September 22, 2006

VegasBlogging 1: "Milestones," Or Media Millstones?

This AP story is one of the most maddening, infurating examples of elite-media manipulation I've seen in months. We start with the bizarre, defamatory, and demented headline:

War Price on U.S. Lives Equal to 9/11

Now the death toll is 9/11 times two. U.S. military deaths from Iraq and Afghanistan now match those of the most devastating terrorist attack in America's history, the trigger for what came next. Add casualties from chasing terrorists elsewhere in the world, and the total has passed the Sept. 11 figure.

The latest milestone for a country at war comes without commemoration. It also may well come without the precision of knowing who is the 2,973rd man or woman of arms to die in conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, or just when it happens [what, no picture for the Wall of Martyrs?]. The terrorist attacks killed 2,973 victims in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

In the first place... huh? What's the point of this article? I was about to note that we lost fewer than 2,500 at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941; while a quick glance at the right sidebar to this very blog tells you that during the war for which that attack was the starting gun, 400,000 brave American sailors, Marines, soldiers, and airmen (then still part of the Army) were killed.

There is no relation, cause-effect, or connection between the number of people who died in a precipitating incident and the number killed in the war it precipitates. For heaven's sake, wasn't the War to End All Wars "started" by the death of a single arch-duck?

But then I discovered I didn't even need to make the argument -- because Calvin Woodward, the writer of this very article, made the same blasted argument himself... completely undercutting any point the piece itself might have had:

The body count from World War II was far higher for Allied troops than for the crushed Axis. Americans lost more men in each of a succession of Pacific battles than the 2,390 people who died at Pearl Harbor in the attack that made the U.S. declare war on Japan. The U.S. lost 405,399 in the theaters of World War II.

...But then, immediately he admits he has no point whatsoever, he beetles on, as if he hadn't just shot himself in the mouth:

Despite a death toll that pales next to that of the great wars [another stunning admission against interest!], one casualty milestone after another has been observed and reflected upon this time, especially in Iraq.

[And who's doing the observing and reflecting?]

There was the benchmark of seeing more U.S. troops die in the occupation than in the swift and successful invasion. And the benchmarks of 1,000 dead, 2,000, 2,500.

Now this.

"There's never a good war but if the war's going well and the overall mission remains powerful, these numbers are not what people are focusing on," said Julian Zelizer, a political historian at Boston University. "If this becomes the subject, then something's gone wrong."

You bloody well bet your bippy "something's gone wrong," Professor Zelizer... but it's not a failure of nerve of the American people: it's that, unlike any other war we fought prior to Vietnam, the post-Vietnam media has eschewed both the principle of "a search for the truth" and even the previous war principle of "may she always be right, but our country, right or wrong."

The new media motto is "Amerika, scourge of the world!" I want to make it absolutely clear that I don't question the media moguls' patriotism. I nakedly assert they have none.

I don't know if Woodward (any relation?) wanted to write this revolting article, or if some AP editor assigned it to him. But he clearly embraced his task with enthusiasm, an almost obscene gloating in the deaths of American military personnel. Perhaps I'm overreacting; but read this and tell me there's no trace of cock-crowing:

As of Friday, the U.S. death toll stood at 2,693 in the Iraq war and 278 in and around Afghanistan, for a total of 2,971, two short of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Pentagon reports 56 military deaths and one civilian Defense Department death in other parts of the world from Operation Enduring Freedom, the anti-terrorism war distinct from Iraq.

Altogether, 3,028 have died abroad since Sept. 11, 2001.

The civilian toll in Iraq hit record highs in the summer, with 6,599 violent deaths reported in July and August alone, the United Nations said this week.

Woodward reels off each number with the gusto of a sports fan reciting stats of his favorite baseball team. I almost get the impression he had them memorized already. (And don't forget, he already admitted that such milestones were meaningless; but not, evidently, to Calvin Woodward.)

The problem is not America. It's not the American people, or the right-wingers, or President Bush, or the neocons.

The problem is AP, Reuters, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the news division of the Wall Street Journal (which is as liberal as all the rest, in contrast to the editorial pages). The problem is Woodward himself, and all those like him -- arch grotesques who dance a little Snoopy dance when they can announce another "milestone" of death... and the milestones become millstones around our country's neck, trying to drag us from victory towards defeat like one of Tony Soprano's enemies sinking slowly into the Hudson River with a pair of cement overshoes.

Look at the language of Calvin Woodward:

• He tells us each American death statistic in precise detail; but he says nary a word about enemy casualties, which have been staggingly higher.
• He fails to mention the ouster of the Taliban and of Saddam Hussein, the democratic votes in those countries, the freedom of the people, successes such as the abandonment of nuclear weapons by Lybia's Qadaffi, or the many, many nations that have changed their spots in the last five years and now fight against the terrorists they once tolerated.
• He triumphantly announces that civilian deaths in Iraq "hit record highs in the summer," without troubling to mention that after that peak, they receded very significantly.
• And he uses misleading statistics to suggest comparisons of Iraq to WWII (to Iraq's detriment), when in fact the situations are incomparable.

That last point bears looking at:

A new study on the war dead and where they come from suggests that the notion of "rich man's war, poor man's fight" has become a little truer over time.

Among the Americans killed in the Iraq war, 34 percent have come from communities reporting the lowest levels of family income. Half come from middle income communities and only 17 percent from the highest income level.

That's a change from World War II, when all income groups were represented about equally. In Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, the poor have made up a progressively larger share of casualties, by this analysis.

The accusation is clear from the first paragraph above: "rich men" started the war, but they're sending "poor men" to fight it for them. I'm sure the statistic he cites is accurate; but I'm equally sure it's meaningless. What difference does it make whether a recruit comes from a community "reporting the lowest" or "the highest income level?" If you really want to argue that rich men are sending the poor to their deaths -- you need to look at the income level of the actual soldiers, not the "communities" from which they come.

And who chooses what constitutes a "community" anyway? If you draw the lines tendentiously enough, you can call any community either poor or rich, depending which is needed for the argument.

And of course, one reason that WWII, Korea, and Vietnam had greater participation by rich "communities" like the wealthy, liberal enclaves in New York, Connecticut, and Hollywood, California is that for those other wars, we had the draft. Does Woodward propose we bring it back, as liberal Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem, 100%) has repeatedly demanded?

The modern, all-volunteer, American military draws disproportionately from the South, not because the South (as a region) is "poor," but because its moral values are more traditional, and because it has a tradition of military service unlike any other region in America. When young men and women in San Francisco, Chicago, Bangor, Philadelphia, and especially Chappaqua are allowed to choose, they tend not to choose to enlist.

Very well; that's freedom for you. But don't, for God's sake, use freedom as a bludgeon against Republicans. There's a limit even to the liberal aphorism "any stick to bash a conservative."

Well... in a decent world, there would be.

It really is time for the antique media to pull up its pants and choose sides (those of them who haven't long ago chosen the side of America's enemies). Until they do, we should not let them get away with standing on the sidelines making snide comments and pulling sarcastic faces. Even New York Times readers deserve better.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, September 22, 2006, at the time of 7:29 PM

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Tracked on September 24, 2006 4:31 AM

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