Anyone remember the last two weeks of October, when television and print reporters couldn’t stop talking about the number of American soldiers and Marines who were dying in near-record numbers in Iraq? And remember how practically every story about the upcoming midterm elections included the ever-increasing death toll as it inched closer to the 100 mark?
Well, seen any of those stories since October 31?
We’re not saying that the press has begun to totally ignore the toll the war is taking in American lives, (October saw 105 Americans die in Iraq), but it seems that once the morbid race to October 31 ended on Tuesday, most election stories — which reprinted the October death rate time and again as if it were some macabre poll number — began to forget that troops were still dying in favor of jumping on the truly pathetic “John Kerry thinks the troops are dumb” story.
That’s not to say all have switched gears as the artificial deadline of October’s end came and went. The New York Times’ Thom Shanker and David S. Cloud put the numbers in perspective on Wednesday, and the Los Angeles Times has recently run two excellent pieces looking at the casualties in Iraq, both in terms of the families stateside, and the distribution of violence in Iraq. The first, by Borzou Daragahi in Baghdad, traced the kind of attacks that are aimed at U.S. service members, and where they are occurring. Just as importantly, Daragahi notes an oft-forgotten bit of information: that 224 Iraqi security forces and 1,315 civilians were killed in October.
The other story, by Ellen Barry, David Zucchino and P.J. Huffstutter, focused on a few of the individual warriors who fell in Iraq in October, taking a brief look at who they were and where they came from.
It’s not much, necessarily, but given the simple number-crunching and ticking-off of statistics we see so often with casualty reports, a little background, and a little history, go a long way toward humanizing a conflict that, for many Americans, never gets much closer than their television screens.
So far we have 11 dead this month, and yet I don't find myself thinking that the media will be focused on a "death count" once the mid-terms are over.
Posted by Xanthippas on Sat 4 Nov 2006 at 01:01 PM
What has baffled me is why the number of wounded are never included. Because of improvements in battlefield medicine many more people with serious wounds are surviving than in past conflicts. Of the 20,000 plus wounded so far, if the same type of care that was available during Vietnam was used, we'd be approaching 10,000 American deaths. Instead, many of those are surviving with but with lifelong disabilities. THe 2,900 KIA number by itself is greatly underestimating the cost.
Posted by not the senator on Mon 6 Nov 2006 at 02:37 PM
I can't believe you pathetic sickos...
The "problem" is that people aren't paying enough attention to body counts?....
Just look at this crap from a sick liberal whack job...
"Of the 20,000 plus wounded so far, if the same type of care that was available during Vietnam was used, we'd be approaching 10,000 American deaths"
What a SICK complaint!....
If it only weren't for those pesky medical advances that keep our soldiers from dying like they should be... Well, THEN we'd have a pre-election story, by God!....
You vultures are something else...
Posted by padikiller on Mon 6 Nov 2006 at 07:26 PM
Hey padikiller!
You think we are "sick vultures" for actually caring about thousands of permanently disabled Vets?
What sort of sick little world do YOU live in were these people are invisible?
Oh, but then you and the GOP don't actually believe in Govt. benefits to take care of Vets, so they are invisible to you.
Maybe you should start taking a look in the mirror when you start talking about sick vultures.
Posted by not the senator on Tue 7 Nov 2006 at 12:26 PM