Hi Bill Ulrich; Re "My hope is that the data points will have a higher level of significance than 33%."
I'm not exactly sure what you meant when you wrote the above back on June 6th. We were carrying on a conversation about US casualties in Iraq. Here's the sequence:
Bilow, June 5, 2003
Here, let me see if I can give you a sense of shame. One week's (May 29th to June 4th) casualty (death) report from Iraq:
... #reply-19004214
Bill Ulrich, in reply
Carl, 6 of those 9 deaths are not from enemy fire, but from accidents like Humvees hitting pot holes. Accidental deaths of similar nature happen to soldiers stationed state-side, too. I don't see how the Administration can be chastised for this. 2/3 of this data is of dubious relevance to the issue. #reply-19004268
Bilow, in reply
Go look on the Vietnam memorial. You will find there inscribed the names of guys who were killed in accidents in Vietnam. (Hostile deaths were 47,359 while "non-hostile" deaths were 10,797. That's cause the memorial includes all "combat zone casualties".) #reply-19005245
Bill Ulrich, in reply
Carl, that's a rather divergent road to take. The military is a dangerous occupation and I wasn't diminishing the tragedy of any soldier's demise. If six soldiers die in vehicle accidents caused by state-side pot holes or German pot holes, will you blame Bush for that, as well? #reply-19006090
Bilow, in reply
Uh, no. The basic fact of life is that war zones are dangerous places. For example, the 507th (the unit that got ambushed and 9 killed early in the war) was driving around at night. The reason for driving at night was so that they could fix broken vehicles and have them ready the next morning. That is something that can be done with more care in peacetime.
But don't worry about the details. If I am correct in my analysis of the numbers, our death rate due to undeniable hostile actions will be increasing this summer. This will be due to three things. First, the Iraqi resistance will be learning to run a more effective guerilla campaign. Second, the US will send more troops to Iraq, thereby providing more opportunities for the Iraqi resistance to target. Third, the neighbors of Iraq with which we have lousy relations will begin leaking more assistance to Iraqi resistance groups across those immensely long porous borders. Then you can eat your f'ing words.
... #reply-19007064
It's less than a month later, and US combat deaths are now well in excess of US accidental deaths. Is this what you were looking for as a "higher level of significance than 33%"?
-- Carl |
