We must be doing a fairly decent job, because at The Nation today, an editorial regurgitates the same points the left has been attempting to make for... Well, forever, really. Perhaps the most cretinous claim made is this:
"A poll released in September showed 70 percent of Iraqis saying the surge has 'hampered conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development,' and no political advances have followed the ebb in violence since then."
No political advances? That's odd, because I've documented at least two of them here, neither of them any small matter: the handover of Karbala province, and yesterday the end of the year-long Sunni boycott of the At-Tamim provincial council. And that of course is if you completely and utterly fail to include the fact of al-Sadr's JAM stand-down as political progress - it was one thing for him to call it, but very much another for him to enforce it, which we know he has been doing.
Let's also remember here that it is at best unwise and at worse intentionally misleading to assume that political progress ought to be more widespread by now; Iraq is a nation at war. If you think Democrats and Republicans can't get anything done and are partisan, try putting militias behind them. Expecting the Iraqi political system to move faster than our own is egregiously unrealistic.
The editorial continues:
"The number of attacks has declined only to early 2006 levels, one of the deadliest years of the war."
The phrase "one of the deadliest" has been bandied about so much that it has lost all meaning, as is the case here. If we look at the figures from icasualties.org by year, we can figure out precisely where 2006 falls in terms of every other "one of the deadliest" years. In terms of US personnel, 2007 has seen 883 killed so far, 2004 saw 849 killed, and 2005 saw 846 killed.
Where exactly does 2006 fall on the "deadliest" ranking? It comes in fourth of the five years, at 822. The only year that 2006 beat out in terms of casualties was 2003, at 486 killed. "One of the deadliest" indeed.
Next comes the fairly common claim that ethnic cleansing via relocation of sects is responsible for the reduction in violence - an old idea that comes with a caveat that reflects the writer's lack of confidence in their own talking point:
"In this sense the worst of the civil war may be over--and it took place on America's watch. Another possible explanation [emphasis mine] of the lull is that the Iraqi population has been decimated, with hundreds of thousands of war deaths and massive refugee flight, 26,000 detained by US forces and thousands more languishing in Iraqi prisons."If the worst of the Iraqi civil war is forced relocation, then they have a unique and quite palatable method of waging war, relatively speaking.
Long story short, this entire editorial by The Nation does everything possible to identify every other variable in play, and then proceeds to assign all of the improvements to them, denying the new strategy any part whatsoever in the security turnaround.
The truth of the situation on the ground is, as I've said before, that the improvements in security are due to a fairly large combination of many factors, of which the new strategy is one. Leftist obfuscation will not change that fact, and it is something we have to work with and learn from.
Let's be clear. I am in no way dedicated to impartiality - I want a win for the Iraqi people, I want them to have a future, and I will not accept the notion that we should turn our backs on a people who we must help, not "should" help. However, I am dedicated to objectivity in pursuit of that victory. A win depends on calling a spade a spade, accepting the truths as they are, working with them, and learning from them.
The Nation, at this point, can make no such claim.
1 comment:
CD;
As we know, statistics are very sensitive to start-stop points and so on. So from the data we have, how about a comparison by half-year? Start with either Jan. '03 or March '03.
6 months ending:
Calendar | From Onset
2003/06 134 | 2003/08 178
2003/12 189 | 2004/02 196
2004/06 311 | 2004/08 359
2004/12 408 | 2005/02 405
2005/06 309 | 2005/08 333
2005/12 367 | 2006/02 335
2006/06 293 | 2006/08 301
2006/12 410 | 2007/02 463
2007/06 529 | 2007/08 502
2007/12 226 | 2008/02 104 (to date)
Total: 3176 3176
6-mo. Ave: 317.6
Ist half of year averages:
315.2 | 334.6
2nd half of year averages:
320 | 300.6
6-mo averages excluding '07:
~303 | ~321
1st half excluding '07:
~262 | ~293
2nd half excluding '07/'08
~344 | ~350
So: the 1st half of calendar '07 exceeded the previous average by ~267. The second half is, so far, below the average by ~118; there is the rest of December to make up the difference. Any shortfall will represent a 6-mo total below the average of the 2nd halves of the year. Compared to the previous overall 6 mo. average, the 6-mo calender 2nd half of '07 is 92 lower.
For the 6-month periods since onset, there is longer to make up for the final period, but the 1st half of '07/08 is ~209 above the previous averages. The second half is 246 below the previous average, with about 3 months to make up the difference. If the current total (last 3 months+) doubles, the total will be 208, 142 below the previous 2nd half average. If the ~29/month number from Oct/Nov holds, the total will be 187, or 163 below the previous average.
So two alternate predictions come out of this.
If you believe this is a fluke, not a trend, you need 118 more fatalities in December, and 246 before the end of February to bring the current 6-month averages up to snuff.
If you believe the numbers show a trend, you'd expect about 20 more fatalities by the end of December, and perhaps 40 more total by the end of February.
So the differences in predictions are: anti-liberationists need 118 combat deaths by the end of December; liberationists expect no more than 20, a difference of 98.
Anti-liberationists need 246 US combat deaths by the end of February to bring things back on track, and liberationists expect no more than 40, for a difference of 206.
Place yer bets, ladies and gentlebongs!
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