The Stupidity of Short Term Thinking

No matter how one feels about the ongoing calamity in Iraq, there is fairly compelling evidence that the situation is not improving. Yet, the media was falling all over itself in July as fatality numbers were “down” and the national news braintrust seemed to think that the lower body count was indicative that the surge was working. Sadly, all forms of basic logic and statistics seem totally lost on the media.

Here are the important numbers:

48
54
54
43
80

The first four numbers would be the July body count for the years 2003-2006. The last would be July 2007. Doesn’t look much like success, does it?

Here are some other interesting numbers:

289*
376
410
354
576

That would be the cumulative body count for the first six months from 2003-2007. Where, exactly, is the “success” of the surge? Put it another way, if the surge was a publicly traded stock, it would be hitting zero right about now because by the simple calculus of body count, it’s failing miserably.

This actually makes sense. More troops mean more vulnerability and more deaths. So perhaps body count isn’t the best method to evaluate the surge. I’m certainly willing to accept that there are more meaningful variables. However, if the media is going to continue to be obsessed with the body count as the most telling evaluator of the surge, then they should at least get the facts straight and try to use one of the spare brain cells they still have left.

(*2003 numbers are for March-August since US troops arrived in March.)

Source: Iraq Coalition Casualty Count: http://icasualties.org/oif/