Happy Memorial Day
I thought body counts went out with the Vietnam War. The AP is kicking off Memorial Day weekend with a fresh body count in Iraq.
How come no mention of Americans killed in Afghanistan since last Memorial Day?
The AP story leads with the number of new graves opened for dead American soldiers since Memorial Day last, but only those killed in Iraq. Why this slight? Are the dead in Afghanistan not worthy of respect in the eyes of the Associated Press? It is possible that this article is not about honoring the dead at all, or even about reporting the news, but just another thinly veiled editorial attack on the Bush administration? Would the Associated Press be so callous as to use American dead in this manner, as a political tool?
I’m beginning to get the impression there is nothing more important to the Associated Press in its Iraq reportage than the number of “American soldiers killed in this unpopular war.” That phrase, with a number, is typically trotted out no later than graph three in AP stories on Iraq. It’s as though the body count is the sole measure upon which all decisions and action must turn. There certainly has been no effort by the Associated Press, or other major news organizations on the ground in Iraq, to examine progress in anything but the most dismissive manner, with a quick revert to body count.
In case you care, Terrorist Death Watch’s tally of officially announced terrorists offed by U.S. forces in Iraq since June 1 last year is 1,578. I suspect that number is conservative. The Associated Press remains noticeably disinterested in that number. In addition to that, there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of terrorism suspects taken prisoner. There are car bomb factories and Iranian weapons smuggling operations that were shut down. There are people who have come forward with information. There are Iraqi units that have come on line, combat effective, playing a growing role in operations.
Since Memorial Day last year, we’ve seen Anbar turn, we’ve seen Sunni-Shiite reconciliation become popular enough that Moqtada al-Sadr is now trying to get in front of it. We’ve seen businesses reopen and people return to their homes in Baghdad. We’ve seen Shiite militias aggressively engaged and Sunni insurgents on the run. We’ve seen the number of sectarian murders drop. Those facts typically get buried when they are mentioned at all, unless there’s an uptick in death, when they suddenly become news again, to be cited as evidence of failure. AP prefers its milestones grim.
We have seen a backlash in the face of these advances, as our enemies attempt to undermine the surge strategy. The enemy, unhappy with the surge, has responded with a car-bomb campaign. This has been a great relief to the Associated Press and others who would like to see us lose in Iraq. Each car bomb has been savored by the Associated Press, like every American death, another sign of hopelessness to cling to.
There will be more death before it is over, in Iraq and Afghanistan and probably other places. It may well pick up over the summer, and there will be other terrible days for American families, and more wartime Memorial Days. The blood of our soldiers is part of the price a few pay for the freedom and security of us all. Their sacrifice is meant to be honored on Memorial Day, not used for for scoring cheap political points.
Michelle rounds up reporting of other varieties on Iraq and Afghanistan, including in response to this post a link on the dead in Afghanistan.
My pal Surber would like to know why the MSM isn’t interested in al-Qaeda’s torture handbook. Bet they would be if it was a Gitmo cookbook.
Related at Forward Movement:
Two Gold Star fathers, two views this Memorial Day: Loss and Bitterness, and How to Celebrate Memorial Day.
More media mischief: Gall The News That’s Fit to Print.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:34 am on Sunday, May 27, 2007
24 Responses to “Happy Memorial Day”
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May 27th, 2007 at 3:02 am
2007.05.27 Iraq/Iran Roundup
See previous: 2007.05.26 Iraq/Iran Roundup Below the fold (newest items at the top): Happy Memorial Day NYT survey: Most Iraqis, military leaders predict chaos if U.S. pulls out Antiwar base directs wrath at Democrats
May 27th, 2007 at 7:16 am
Well, this is an improvement from last Memorial Day where the media was obsessed with the Haditah “Massacre”. The AP has obviously receieved its memo from John Edwards and is determined to make Memorial Day into an ant-war holiday.
An Administration with anything resembling a communications team, could attempt to counter this, by getting out the many stories of heroes. and bravery, but they don’t.
Could you imagine the AP in World War 2, 1944 was a very grim year for statistics. They focus on stats because they can’t or won’t provide the context, it’s a shoddy type of military reporting. The headline:
3,000 GIs Killed off Normandy
would give the impression of gloom and death without giving the American people the understanding of the progress, the goals, objectives or even if there was an enemy engaged. The subcontracted their war ‘reporting” out to their stringers but they maintain their bias and narrative.
They need to be countered.
May 27th, 2007 at 10:09 am
So we’ve killed 1500 bad guys- a figure you think is understated. Let’s up it to 2,000. This makes our kill ratio just slightly over 2/1. That’s not very good as far as a fighting an insurgency goes. It was much higer in Vietnam- and we still lost.
May 27th, 2007 at 10:21 am
It was much higer in Vietnam- and we still lost.
We didn’t lose. We gave up. There’s a difference. And if you want to drag up that dead horse, let’s compare American casualties from that war with Iraq, shall we?
