It stems from this very misleading report by David Carr at The New York Times on the Iraq War and "The Wars We Choose to Ignore."
This is what was reported:
"...But the tactical success of the surge should not be misconstrued as making Iraq a safer place for American soldiers (1). Last year (2)was the bloodiest in the five-year history of the conflict, with more than 900 dead, and last month, 52 perished, making it the bloodiest month of the year so far (3). So far in May, 18 have died."Just off the bat three things stick out from the this report:
(1.) Iraq is a safer place today for US soldiers. That is just a fact. Even though there are still over 140,000 troops in Iraq, the US so far, has lost fewer soldiers this month than any other month since the war started.
(2.) Last year was the "bloodiest year" since the war began- but only in the first 6 months. The last 6 months after the surge troops were in place had some of the lowest fatality numbers of the war.
(3.) Last month 52 US soldiers perished in Iraq and this was one of the lowest month of losses since the war began.
The New York Times was obviously incorrect in reporting that Iraq is not a safer place for American soldiers.
That is not accurate.
Jason at Counterculture saw this and wrote the New York Times a letter:
Dear Mr. Carr,Today, David Carr at the NYT responded:
I wrote you yesterday calling for a correction/clarification to your memorial day column. I also posted an entry on my own blog, Countercolumn, with a link to the graph.
You wrote: "But the tactical success of the surge should not be misconstrued as making Iraq a safer place for American soldiers. Last year was the bloodiest in the five-year history of the conflict, with more than 900 dead, and last month, 52 perished, making it the bloodiest month of the year so far. So far in May, 18 have died."
Yet today, just a day after your piece appeared, the the Wall Street Journal reports that according to military sources the level of attacks in Iraq has reached a four year low.
I didn't see a correction or clarification in today's correction section. But I'm not the only one who noticed the incongruity between your article and the facts on the ground: The Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web Today also noticed, entitled the piece Lying With Statistics, and quipped "David Carr shows us how it's done."
I know the New York Times likes to hold itself to a high standard, and that is as it should be.
Do you have a response or clarification to share with readers?
Jason
jason,There you have it.
all do respect, I see nothing to correct. last year was the bloodiest of the war. last month was the bloodiest so far this year. it is still a dangerous place to be a soldier.
david
Today The New York Times is not just biased but is also inaccurate-- and unwilling to change.
And, they wonder why their stock is losing money?
And the WSJ is correct!
ReplyDeleteall do respect?
ReplyDeleteAll do respect what?
David Carr is an ignoramus. The phrase is all due respect. And he should learn that sentences begin with a capital letter. Maybe the editors at the Times are working harder than we had thought.
David may not have seen anything to correct however I did. So for those that didn't go to journalism school I have attempted to clean up his response
ReplyDelete[With] all due respect, I see nothing to correct. Last year was the bloodiest of the war. Last month was the bloodiest so far this year. It is still a dangerous place to be a soldier.
And Chicago is a dangerous place to be a civilian.
Wow, propaganda from the left. Who'd a thunk it. Whenever your opponent is winning, pull pieces from the past to twist the current truth of positive outcomes into biased, pessimismistic lectures to the public at-large.
ReplyDeleteExhibit A - David Carr, leftist schill-bot writes with all the authority of the UN Human Rights Commission loaded with tyrant nations and communist despots:
(1) Title: The Wars We Choose to Ignore"
Infers readers "choose to ignore" truth according to leftist Anti-Liberators. Inherant in the title is a) bad or even dishonest choices by casual readers or especially those who support liberating Iraqis, b) and large scale conspiracy of Americans being shallow or worse evil for supposedly "ignoring" past losses, c) makes disgusting assumptions that Americans do not care about our soldiers sacrifices, therefore playing the "guilt" card yet again towards anyone who dare support victory in Iraq.
(2) "Last year" targets the hurried and unskeptical reader to look back in the past at irrelavant comparisons to gloss over the positive trends pointing to victory since the actual surge. A better use of statistics to explain the surge are here: Trustworthy Surge Stats
(3) "was the" emphasizes the Democrat style status quo look backwards at old news. Repeating what they consider negative news cycles in favor of the writers point, but dishonest regarding current positive trends. Carr frames news in favor of his bias by pushing aside good news in favor of stagnant news 5mos old. Dirty trick by a dishonest reporter.
(3) "last month" again puts emphasis on the past without pertinent information of contextual history. Jason rightly nailed him on this and the above historical twisting of truth. Putting the graph up is an excellent hammer move by Jason.
(4) "It is still a dangerous place to be a soldier" shows us the buffoonery of the leftist schills comprehension during a time of war. Astoundingly, it appears soldiers in wars must not die. And if they do, America is to blame, not the terrorist. At this point from the leftist view, we no longer have soldiers, but empty charicatures dressed in camouflage. This man lives in cartoon land where Roadrunner always wins and the Wiley Coyote always is resurrected for the next episode. 10 ton rocks flatenning him in the desert road be damned and mile high falls aside, no one dies in David Carr's wars.
WTG to Jason! Great letter! Great counter truth to their lies!
Jason put it all in perspective and showed the lunacy lefts lives for defeat, doom and disaster at all cost to our nation. Always seeking negative angles to defeat Bush, depress our military and America at home. Always seeking to depress the public. Always seeking to make our nation pessimist instead of optimistic supporters of our troops honest success and eventual victory!
Welcome to the Barack "We cannot win" Obama fan club. Where members like David Carr exist to depress Americans into a Leningrad mediocre existence surrounded with no where to turn but the Marxist Dear Leader Obama. Where the Marxist inspired candidate substitutes Victory for Defeat, Truth for Propaganda, and Light for Dark. Where we are always losers, our opponents victors and our ideas of freedom always wrong.
Welcome to leftist fantasy land. Where morality is relative, truth a victim of manipulated stats, and any means necessary trumps indisputable facts.
The indisputable fact that our troops are winning and Iraqis are choosing liberty against terror and tyrants!
NYT may your stock continue to plummet, the Sulzbergers be replaced, dignity and integrity be restored to a once proud grey lady. Otherwise, may she fall fully into oblivion until the carcus is picked over and the rats run out. Amen.
just a grunt,
ReplyDeleteExcellent response and point. Every loss is painful, but I was not aware war was a walk in a park secured by police and security cameras.
To write such an article on Memorial Day is a disengenuous at best.
Ooo, I made up a new word, "pessimismistic." Ha!
ReplyDeleteMaybe for David Carr it should be Pessi-mythos or Pessi-mystics, or Pessimism-mytics
Defined as: 1) pagan mystical art of projecting pessimistic futures onto unsuspecting audience of one or more; by skewing facts, figures and twisting truths. By looking backwards instead of forwards., 2) pagan art of supplanting pessimist stats from past over the present in order to render horrible outlooks of the future, 3) the art of BS from normal leftist schills. 4) The recent Neo-Marxist Obama-ites. 5) Propaganda Zodiac star gazing into the nihilistic futures of oblivion
It's safer being an American soldier in Iraq than being an American driver in the USA...
ReplyDelete++
ReplyDeleteanother NYT Baghdad Bob report corrected..
HT : Talisman Gate
Yet More In-Depth Reporting from the New York Times
excerpt:
[What the NYTimes reporter failed to report on was that yesterday the Iraqi parliament decided to apply amnesty laws to several ‘lawmakers’ who’ve been accused of misdemeanors and crimes instead of revoking their parliamentary immunity, but that amnesty was not applicable to Dulaimi, the single source in Oppel’s report, because his crime was “terrorism.”]
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