It pays to read progressive blogs

A recurring, and largely accurate, theme amongst progressive bloggers is that the “right wing noise machine blogs” pick up the party line of the day and flog it endlessly. Repeating it and linking to each other, and creating a sense of factualness out of nothing (or not much).

But you know what? My good friends on the left are doing the same thing, on this very day. Right now, as I write this.

The issue today is the recent drop in U.S. military and Iraqi civilian casualties, trends which, until today, the progressive blogs were notably silent about. But, thanks to Fred Kaplan at Slate, they finally got their story straight.

And it goes like this: “The drop in U.S. military casualties is because we are RAINING HELL FROM ABOVE, resulting in MORE INNOCENT IRAQIS KILLED.”

Steve Benen at the Carpetbagger is spreading the meme too.

Matt Yglesias piles on.

Matt Bergmann at Democracy Arsenal joins the fun. Twice.

And Juan Cole counts the bombing missions.

(Isn’t is awful when those delusional, mis-informed right-wingers join in their bullsh*t circle-jerks, and just “make stuff up?”)

The only problem is that Iraqi civilian casualties have been dropping, even more sharply than US military killed. From a high of 3,000 in February and March of this year, to 848 in September and about 670 in October (projecting from 555 through Oct. 25).

So, in Benen’s favorite phrase, let’s unpack this a little bit. The US military, in defiance of its own COIN strategy, and because we have craven short-sighted generals, and because that moron Bush must still be trying to reap some political gain here, have adopted a “Bomb ‘em back to Stone Age” policy in Iraq, and consequently resulting in “more innocent Iraqis killed.” But the reality (which must suck for my progressive friends to realize that it cuts both ways on occasion) is that MANY FEWER IRAQIS are dying in recent months, since the Surge. Exactly who are we indiscriminately bombing and killing?

Read my lips: Fewer. Iraqi. Deaths.

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  1.   Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup-Halloween Edition — Pirate’s Cove on 28 Oct 2007 at 10:22 am

    […] the commissar says it pays to read progressive blogs […]

Comments

  1. fahs ibair wrote:

    This should get a few hits.

    Posted 27 Oct 2007 at 12:27 am

  2. canuckistani wrote:

    Weren’t you just complaining that no one on the left was addressing the casualty drop? jeez, there’s no pleasing some people.

    I’ll need to check this with my evil leftist overlords, but the response is that civilian casualties are down because a) the ethnic cleansing is finished and b) the population itself has dropped 20% between casualties and refugees. Given the wild uncertainties in civilian casualty reporting anyway, I wouldn’t take civilian casualties alone as evidence of anything, especially in the face of more reliable contradictory evidence.

    In any case, assuming the Surge did work, what now? There aren’t enough troops to sustain it, and there’s still no sign of national reconciliation. And you still have the problem of a government heavily influenced by the next country you’re trying as hard as you can to pick a fight with. Not even Rufus T. Firefly tried to start another war when he was still fighting in Sylvania.

    Posted 27 Oct 2007 at 1:46 pm

  3. commissar wrote:

    Canuckistani,

    You’re going a bit off the point here. While your reasons for the decrease in civilian casualties make sense, your evil leftist overlords are maintaining that such casualties are INCREASING — because of indiscriminate USAF carpet-bombing.

    Posted 27 Oct 2007 at 6:55 pm

  4. canuckistani wrote:

    I guess the wisdom is that casualties are down, and would be lower but for the collateral damage of the increased airstrikes. This makes some sense to me. Even if your average smart bomb kills 10 civilians to every insurgent, it takes a lot to catch up to the massive truck bombs and wholesale inter-sect slaughter of the last year. I don’t think anyone is accusing the USAF of carpet-bombing*, more that you are going to get civilian casualties in surgical strikes in urban areas no matter how precise the targeting is.

    *no one that I know of, or whose opinions I respect on miltary matters.

    Posted 28 Oct 2007 at 1:34 am

  5. CDR Salamander wrote:

    There is a lot of straw grasping going on here because things are actually going in the correct direction in Iraq. It is just hard for some to accept.

    This, of course, has been done before. As I often do, I would like to offer a quote that comes at the end of the Malay Emergency.