May 27th, 2007 at 11:46 am
[…] Jules Crittenden notices a substantial gap in the AP’s reporting on the war on terror, and wonders what games the news agency wants to play with American body counts: I thought body counts went out with the Vietnam War. The AP is kicking off Memorial Day weekend with a fresh body count in Iraq. […]
May 27th, 2007 at 11:48 am
gregdn,
That casualty number is for the past calenday year, not since we pushed into Iraq.
Here’s what pisses me off even more about this reporting attitude: It overlooks all the other military deaths in the same time period. Are some American soldiers more deserving than others? Is the grief suffered by loved ones any less?
This nation loses around 2,000 of it’s military personnel each year, regardless of combat losses. It’s a dangerous bidness. All sorts of things can go bad very quickly, and when they do, odds are someone’s going to have a really bad day.
Doesn’t matter if the casualty is a result of combat, a drunk driver, material failure, work-related accident, whatever. Dead is forever, and the GI, who goes down in a helo stateside is just as much my brother as the one who goes down to hostile fire.
I have lost too many friends in my day, and crap articles like this AP story are nothing more than back-handed slaps against a great many good men and women.
Tomorrow, I’ll be going over to the local Naval Air Station. Theres a memorial garden there that has the names of two kids I knew pretty well. Both went down while on routine Cold War operations. Though seperate incidents, they were part of a short period of time where we lost 3 aircraft and over 30 crewmen.
In fact, 3 more of my shipmates, guys who did the same job I did, were lost on a stateside exercise at Fallon just this past month. Night ops. Helo hit power lines. 5 dead. and check out the memorial link at the top left side.
I’m not trying to minimize combat casualties. Not at all. I just get so damned angry whenever I see folks using casualties to make a political point, reducing the sacrifices of better men and women then they will ver be to some statistic on a power point slide, or a scribbled message on a placard at some rally.
Doesn’t matter where why or how, only that they raised their hand and took the oath. As soon as they do that, they are my brothers and sisters.
“They also serve, who stand and wait…”
Respects,
May 27th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Hmmmm,
Well, I seemed to have futsed up the link.
try this:
http://www.tourohio.com/fleetaw/
or, if that doesn’t post,
http://www DOT tourohio DOT com/fleetaw/
Respects,
May 27th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
[…] of course only reports U.S. casualties, not how many enemy dead. Jules Crittenden busted […]
May 27th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
[…] the combat veterans who served our country. If it’s covered at all, it’s to present the body count, not the heroic acts and progress made in our war in Iraq and […]
May 27th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
Would the Associated Press be so callous as to use American dead in this manner, as a political tool?
Short answer? Yes. Its disgraceful.
May 27th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
AP: Jonesing For Tet
Needless to say, the Associated Press’s collective mindset would be well-at-home at the Whitney Museum’s “Summer of Love” exhibit; their reporting emphasis has changed little since the days of LBJ and RMN, Jules Crittenden writes:I thought body cou…
May 27th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
[quote]So we’ve killed 1500 bad guys- a figure you think is understated. Let’s up it to 2,000.[/quote]
First, I know it is understated. The actual figure is probably in the area of 7000. The pentagon avoids reporting that because they are in a damned if they do, damned if they don’t situation. If they don’t report military success, the press claims that they don’t have any. If they do report military success, they are accused of bloodthirstiness.
Secondly, you strike me as the sort of person who when it suits you trots out things like the Lancet study and claim that we’ve killed 600,000 Iraqi’s. So, when it suits you to have a low number you have an inexplicably low number (considering just for example what we know about how many confirmed kills certain 10 member sniper teams had in Iraq), and when it suits you you’ll have a high number.
[quote]This makes our kill ratio just slightly over 2/1.[/quote]
As I pointed out, our kill ratio is actually around 7/1. Not that this matters too much, but there you go.
[quote]That’s not very good as far as a fighting an insurgency goes.[/quote]
It’s actually a very good ratio for low intensity insurgencies like the one in Iraq. The fighting in Iraq is so ‘diffuse’ and so low intensity, that its difficult (and impractical) to keep the coalition forces on a military standing. What is happening in Iraq is mostly terrorism and murder, and these things are both very difficult to stop completely and of very low military importance. Hense, the relatively low US fatalities (especially per 100,000 troops in theater) and the relatively low kill ratio compared to historical US actions.
[quote]It was much higer in Vietnam- and we still lost.[/quote]
First of all, we one in Vietnam. Having achieved military victory in the wake of the Tet Offensive, we abandoned Vietnam in responce to domestic political pressure. You don’t have to take my word for it. What I have just told you is also the appraisal General Giap (military commander of the North Vietnamese) gave to the war in Vietnam.
