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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! April 5, 2006 NumbersBy GreyhawkA look at six months of casualty figures from Iraq. (Via GR.) Read the comments there too. Update 6 Apr: Another look at coalition deaths in Iraq here. (A similar chart with only direct combat deaths would be informative too.) Posted by Greyhawk / April 5, 2006 10:42 PM | Permalink 1 TrackBackIf this war is all about Information Operations (I/O), and I believe it is, then the least we can do is make sure that we don’t lose important IO battles which we can win without shots being fired. Because if we don’t, naysayers like Kerry, and others ... Read More 11 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
I'm reserving judgement on the numbers. April is a more informative month than March, but there are some good trend lines.
A very selective use of casualty reports. Before we even start taking a look at the "conclusions", its imperative to realize the increasing force-protection-at-all-costs posture being taken within the Army/USMC/CENTCOM. Politics certainly has something to do with this.
Anywho, we brag about the relatively few KIAs in march ... Wooo Hoo! Well, in the first 5 days of April, we've already lost more than half of March's low total.
We've seen it before and we've heard the assurances/premature congratulations about casualties too.
A trip down memory lane:
3/2004 - 52 Deaths
4/2004 - 140 Deaths
10/2004 - 67 Deaths
11/2004 - 141 Deaths
10/2003 - 47 Deaths
11/2003 - 110 Deaths
In each of the above instances, after the "low casualty" first month, the DoD and various warmongers played up the low casualties as a sign of "winning." In the month after, they ate humble pie.
This war and these deaths are not a game. The enemy gets a vote and to take 1 month's casualties suffered by US forces as a metric of winning is asinine.
For our soldiers' and marines' sake, i hope I'm wrong.
"Before we even start taking a look at the "conclusions", its imperative to..."
What conclusions? The article linked went to extreme pains to make sure that it was beyond obvious that no conclusions whatsoever were being made about the data with the singular exception that being *suprised* by the data implied that the "we aren't gettting the real news" people weren't crazy.
Synova,
Relax. The author used the data to explain how we were "winning." That's the reason Greyhawk posted this - because it supports his worldview. He's not the kind to post something he disagrees with unless he mocks or impugns it. I wonder haow he survives the MDMP process as a senior officer. COA development must infuriate him when the S-2/G-2 plays the red side ... but that's a different discussion.
I'm simply showing that if someone claims a month of low deaths is "winning" - the other side can just as easily say an immediately following month of high deaths is "losing." It's dangerous game to hype isolated months and every time the DoD does it, reality/the enemy/karma undermines their already eroded image in the eyes of the public.
Again, you reallly have to look at the more hardened US/Coalition force protection posture since late 2005. We are minimizing opportunities for casualties to occur. How this plays out on the strategic scale is a book yet to be written. If there are less patrols and a reduced US presence, invariably there will be fewer opportunities for US deaths. Thank God the death rate was low over the past few months, but to assume that it is solely from a weakened insurgency is wishful thinking.
If you think that the author was claiming the numbers show we are winning despite the authors repeated statements that he was making no claims of that sort, I won't argue. It would be pointless.
In fact, from the post and the comments it seemed that most people agreed that the numbers can't and shouldn't be used that way.
As for keeping our guys safe skewing the numbers... what about the recent announcements that the Army was changing it's... what would you Army guys calling, SOP or something?... and now rather than continue to drive onward when fired at, convoys will stop and engage the enemy? This doesn't really sound very much like a plan to reduce casualties.
IRR-
You haven't noticed the MSM reporting 'the largest number of casualties since... (whatever number and time period fits their agenda), and totally avoiding the report of any down turn in the number?
Well, you just haven't been watching. If there is any motivation, or conclusion being made, it is anti-war. (As you all too willingly point out with your number game).
"A very selective use of casualty reports."
A perfect heading to your comment.
"A trip down memory lane:
3/2004 - 52 Deaths
4/2004 - 140 Deaths
10/2004 - 67 Deaths
11/2004 - 141 Deaths
10/2003 - 47 Deaths
11/2003 - 110 Deaths
In each of the above instances, after the "low casualty" first month, the DoD and various warmongers played up the low casualties as a sign of "winning." In the month after, they ate humble pie."
Why would the warmongers eat humble pie in 4/2004 when the US attacked Fallujah, or in 11/2004 - the second assault on Fallujah?
They should have finished it the first time - a tragedy. Those are the two prominent peaks in US casualty figures in Iraq - they stand out like a very sore thumb when compared to the much lower totals for all other months. Without looking at the numbers, I think you'll find another spike in August '04 when we were fighting Sadr's militia in Najaf.
In fact, the numbers for all other months are so small and variable that indeed, no conclusion can be drawn. (A plane crash on takeoff or landing from Baghdad will result in the highest death total for the war.) But the two months when we were involved in large combat ops did indeed result in higher casualties than the months we weren't. The other months are statistically incoherent, though they do include spikes like 11/2003 - 110 Deaths. In the Muslim calendar that was Ramadan.
This war and these deaths are not a game. The enemy gets a vote and to take 1 month's casualties suffered by US forces as a metric of winning is asinine.
Indeed - why do you do it? Can you cite any example where casualty rates are equated to victory?
That's the reason Greyhawk posted this - because it supports his worldview.
Almost right - the facts shape my worldview.
I have cited Brookings before (see here and here) but not for playing your type of numbers game.
Victory comes with handing over responsibility to capable Iraqi forces - odd you characterize that as "minimizing opportunities for casualties to occur." If there are less patrols and a reduced US presence, invariably there will be fewer opportunities for US deaths. Yes, that's the plan.
Glad you've got all the answers Greyhawk!
It's amazing that with all your quick answers and tangents, you aren't getting promoted or doing something more important ... after all, you're a "warrior."
What a joke...
From the linked post:
"IRR "Soldier": Why do you lie about what the author said?Because lying seems to be his/her stock-in-trade - look at his site.
From the discussion here it seems most didn't actually read the article. IRR Soldier definitely did not read. There are numbers for all kinds of Iraqi communities in said article.