NY Times Ad Contradicts NY Times Own Reporting

In the now infamous Moveon.org ad in the New York Times, they claim "the Pentagon has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, deaths by car bombs don't count." That's false, according to the NY Times. While some incidents may be designated as sectarian violence, they are indeed tracked and reported. Allowing for that classification, the number is still down significantly.

From the New York Times on Sept. 8:

Nonetheless, some trends are down. The number of car bombs in Baghdad is an important measure, since many are directed at civilians and the overarching American goal is to break the cycle of internecine violence. In June, July and August of 2006, the average monthly number of car bombs in the Baghdad metropolitan area was 42. In 2007, however, the average for the same three-month period was 23, the same number as in 2005.

The number of deaths in sectarian violence is also a key indicator. According to the American military count, the August total for the 10 security districts in Baghdad was 321, down from 1,621 in December when such attacks were at a high.

American officials concede that it is not always easy to distinguish sectarian killings and criminally motivated murders. Victims from car bombs are treated as sectarian casualties if the attack appears to be directed at a sectarian or ethnic group. The August truck bombings that killed hundreds of Yazidis in northern Iraq and the July car bombs that killed many Kurds near Tuz, for example, were classified as sectarian attacks.

The ad also claims that according to the Washington Post assassinations only count if one is shot in the back of the head, not the front. That appears to be from a Sept 6 WaPo article. Again, it isn't that the violence isn't being tracked and reported. It's simply a matter of classification.

The intelligence community has its own problems with military calculations. Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."

The ad also claims that according to the Associated Press there have been more civilian and military deaths in the last three months than in any other summer we've been there. Let's go to the AP. It's also important to remember that some escalating violence was widely predicted. It's happening because our forces are now actively confronting certain extremist elements previously left alone.

According to the AP count, civilian deaths reached a high point during the wave of sectarian bombings, kidnappings and killings at the end of last year — 2,172 in December and 1,967 in the previous month.

Petraeus gave no figures. An AP partial count of Baghdad deaths between Aug. 1 and Aug. 21 showed at least 508 civilians had been killed in the capital — compared with at least 1,772 civilians slain here during December.

Deaths went down in Baghdad during August in part due to a strict vehicle ban imposed on the city during a major Shiite religious ceremony. Violence dropped dramatically during the Aug. 8-12 ban.

Comments

[Fred Beloit]

It is unfortunate that dueling is now illegal; sure some lives were lost too soon, but it had a tendency to keep discourse within some reasonable bounds. For example, would that personage Landros have been more circumspect in his attempt to smear Petraeus if the good General could have called him out to the dew-pearled lawns of the Mall for an early morning shootout, and, when finished, have gone looking for Soros?

(I also put this comment up at Confederate Yankee - FB)

[seekeronos]

Hmmm, kinda off-topic, but I like the scenario that Harry Turtledove suggested in one of his books:

Flamethrowers at 10 paces.

[BobInStamford]

Rednecks talking about dueling? Go figure. Now back to your trailer, Fred.

[Fred Beloit]

Well it must be almost lunch time in Stamford about now, thogh it won't be in Westport for another two hours at least. (Westport is where people of substance live). Tell me Bob, what flavor banana are you having today?

[David M]

Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 09/11/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
Today highlighting 9/11 posts, along with other must read info from around the net.

http://thunderrun.blogspot.com/2007/09/web-reconnaissance-for-09112007.html

[IslamoLlama]

"For example, would that personage Landros have been more circumspect in his attempt to smear Petraeus if the good General could have called him out to the dew-pearled lawns of the Mall for an early morning shootout, and, when finished, have gone looking for Soros?"

Yes, I'm sure General Desk Jockey would be a force to be reconned with.
That said, all the shoot-outs in the world won't change what even Dan's bold highlighting basically admits. The report is rigged and flawed, cutting along arbitrary lines - if a car bombing happens to be considered a "sectarian" car bombing or just your regular, run of the mill car bombing - that get rolled into a report telling us exactly nothing. You can shoot every last member of MoveOn and you'll still have the same report. You'll still lose in Iraq, because you're too busy trying to win back home in the polls, cooking the books and lying to your constituents.

