An agonizing ‘gotcha’ moment

The other day, I posted a long piece questioning the widely-blogged report of sharply decreasing Iraqi casualties in August. When I saw a new, corrective report today, being human, I felt quite vindicated. While there was a slight drop-off in August, the “2/3 decrease” was just was not credible. It never happened. But does this put me in the position of “rooting for more deaths of Iraqi civilians?” I certainly hope not. Do I want to say smugly, “Ha! Eat sh1t, Powerline boys!” … um .. only for a moment.

But that is one of the challenges of the debate that this country is having about the Iraq war. The administration (perhaps understandably) puts out a relentlessly positive, upbeat party line. Conservative bloggers (also understandably) jump on any favorable fragment of news and give it great prominence. Political opponents adopt the same tactics, with bad news.

Simply trying to bring facts and reality into that atmosphere is difficult. And when the news from Iraq is mostly bad, one ends up sounding like a moonbat. *sigh*

What Dropoff? August Death Total in Baghdad Morgue Triples

We took an interesting phone call today from an official at the Baghdad morgue. We get these calls every day – a daily tally of the violence. But this one was particularly sobering.

It turns out the official toll of violent deaths in August was just revised upwards to 1535 from 550, tripling the total. Now, we’re depressingly used to hearing about deaths here, so much so that the numbers can be numbing. But this means that a much-publicized drop-off in violence in August – heralded by both the Iraqi government and the US military as a sign that a new security effort in Baghdad was working — apparently didn’t exist.

Operation Together Forward, the main thrust of the new strategy, involves establishing pockets of security in select neighborhoods and then slowly adding more. These latest numbers add substance to fears Together Forward creates a whack-a-mole effect: that is, secure one area and the violence will pop up somewhere else. Violent deaths now appear roughly in line with the earlier trend: 1855 in July and 1595 in June. Officials at the Baghdad morgue have no good explanation for the dramatically revised number. We’ll see what the U.S. military has to say.

I want to credit Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit for posting this report promptly. His willingness to post news contary to his “party line” contrasts favorably with the Lefto-sphere’s silence on the Plamegate implosion.

The Washington Post summarizes.

Trackbacks & Pings

  1. Things have changed… | Random Fate on 09 Sep 2006 at 1:53 am

    […] The first example is one of conversion, the Commissar of The Poliburo Diktat, who is now asking the same questions I have been asking for the past three years, but only after evidence beyond even an unreasonable doubt of the incompetence of those he formerly supported: An agonizing gotcha moment […]

Comments

  1. John the Marine wrote:

    The “Right” is certainly not above spin. However, this post illustrates a point. Adults don’t deny reality because it is unpleasant or inconvenient.

    The “Left” is overwhelming negative and their politics is dependent on things going bad. So, they will tell you the sky is falling every time. I guess they figure even a broken clock is right two times a day.

    Allow me to give an example unrelated to Iraq to illustrate my point in both respects:

    The economy. For the past six years the Dems have been telling us the economy is in the toilet. However, all major indicators say otherwise. Home ownership is up, the DOW is up, unemployment is down (about 4.6% Nationally) and Consumer confidence is fairly high.

    Not to mention that we bounced back after 9-11 and a cyclic resession around 2000 - 2001.

    Now it doesn’t bother me so much that the Dems would distort matters. I expect them to be negative no matter what. What does bother me is that the MSM aids in the farce.

    Plamegate brings this truth into vivid relief. Now it is known beyond a shadow of a doubt that the moonbats were 100% wrong. But they won’t admit it. No, matter what Chimpy Hilter McHaliburton Bush is responsible. Another example is the pre-war intelligence concerning Iraq (which is related to Plamegate). It doesn’t matter that John Kerry and Pres. Clinton both said that Saddam’s Iraq posed a grave threat to US security before WMD’s and invasion became an issue. It doesn’t matter that all of the major intel agencies around the World (Britain, France, Russia and the UN to name some) thought Saddam had WMD’s. It doesn’t matter that Saddam didn’t cooperate with UN Inspectors. No, matter what you say to a moonbat it is always the same, Bush lied. In their world Bush can’t simply be wrong, it has to be some sort of Big Oil/Haliburton Neocon conspiracy that is responsible.

    Posted 07 Sep 2006 at 1:07 pm

  2. TallDave wrote:

    Well, the right doesn’t have a Townhouse email group enforcing the day’s talking points.

    Anyway, as tragic as the sectarain violence in Iraq is, it is a decades-old (if not centuries-old) tradition and does not rise to the level of an existential threat to the elected government. For all the negativity, the fact remains that we have accomplished our major goals (an Iraq that is relatively free and democratic, no longer pursuing WMD, and not a threat to its neighbors) and continue to make steady progress toward an ISF that can protect the nascent democracy from enemies both foreign and domestic.

    Posted 07 Sep 2006 at 3:36 pm

  3. canuckistani wrote:

    TallDave; with all due respect, are you on drugs? There’s no way a democracy can function with that level of sectarian killing going on. Civil society can’t survive when people are living in fear of disappearing off the street and being found wrapped in tape with their throats cut. They are going to band together on tribal and religious lines and turn to sectarian militias for protection because there is no other way to survive. You may differ, but I would not call a people free when they live in fear of arbitrary killings. I call that anarchy.

    I don’t want to have another stupid WMD argument, but I will agree that you are right about one thing; Iraq is no longer a threat to its neighbours. In fact, as soon as the US leaves Iraq, you’ll see what happens to a plump and helpless country in the midst of wolves.

    What I find disturbing is that the extra troops in Baghdad don’t seem to be helping; increased troop strengths seemed to be the only workable solution on hand. I know I don’t have any good ideas for fixing this. It looks to me like Iraq is irretrievably firetrucked, and even though I’m an America-hating terrorist-coddling moonbat, I’m not happy about it. I’m pissed that you could screw it up so bad.

    Posted 07 Sep 2006 at 5:07 pm

  4. Grim wrote:

    It is good to remain tied to the facts. I was rather shocked by the earlier statistics, although I certainly wished to believe them.

    Posted 07 Sep 2006 at 7:42 pm

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