...For God And Country!This is a story you won't see in the Mainstream Media (MSM) -- The NUMBERS tell us that a turning point has been reached in the Battle of Iraq and that victory is just around the corner unless the Democrats, always The Official American Party of Treason, take control of Congress in the mid term elections and order a retreat from Iraq.
Excellent commenary by Robert Tracinski:
I have been arguing, both in TIA Daily and in "The Weapon of the Weak," in the last print issue of The Intellectual Activist, that the Sunni insurgency in Iraq is weak and doomed to defeat—so long as the Bush administration refuses to heed the left's demands for American retreat and surrender.
I have been arguing, both in TIA Daily and in "The Weapon of the Weak," in the last print issue of The Intellectual Activist, that the Sunni insurgency in Iraq is weak and doomed to defeat—so long as the Bush administration refuses to heed the left's demands for American retreat and surrender.
Well, now the numbers are in on the effectiveness of the US-Iraqi counter-insurgency campaign—and we are definitely winning. All of the figures that measure the intensity of the insurgency—US casualties, Iraqi Army casualties, car bombings, civilian casualties—are trending steadily downward. Thanks to TIA Daily reader Erik Driessens for recommending this link (via The Belmont Club military blog).
The article: NUMBERS
81, 76, 50, 49, 43, 25
What are these numbers? This week’s Powerball winners? A safe deposit combo? New numbers to torment those poor b*stards stranded on the island in Lost?
No, they’re the number of troops that have died in hostile actions in Iraq for each of the past six months. That last number represents the lowest level of troop deaths in a year, and second-lowest in two years.
81, 76, 50, 49, 43, 25
What are these numbers? This week’s Powerball winners? A safe deposit combo? New numbers to torment those poor b*stards stranded on the island in Lost?
No, they’re the number of troops that have died in hostile actions in Iraq for each of the past six months. That last number represents the lowest level of troop deaths in a year, and second-lowest in two years.
But it must be that the insurgency is turning their assault on Iraqi military and police, who are increasingly taking up the slack, right?
215, 176, 193, 189, 158, 193 (and the three months before that were 304, 282, 233)
Okay, okay, so insurgents aren’t engaging us; they’re turning increasingly to car bombs then, right?
70, 70, 70, 68, 30, 30
Civilians then. They’re just garroting poor civilians.
527, 826, 532, 732, 950, 446 (upper bound, two months before that were 2489 and 1129).
My point here is not that everything is peachy in Iraq. It isn’t. My point isn’t that the insurgency is in its last throes. It isn’t. My point here isn’t even to argue that we’re winning. I’m at best cautiously-pessimistic-to-neutral about how things are going there.
My point here is not that everything is peachy in Iraq. It isn’t. My point isn’t that the insurgency is in its last throes. It isn’t. My point here isn’t even to argue that we’re winning. I’m at best cautiously-pessimistic-to-neutral about how things are going there.
My only point is that, at the very least, people who complain that good news coming out of Iraq gets shuttered by the press aren’t crazy. I’m a regular denizen of the right-leaning blogosphere (though I spend about half my daily routine with left-leaning sites), and I was unequivicolly shocked when I saw this. Completely the opposite of what I’d expected. My non-scientific sample of three friends, all of whom are considerably more bullish about the prospects in Iraq than I am, revealed three people similarly surprised by these numbers. I’m guessing if I polled people on this site regarding the direction those numbers were going, and people didn’t answer strategically (eg figure I was up to something from the question words), no one would predict any of those numbers were on a downward trend, or were even flat.
Again, my point isn’t that we’re winning. My only point is that if the data you’ve received left you completely surprised by these numbers, what does that really say about the completeness of the data you’ve received?
Incidentally, these statistics are compiled by the Brookings Institution, a liberal think tank.
UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers! My focus is normally on elections, but I dabble in legal analysis (I’m a lawyer), and whatever happens to tickle my fancy. I have a more-or-less complete compendium of Senate polls and candidates here, and am working on compiling congressional district maps and results here. Hopefully you’ll poke around a bit, and return soon!
UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers! My focus is normally on elections, but I dabble in legal analysis (I’m a lawyer), and whatever happens to tickle my fancy. I have a more-or-less complete compendium of Senate polls and candidates here, and am working on compiling congressional district maps and results here. Hopefully you’ll poke around a bit, and return soon!
UPDATE2: The link should work now.
UPDATE3: Thanks to everyone who is linking this. I hope you stay around. I also have put (hopefully) all of you up on my blogroll — if I missed anyone please let me know!
UPDATE4: Binary Shift keeps track of total dead and total wounded, divided by number of days in the month. It still paints a picture that is at worst stable and off the peaks. Again, this would not be what I had expected from news reports.
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