    31 July 1960. In its Special Edition proclaiming the end of the Emergency, the Straits Times commented, “Perhaps there is no great point in recalling all the tragic and idiotic blunders, all the false optimism, all the unrealism of the first phases of the war, but it is not possible to appreciate fully the heroism of the Security Forces unless the stupidities of some of those in command are remembered.”

    Everything could go south again - so I guess they can hope to hold out long enough….

    Posted 28 Oct 2007 at 6:24 am

  6. Mark Adams wrote:

    According to my math…
    Iraq civilian casualties, Jan.,’06 — Dec.,’06 = 16564
    Iraq civilian casualties, Jan.,’07 — NOW = 16097

    It won’t take much to make this another record year for carnage.

    Did the numbers drop in Sept? Yes, about 60% of average. (752 versus an average of 1855/month for the previous 8 months.) And October is on track for an even bigger drop. Yet they’ve been well above average during the rest of the year compared to previous years. Too early to tell if this is a trend or an aberration. I hope it’s a trend. Less killing is a good thing.

    That doesn’t discount two facts: 1) airstrikes have seen a dramatic increase in the last nine months, a 435% increase over all of last year. 2) We don’t need as many troops on the ground if we’re doing the job from the air.

    This isn’t just playing with numbers. This is a dramatic change, a fundamentally different strategy going on here — and it has zero compatibility with established COIN doctrine.

    Note as well the number of monthly airstrikes have decreased over the last six weeks or so. While the year-to-date figures are startling, the monthly numbers tell the real story. In July alone we flew 303 sorties, more than we flew in all of 2006 (229). The September dip in civilian casualties coincides with a decrease in bombing runs, down to 90 sorties.

    This ain’t rocket science, but rockets are indeed involved.

    Is it working? Well, they you have to decide what working means and what the goals are — something beyond our (or Petreaus’) pay grade.

    Posted 28 Oct 2007 at 10:17 am

  7. Bill from INDC wrote:

    canuckistani -

    I’ll need to check this with my evil leftist overlords, but the response is that civilian casualties are down because a) the ethnic cleansing is finished and b) the population itself has dropped 20% between casualties and refugees.

    I had a conference call with the general in charge of Iraq & Afghanistan on the NSC, and he very candidly

    A Marine intel officer said that these two points are factors. But these points were factors before the precipitous drop as well. Increased security via surge, factors above and the tribal awakening movement are primary factors. In addition AQI has been operationally attrited to a huge degree, and the ratlines that brought in jihadis from Syria have been cut off by an alliance with a key tribe, whereas the lines via much of Iran are still open, but harder to move massive quantities through the mountainous border areas. Thus, jihadis can’t replenish themselves with manpower and supplies as they are being taken out by an american surge and local awakening of the population in 12 of 18 provinces.

    Posted 28 Oct 2007 at 5:15 pm

  8. Bill from INDC wrote:

    Ah, one element I forgot: Sadr’s cease-fire, which preserves armed factions under his control while isolating the ones who aren’t. A lot of factors are coming together, some pretty unfortunate (the sectarian relocation and cleansing that has taken place) and some unmistakably positive (the nationwide flip on AQ).

    Posted 29 Oct 2007 at 10:11 am

  9. Bob wrote:

    Bill:

    How much longer do you see Sadr holding back? And if we are just beating up on his rivals while he waits in the wings, whats the long term implication for us? That dude seems to sitting pretty these days, just biding his time.

    Posted 30 Oct 2007 at 9:21 am

  10. Bill from INDC wrote:

    Bob -

    I really don’t know. If he feels he has a secure place in a post-America Iraq, he has a vested interest in lying low until we draw down, now that he’s established his heroic nationalist cred by fighting us in the past few years. Plus, isolating rogue JAM elements for some time lets him shape up his organization. But any predictions are predicated on Sadr being totally rational, and I can’t claim that. We’ll see? The surge is making it very tough for his boys to operate, in any event, and I think he realizes that if he makes noises at this point, Petraeus will go ahead and whack him.

    PS - a couple odds/ends about previous comments: “unmitably” up there = “unmistakably”.

    And the NSC General did not mention played out ethnic cleansing as a reason for less violence when I went back and checked my notes, though a Marine intel officer did. And certainly other folks agree with him.

    (ed. - fixed)

    Posted 30 Oct 2007 at 11:28 am

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