June 15, 2006
Numbers
from - RSA
When I read the White House press briefings, sometimes I just get mad:
Q: Tony, American deaths in Iraq have reached 2,500. Is there any response or reaction from the President on that?MR. SNOW: It's a number, and every time there's one of these 500 benchmarks people want something.
I can't help thinking that someone who begins a response that way ("it's a number") has a problem with empathy. That number is the sum of individual deaths; for the guys who put the soldiers in harm's way, it should be much more than a number. (To be fair, Snow does go on to praise the soldiers in Iraq later in his answer.) And the second part of Snow's sentence ("people want something") is also tremendously dismissive. What people want, I expect, is for fewer Americans to be dying in Iraq. That's a very important "something" that shouldn't be lumped in with everything else.
Posted by RSA at June 15, 2006 02:38 PM
What you have to do is try and make yourself think like Victor Davis Hansen. Example:
RSA says, "I would like to see fewer Americans dying in Iraq"
VDH says, "Hell, we are losing 2 a day. How much lower can we go?"
To think like these people it has to be a numbers game to you. A kind of Dr. Strangelove attitude. You can't make it personal or see it as tragic. You have to see it as necessary.
I know that the family of number 2,499 is no more or less devastated than the family of number 2,500 and the same will be true if numbers reach the 25,000 level.
You just have to somehow try to convince yourself that all of this was and is necessary. And you might as well start working on that now because this is going to go on for a long, long, long time.
Because two people a day don't mean shit to nobody but their families.
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Posted by Buck on June 15, 2006 03:23 PM Link to comment |
Never thought of that!
Welcome back, by the way.
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Posted by RSA on June 15, 2006 04:26 PM Link to comment |
I know that the family of number 2,499 is no more or less devastated than the family of number 2,500 and the same will be true if numbers reach the 25,000 level.It won't and never will, but we always reach those "grim milestone" moments in the press whenever there's a nice round number to point at. There was a milestone at every increment of 500, which was obviously what Snow was pointing to (aptly so).
Perhaps reaching for the most evil rationals of those on the other side isn't always the correct way to go, even though it's the most advantageous. To state such like above means that you guys think that YOU think more about lives (in this case, the soldiers) than Tony Snow, or W, or VDH, whereas this is just one more case where they (and I) see things thru a different prism. We really do think that this war is proper - I know you disagree and you wonder "how in the world can those people think like that?"...it's reciprocal, as most everything is - and that going to war saves lives in the long run. There are many views and I don't think that someone who is anti-war is anti-American or anti-anyhthing other than anti-war in Iraq.....and just because someone is pro-war it most certainly doesn't mean that they're less apt to be sorrowful over the death of a soldier than you guys. Heck, they probably feel more sorrow because they know that it was because of their policies that we went there.
Assuming "they're obviously less human than me" is usually never the correct avenue to travel because it's generally wrong. Come on, guys, Tony Snow (of all people) isn't some sort of quasi-demon who thinks less of human life than you do.
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Posted by RW on June 16, 2006 10:10 PM Link to comment |
Ricky I had hoped not to give the impression that I think "the other side" cares less about military deaths that "my side" does. For the "other side" I figure deaths equal currency. In other words, they are just the price you pay for (insert buzz word here)
I see the deaths as unnecessary. The "other side" believes that the invasion of Iraq was necessary and therefore the deaths are justifiable.
I am anti-war for the same reason I am against slapping my wife. There are other ways to reach agreements.
When I see the brief profiles of whatever soldier was killed in Iraq on the nightly news I think to myself,"What a shame". And then I asked my wife to pass the salt or hand me the gravy and potatoes.
I figure "the other side" has pretty much the same reaction.
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Posted by Buck on June 19, 2006 11:22 AM Link to comment |
There are other ways to reach agreements.
We tried for 12 years to reach an agreement with Saddam. He kept thumbing his nose or redirecting the inspectors. And no one expects to reach an agreement with a terrorist or one of their supporters, as "agreement" to them means "adhering 100% to their dogma or death".
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Posted by RW on June 20, 2006 07:39 PM Link to comment |
There was no deal that needed to be made with Saddam. He was totally toothless when we went into Iraq and had been for years.
And anyway, the United States has a rich, rich history of dealing with the devils in this world.
"agreement" to them means "adhering 100% to their dogma or death".Sounds like an ultimatum we would give our "enemy".
There is only one country on the face of this earth that represents a clear and present danger to every other nation and it ain't Bangladesh.
It is my hope that someday the United States will learn to speak softly and put the stick down.
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Posted by Buck on June 20, 2006 11:49 PM Link to comment |
Well presented, Buck. My view, as you might expect, comes closer to that of RW's; nobody is discounting the losses or their impact on their families, friends and any other lives those servicemen and women touched. I myself have been touched by sudden, unexpected and violent deaths of those close to me. Is the "grim milestone" meme really paying homage to those lost? I tend to think not; there is nothing more or less devastating about every 500th death, and to make it worse, these aren't even all combat deaths or even deaths solely in Iraq. To count a traffic accident death in Kuwait as part of the "grim milestone" is disingenous at best.
Soldiering is dangerous business, and I've been involved in peacetime exercises here in the states where more than five soldiers perished in various accidents. Soldiers die in Germany sleeping under vehicles to keep warm - if you're going to count a death in Kuwait, why not count the deaths in Germany as well? If the sailor dying in a dockside accident in Kuwait had not been in theatre, is that to say that he would not have made the same mistake in Okinawa? The whole "grim milestone" thing reeks to me, and doesn't really mean much when you try to puff it up with non-combat related deaths - it just ends up looking puffy; especially when you compare the actual combat death toll with any other armed conflict we've been involved in. It's the old Viet Nam body count all over again, and it surprises me that the anti-war crowd who found so much fault in that body count would glom onto this one.
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Posted by Mack on June 23, 2006 05:10 AM Link to comment |
It is the civilians that I feel most sorry for. If my hard heart can go out to anybody it is to those being killed in the sectarian violence that is getting worse instead of better.
When the Iraqi government is standing up and the troops there are fully trained I think you will see Iraq governed in much the same way it was governed under Saddam.
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
But time will tell.
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Posted by Buck on June 23, 2006 08:46 AM Link to comment |
