I want to focus on this paragraph. By itself it shows the depths of Jack Kelly's spin:
Nearly 3,400 service members have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each of these deaths is a tragedy. But our combat deaths have been fewer than the number of troops who die from accidents when the nation is conducting ground wars. (During the Clinton administration, an average of 939 personnel died each year, mostly in accidents. Since 2003, an average of 800 troops have died each year in Iraq.)I am relieved that Kelly added the qualifier "mostly in accidents" to that paragraph. It doesn't acquit him from the dishonest spin, but it shows he's trying - which may if you think about it indict him further.
As far as I can tell, the initial reporting for this data comes from this column by Alicia Colon in the New York Sun. Here's what it read:
The total military dead in the Iraq war between 2003 and this month stands at about 3,133. This is tragic, as are all deaths due to war, and we are facing a cowardly enemy unlike any other in our past that hides behind innocent citizens. Each death is blazoned in the headlines of newspapers and Internet sites. What is never compared is the number of military deaths during the Clinton administration: 1,245 in 1993; 1,109 in 1994; 1,055 in 1995; 1,008 in 1996. That's 4,417 deaths in peacetime but, of course, who's counting?Wow more military dead during the Clinton Administration? Gee, then the Iraq war can't be that bad then, can it?
Now take a look at the numbers. Via Andrew Sullivan here's a pdf file from the DoD outlining the details. Between '93 and '96 (the same dates that Colon uses) there was a total of 46 (forty-six) deaths caused by military action. That means there must've been about 4,371 non-hostile deaths from 93-96 or about 1,090 non-hostile deaths per year.
Take a look at this chart. Waaaay down at the bottom it shows the military deaths from 2001 to 2004. According to this chart (and if my math is correct) there were 5,187 total military deaths in those 4 years. 1,102 were marked down as "hostile" and 55 as "terrorist attack." Doing the math it shows that there were 4,030 non-hostile ("all deaths" - "hostile" and "terrorist") deaths in those 4 years.
Divide by 4 and you get about a thousand non-hostile deaths per year during the first Bush Administration. The number isn't that different from the 939 per year for the entire Clinton Administration that Jack Kelly's trumpeting or the 1,090 I came up with for the years '93-'96. It also implies that during any administration that number (while certainly tragic) is pretty constant.
But Jack Kelly compares it with something definitely not constant: hostile military deaths. From that point alone, is there any reason trust anything else he has to say in the column?
I guess Jake Kelly doesn't know the difference between "apples" and "oranges."
3 comments:
You only cited numbers from the first bush administration, during which we had the fewest casualties (we were only in Iraq for 9 months of 2003), so who's leaving things out?
Also, you fail to note that people certainly did die in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that it would be preferable if fewer people died under the Bush Administration than under Clinton.
Also, regardless of total deaths, you have to take into consideration that the military deaths under Bush are occurring in one part of the world, whereas our military was deployed in more different places and not in declared wars under Clinton.
Well, I agree with your *narrow* criticism of Jack Kelly, and I wonder if it should go further. Do we have an idea of accidental deaths *outside of Iraq and Afghanistan* for this Bush administration (you may have said it and I might have missed it). Considering the figure of a thousand or so deaths for the Clinton administration was world wide and only about half our military is in Iraq and Afghanistan …
But you glossed over Kelly’s larger points. First, there is a real danger that the public is going to agree with Kelly that the Democrats are so eager to pull out of Iraq that they would yank equipment and endanger the troops already there. We don’t want a Republican in ’08, and yet the Democrats seem to be doing everything in their power to make that happen.
Kelly’s other point was that we might actually win in Iraq. While that is pretty silly, I think it is worth pointing out that Bush seems to have (very) quietly adopted a few of the ideas of the Iraq Study Group. I would argue the surge and the upcoming meeting with neighboring countries in the region are in fact encouraging signs. I realize democrats would rather see Bush implode, and maybe Bush is doing these things half heartedly only to see them fail. But Bush is doing them. If I might rephrase Jack Kelly’s unfortunate title, maybe we should “Give Diplomacy a Chance”.
EdHeath;
I realize Kelly had much more to say than what I blogged on, but with limited time on sunday morning, I was only able to focus on a few matters - I still believe, though, that his inclusion of such an obvious sleight-of-hand as the casualty numbers undermines the whole column's credibility.
I was going to address Kelly's point that the surge is somehow working. Perhaps tonight, unless Ann Coulter opens her mouth again.
Dayvoe
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