The US Military is beginning to look alot like Enron, except Enron only fabricated $1 billion in false book keeping didn't get anybody killed when it went under.

[Brad]

"The US Military is beginning to look alot like Enron, except Enron only fabricated $1 billion in false book keeping didn't get anybody killed when it went under."

That is BS. You can't blame the military for that. You have to classify it somehow and the way the military works they like it when everything fits in it's nice catagory. They like Objective measurements rather than subjective criteria.

You are right though about us being too busy trying to "win in the polls"... but that is just because the Dems care more about elections and agendas than the country. Just wait until the next terrorist attack here. Another Belsan or 9-11 or two here and the Islamo-nazis better be careful what they wish for (an all out war with the west)... they just might get it.

[templar knight]

Brad, ObamaLlamaRama is just parroting the latest liberal meme, which is to attack the military. He goes over to Kos or Firedoglake and gets his theme for the day and regurgitates. Of course, coming from a turd who has no credibility, his attack is harmless. Very much like chris on steroids.

[rwilymz]

"You'll still lose in Iraq"

Define "lose". If "lose" == "get bored with it" then there are definitely political circumstances which can, indeed, lose Iraq. But if you're going to go by strictly military measures, then ... losing in Iraq is short quite a bit of military defeats.

"because you're too busy trying to win back home in the polls"

Do you even listen to yourself?

First you accuse "the Republicans", who have been accused for 4 years of cold, calculated conspiracy in Iraq, of "emotion and whim" in foreign policy, and then you accuse them, after maintaining a "follow the plan at all costs" policy of falling poll numbers, of trying to win in polls.

I should know better than to ask this, since I already know the answer ... but ... are you making this up as you go along?

Are you a gainsay-bot?

"cooking the books and lying to your constituents."

Welcome to politics. I understand the naive are unfamiliar with the concept, but this is what it's all about. Every stitch of it.

[hobo]

Islamo...I thought the military got its' green from the Prez and Congress. They really don't have enough ($$$) to do the job they were sent to do. Hell, the money handlers are just getting around to supplying the military with the MRAP, a vehicle with a "V" shaped bottom to help deflect IED impact from the bottom. Africa has had the design for over 20 years, but the egos of (again), the money handlers delayed the production of the life saving units and I'm really having a tough time trying to understand your analogy of the Military and Enron. In addition, maybe I missed something here, but I recall Marine families at Pendleton purchasing bullet proof vests from private vendors because the military somehow didn't have the bucks to supply them. Same goes with special sun glasses. This goes back to Viet Nam, but the world record holder for sniper kills is Carlos Hackworth with 92 confirmed. Carlos was given a standard M-16 with a cheap scope and being a hunter from the South East US, knew enough about weapons that he was going to need better equipment. So he ordered some...from home...at his own expense. The title of the book is "Marine Sniper". Not trying to sell the book, but it's interesting. I've sent copies to snipers in Afghanistan and Iraq and they found it inspirational. SEMPER FI.

[rwilymz]

A large portion of materiel delays in production and procurement comes from statutory interference. In order to prevent the military from paying $250 for a $25 hammer, military procurement and contracting requires multiple levels of auditing -- roughly $250 per hammer -- to ensure that the hammer itself only costs $25.

But the military ends up paying $275 for the hammer and overhead costs associated, and this is an improvement.

Even if the military has a radically new design for blast protection on personnel carriers -- which has been in existence for a generation -- once the US military gets its contract officer's hands on it, it will be minimum 5 years and more likely 10 years before the thing will see its National Stock Number on a requisition form.

And that's completely ignoring any political wrongling over whose district the military contract gets worked in.