Archive for the ‘politics’ Category
Iraq, June 2008
July 4th, 2008
June continued the low casualty rate that’s been in place since the latter half of September.
For the past eight months we’ve seen casualty rates that are about a third of what they were over the previous twelve months, but we have yet to see an explanation. “The surge” is not an explanation; its a convenient dodge for supporters of the war. The high military death rates continued for several months after the surge began.
One would think the real story of the sudden decrease in casualties—a decrease which, oddly, coincided with General Petraeus’s first appearance before Congress—would be of interest to the nation’s great newspapers. But all we get are soundbytes from the right and speculations from the left.
The answer will not change my belief that the war was both a strategic mistake and, more important, immoral, but it’s something we should all know. The Founding Fathers gave us a free press because they wanted an informed citizenry voting on the issues of the day. We’re being let down.
Iraq, June 2008
July 4th, 2008
June continued the low casualty rate that’s been in place since the latter half of September.
For the past eight months we’ve seen casualty rates that are about a third of what they were over the previous twelve months, but we have yet to see an explanation. “The surge” is not an explanation; its a convenient dodge for supporters of the war. The high military death rates continued for several months after the surge began.
One would think the real story of the sudden decrease in casualties—a decrease which, oddly, coincided with General Petreas’s first appearance before Congress—would be of interest to the nation’s great newspapers. But all we get are soundbytes from the right and speculations from the left.
The answer will not change my belief that the war was both a strategic mistake and, more important, immoral, but it’s something we should all know. The Founding Fathers gave us a free press because they wanted an informed citizenry voting on the issues of the day. We’re being let down.
4100
June 16th, 2008
Sometime earlier today, US military deaths in Iraq hit the 4100 mark. See http://icasualties.org for details.
Dennis Byrne says in this morning’s Tribune that we’re thisclose to victory in Iraq, but something tells me that he’s not a trustworthy source. Something like this passage in the third paragraph:
[Barack Obama] would have to be as responsible as The Washington Post, which in a June 1 editorial noted: “Don’t look now, but the U.S.-backed [Iraqi] government and army may be winning the war.” The Post, ever critical of the policies of President Bush, could never be confused with drooling neocons.
Byrne is playing the old “liberal media” card, assuming that his readers won’t know that the Post editorial page has been a cheerleader for the war and has certainly not been “ever critical.”
It’s this sort of bullshit that bothers me the most. A fact-based argument can be made for staying in Iraq. It’s a poor argument, of course (and, in my opinion, an immoral one), but it could be made without resorting to lies. I suppose people like Byrne jump straight into the lies because they know they couldn’t sound persuasive without them.
Hot air and John Coleman
June 13th, 2008
How surprising to look at http://del.icio.us/popular/ this afternoon and find a link labeled John Coleman’s Comments Before the San Diego Chamber of Commerce. The linked article is a fairly run-of-the-mill screed about the evil conspiracy of environmentalists, the UN, and Al Gore to foist the Global Warming Lie on an innocent America. Although it has a few oddities I hadn’t heard before—did you know that environmentalists are responsible for the “folly of ethanol” and the recent rise in food prices? ADM must be relieved to hear that—it’s not the content that was surprising; it was the author.
John Coleman is well known to Chicago-area residents of a certain age as the hyperkinetic weatherman on Channel 7’s Eyewitness News Team back in the early 70s. This was the seminal “happy talk” news show, and Coleman was its happiest player. He invented—or at least popularized—the terms “thorms” and “thowers” for thunderstorms and thundershowers. I thought he was pretty funny back when I was 10-12 years old. Now he’s a cranky old man spewing right wing propaganda from his retirement sinecure at a San Diego station.
He’s still pretty funny, though. Picture a man who’s been on TV continuously for 50 years complaining about how “the media won’t give us a hearing.” That’s good stuff.
Iraq, May 2008
June 2nd, 2008
After a couple of months of rising casualties, May gave us some good news: the lowest number of US and coalition military deaths since the war began.
Iraq, April 2008
May 4th, 2008
As usual, I waited a few days before posting the monthly update, because it’s common for the numbers to change. This month’s increase in US deaths is disturbing, of course, but there’s no way to know if it’s the beginning of a trend. Even if the casualty rate drops back to 30-40 in May, it’s still too high for a war with no clear purpose.
Valedictory address
May 2nd, 2008
“We have been through a recession, we have been through a terrorist attack, we have been at war, we have had corporate scandals, we have had major natural disasters,” Bush said.
Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.
Iraq, March 2008
April 1st, 2008
The action in Basra gave a disturbing boost to the casualty rate in the latter half of the month, but that seems to have calmed in the last couple of days.
US military deaths in Iraq have averaged about 35 over the past six months.
Hillary Balboa
April 1st, 2008
As you would guess, the dateline for this story is Philadelphia. Perhaps she forgot that Apollo Creed beat Rocky.
4000
March 23rd, 2008
An uptick in the fatality rate in the past few days has put the number of US military deaths in the Iraq war at 4000, just a few days after the fifth anniversary of the start of the war.
In recent months, coverage of the war has dropped with the reduction in casualties, but I’m sure this sad milestone will get attention. Reporters love round numbers.