Secondly, the ratio was I think something like 20:1 in Vietnam, althose numbers are in my opinion inflated by too little distinguishment between combatants and non-combatants. But, while I do think that military achievements play an important role in obtaining victory over an insurgency, they are not the be all end all of counter-insurgency strategy. We certainly could defeat the insurgency with an up tempo military engagement, but we choose not to do this for the sake of the Iraqi people. Sure, we could level Baghdad and that would be the end of the fighting there, and if need be we could level the whole country (although it wouldn’t take that much, resistance would collapse somewhere between 15-30% of the male military age population being killed as pyschological defeat set in). However, we choose not to do that for now, because we think that eventually we can achieve peace by other means.
May 27th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
Iraq War Watch: Memorial Day Messages
Michael Yon: A Memorial Day Message
Memorial Day weekend is upon us. I am out here in Anbar Province with Task Force 2-7 Infantry. The area around Hit (pronounced “heat”) is so quiet previous units likely would not recognize the still. There was a…
May 27th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
“How come no mention of Americans killed in Afghanistan since last Memorial Day? ”
Because none of us who served or are serving in Afghanistan count. Not enough of us dead, you see. Can’t wave the body count and proclaim failure. When I came home from Afghanistan, I might as well have landed back home from the Dark Side of the Moon, for all anyone watching the main media organs would have known…
May 28th, 2007 at 1:43 am
[…] Crittendon asks an interesting question in his Memorial Day column- why does the Associated Press only keep a death watch tally on soldiers killed in Iraq? Were […]
May 28th, 2007 at 3:04 am
Be thankful Major John, be thankful. Sometimes homecomings aren’t the best things in the world. It’s best to figure out the lay of the land first.
May 28th, 2007 at 9:35 am
[…] Media’s Focus on Body Counts Jules Crittenden nails the AP (and by extension, the rest of the media who rely on the AP for their reporting) for […]
May 28th, 2007 at 11:58 am
[…] all their tomorrows, we are perhaps at something of an ebb, since Memorial Day itself has taken on political overtones in the MSM, and perhaps among some politicians. History teaches us that, in all likelihood, it will […]
May 28th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
[…] Crittendon wants to know why the AP is pushing a big new “grim” Iraq casualty figure to celebrate Memorial Day, but they and the entire “LIBERAL MSM” seem unconcerned by casualties in […]
May 28th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Jules focuses on something I’ve been thinking about too. His money quote for me is: “It’s as though the body count is the sole measure upon which all decisions and action must turn.” What I find fascinating, contra Vietnam, is this: back then, the left chose to ridicule the military’s and admininistation’s focus on body counts as a measure of success. The left’s collective cry was “you can’t judge success based on how many enemy are killed!” Now, of course, a generation later, the American body count seems to be the only metric the left will allow into the debate. The lesson seems to be that it’s alright if you judge progress on how many Americans get killed, just not on how many of the enemy is killed.
May 28th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Sorry but much of this by Jules is as slanted (though quite carefully) as those who say the NYT is “biased” … He takes issue with AP calling this an “unpopular war” — well, duh! It *is* an unpopular war, increasingly so, as evidenced in so many ways, including support for Bush himself, let alone polls, etc. As far as why no attention on the “number of terrorists killed in Iraq” … careful, now, what is a “terrorist”? Sure, some are Al-Qaeda, but just because US troops are targetted doesn’t mean they aren’t insurgents who are battling the opposition whoever it is, Sunni, Shia, Americans, etc. It seems that anytime Americans die, they die at the hands of “terrorists” and not just Iraqis …
Finally, this hogwash about AP (or NYT or whomever) “savoring” car bombs killing Americans … of course they do … in that it (mayhem, failure) is freaking news. It is stunning to most Americans that occupying a country (after breaking it) is a tough job, that they might actually fail or at least suffer. Welcome to the real world.
May 28th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Well,
I’m surprised it took this long for one of the asshats to show up. Either he works for one of the leftist rags, or he’s a tenured professor.
Most likely he’s just a poseur. Apparently Jules DID manage to strike a nerve with him. Obviously not anything resembling a spine, though.
His sort replace their back bones with quivering indignation, held in place by inflated egos.
Respects,
May 28th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Hmmm … so anyone who criticizes is a “leftist” or (God forbid) a tenured professor or, c’est un “poseur”? I’m not sure you even know what the definition of a “poseur” is (check your MW dictionary: “person who pretends to be what he or she is not : an affected or insincere person” — that doesn’t fit the bill here, does it?).
I think you’re taking offense to someone who expresses a different opinion than yourself. Hence the spineless comment and the sly “struck a nerve” comment. And no ego here — I’d be happy to be proven wrong. Would you?
Listen, I don’t disagree with all of what Jules says, either here or elsewhere. And I did/do believe that Saddam should go, but the methods chosen were not good, the country was broken and now we/the world are paying for it. And to conflate the “war on terror” with the war on iraq is just deception, just as it is to say everyone who resists the US presence as “terrorists”.
This is what I was commenting on, and I usually keep these opinions to myself. But as a veteran myself (whose father and grandfather served) I thought it prudent and worthy to respond to what was an inaccurate and distorted piece. Or must we all share exactly the same thoughts & views?
June 18th, 2007 at 7:35 am
[…] h/t: Jules Crittendon […]