Posts tagged ‘politics’
Afghanistan and Iraq, July 2011
August 6th, 2011 at 8:53 pm by Dr. Drang
This morning’s bad news from Afghanistan isn’t included in this graph. The August graph will look substantially worse. There have now been more than 1700 US military deaths in Afghanistan, and it seems unlikely that troop withdrawals will go fast enough to keep the total under 2000. After a shocking jump up in June, Iraq…
Afghanistan and Iraq, June 2011
July 2nd, 2011 at 9:14 pm by Dr. Drang
Increases in military deaths last month in both Afghanistan, and Iraq. About half the deaths in Iraq came from two rocket attacks, one early in the month and one late. This is a worrying development. If you look back through that list of deaths in Iraq, you’ll see that many of the deaths before June…
Afghanistan and Iraq, May 2011
June 1st, 2011 at 1:45 pm by Dr. Drang
The good news is that military deaths in Iraq went back down after a curious and troubling jump in April. And the increasing trend in Afghanistan took a break in May, at least for US troops. The bad news is that coalition military deaths in Afghanistan have worked their way back up to where they…
Pictures that make me cry
May 4th, 2011 at 9:21 pm by Dr. Drang
You’ve no doubt seen this photo several times by now, either online, in a newspaper, or on TV. It’s from the official White House Flickr stream, and was taken by Pete Souza in the Situation Room as the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound was being carried out. I first saw it by following a…
Afghanistan and Iraq, April 2011
May 3rd, 2011 at 7:27 am by Dr. Drang
The (decidedly non-US) casualty everyone is talking about isn’t in these charts, but here they are anyway. A disturbing upward trend in casualties in Afghanistan, and an unfortunate sudden increase in Iraq. I don’t think the killing of Osama bin Laden will lead to serious troop withdrawals in Afghanistan, but I can hope. And if…
Afghanistan and Iraq, March 2011
April 4th, 2011 at 9:14 am by Dr. Drang
I really don’t want to start making plots like these for Libya. Also, I was swamped with work last month and missed a lot of news. Was there any mention that we’ve passed 1500 US military deaths in Afghanistan?
Afghanistan and Iraq, February 2011
March 2nd, 2011 at 9:07 pm by Dr. Drang
US military deaths in Iraq went back down after the jump in January. Afghanistan was a mixed bag: US deaths went down again, but overall coalition deaths went up. The general downward trend for the past few months is encouraging, but the past two years have seen a spike in late spring/early summer, so it’s…
Afghanistan and Iraq, January 2011
February 3rd, 2011 at 8:18 pm by Dr. Drang
Another reduction in coalition and US military deaths in Afghanistan this month. Still high by historical standards, but well down from the peak last summer. Coalition fatalities passed the 2300 mark in January. US fatalities may reach 1500 in the next month or two; a round figure that might spur reporters to remember the war…
Afghanistan and Iraq, December 2010
January 8th, 2011 at 9:04 pm by Dr. Drang
I’m late with this post because I was out of town for a few days earlier this week and it put me off-schedule. The year ended on a slightly improved note in Afghanistan, but a single month doesn’t make a trend. 2010 saw 499 US and 711 coalition military deaths in Afghanistan, far more than…
Afghanistan and Iraq
December 3rd, 2010 at 9:13 pm by Dr. Drang
The notable Afghanistan news stories this month were that we’ve been negotiating with an impostor and that we’ve broken the Soviets’ record for sustained futility. Not so well-reported was that the military death rate didn’t drop off the way it did this time last year. Iraq, at least, is staying low.
