising, this was seen as a sign of defeat, yet the converse of the body count falling is not seen as a sign of victory.
Of course it isn’t:
I would simply point to the lack of political progress by the new Democrat controlled Congress here in the US that has failed to deliver anything other than a minimum wage despite all their talk of draining the swamp and 100 hours and so forth.
The previous target of our failures in Iraq was body count. That was objective, but the same objective figures that the left used previously to demonstrate our failures, now are meaningless when possibly used to confirm our successes. Just like job creation numbers were meaningful in 2004, but are meaningless now.
The reality is that if you believe Iraq is a failure, no numbers will convince you otherwise. If you are hoping we win in Iraq and our strategy (both military and diplomatic) for the Middle East will succeed, there are some serious signs of hope.
The difficult part for the Left is that they left themselves no wiggle room in case we succeed, so they are left to simply downplay our success in hopes that Americans won’t notice the real tangible progress the troop surge has made. They could have easily thrown their weight behind the surge originally to the dismay of Moveon.org and been left with the “We caused the President to change strategy, so it is really our success” talking point, but they sabotaged the entire effort before it even got started. This puts them in a position of actually hoping for a higher body count to help confirm Moveon.org’s hypothesis that the war is not winnable.
Rooting for body count numbers to go up for political gain. They are left with that or the less despicable tactic of trying to convince Americans to ignore objective evidence and rely on their gut and the Dems propoganda that the war is lost. I like facts and figures and numbers better than my gut. And I have a big gut.
Better framed--when the body count in Iraq was rising, this was seen as a sign of defeat, yet the converse of the body count falling is not seen as a sign of victory.
Of course it isn’t:
October reportedly marks the fifth consecutive month of decline in deaths, and the lowest level of casualties since March 2006. As noted, there were 31 American military casualties in Iraq reported by the Department of Defense through Oct. 28—25 of those deaths were combat- related.
In the first 28 days of October 2006, the Pentagon reported 90 U.S. military casualties, 86 of which were combat-related. That’s compared to the first 28 days of October 2007, when the Pentagon reported 31 U.S. military casualties, 25 of which were combat-related. That’’s a 71 percent drop in combat deaths from October 2006 compared with October 2007.
This October also showed a 48 percent reduction from last month’s total deaths, as the first 28 days of September saw 60 casualties, 38 from combat. That’’s a 34 percent reduction in combat deaths.
The military credits much of the progress to the surge of 30,000 new troops, led by Gen. David H. Petraeus. However many war critics are quick to note that, despite the military progress, Iraq has been slow to achieve political progress.
I would simply point to the lack of political progress by the new Democrat controlled Congress here in the US that has failed to deliver anything other than a minimum wage despite all their talk of draining the swamp and 100 hours and so forth.
The previous target of our failures in Iraq was body count. That was objective, but the same objective figures that the left used previously to demonstrate our failures, now are meaningless when possibly used to confirm our successes. Just like job creation numbers were meaningful in 2004, but are meaningless now.
The reality is that if you believe Iraq is a failure, no numbers will convince you otherwise. If you are hoping we win in Iraq and our strategy (both military and diplomatic) for the Middle East will succeed, there are some serious signs of hope.
The difficult part for the Left is that they left themselves no wiggle room in case we succeed, so they are left to simply downplay our success in hopes that Americans won’t notice the real tangible progress the troop surge has made. They could have easily thrown their weight behind the surge originally to the dismay of Moveon.org and been left with the “We caused the President to change strategy, so it is really our success” talking point, but they sabotaged the entire effort before it even got started. This puts them in a position of actually hoping for a higher body count to help confirm Moveon.org’s hypothesis that the war is not winnable.
Rooting for body count numbers to go up for political gain. They are left with that or the less despicable tactic of trying to convince Americans to ignore objective evidence and rely on their gut and the Dems propoganda that the war is lost. I like facts and figures and numbers better than my gut. And I have a big gut.
