Milestone or no?
It seems we have passed the 2,000 mark in number of U.S. casualties in Iraq. The number has inspired vigils to be held tonight in honor of those who have died and calling for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Not everyone is so impressed with this particular casualty figure, however:
In an e-mail statement to Baghdad-based journalists, command spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Boylan said media attention on the 2,000 figure was misguided and "set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives."
The number was "set" by those shadowy individuals or groups? Gee, you mean no one's keeping track? We're all just pulling numbers out of the air?
Still, in Boylan's defense, I agree that 2,000 is an arbitrary figure to make a milestone. I mean, we could just as well say that 26,732 (at bare minimum) Iraqi civilians killed is a milestone...or approximately 3,300 dead Iraqi soldiers and police...or 1,846 U.S. military members who died since major combat ended on April 30, 2003...or 594 members of the Coalition forces who have died since the day after the election. I mean, what is it that makes a milestone, right?
He described the grim statistic as an "artificial mark on the wall" and urged news organizations to focus more on the accomplishments of the U.S. military mission in Iraq.
"Celebrate the daily milestones," Boylan suggested in another part of the article. Hmmm, okay, let's focus on the daily, or better yet, the minute-by-minute, second-by-second, the here and now, the current reality. How about this for starters?
Now I realize it's only numbers, and in this case, only money, but when you compare this (as the good folks at costofwar.com do) to what this money could do for providing health insurance for children (over 121,000,000 kids insured for one year in the U.S., at the last count, and that was thousands of dollars ago) or addressing world hunger (we could have fully funded global anti-hunger efforts for 8 years so far), you begin to count this in terms of lives.
And yet, which of these many numbers, and what of the many events that they refer to, are truly milestones?
The first definition for milestone in the American Heritage Dictionary is:
A stone marker set up on a roadside to indicate the distance in miles from a given point.
In this sense, Lt. Col. Boylan, I agree with you. None of these numbers give us any sense of how far we have to go before this insanely misguided war is over. We don't know how many thousands more must die before an end is declared. The Administration is firm in their refusal to even imagine a time that U.S. troops may be withdrawn.
However, here's one more number you might be interested in:
A Harris Interactive poll published in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal found that 53 percent of Americans now think invading Iraq was the "wrong thing to do." That's the first time that number has risen above 50 percent in the poll.
Which leads us to the second definition for milestone:
An important event, as in a person's career, the history of a nation, or the advancement of knowledge in a field; a turning point.
A turning point? Now that's the kind of milestone we're talking about!
In an e-mail statement to Baghdad-based journalists, command spokesman Lt. Col. Steve Boylan said media attention on the 2,000 figure was misguided and "set by individuals or groups with specific agendas and ulterior motives."
The number was "set" by those shadowy individuals or groups? Gee, you mean no one's keeping track? We're all just pulling numbers out of the air?
Still, in Boylan's defense, I agree that 2,000 is an arbitrary figure to make a milestone. I mean, we could just as well say that 26,732 (at bare minimum) Iraqi civilians killed is a milestone...or approximately 3,300 dead Iraqi soldiers and police...or 1,846 U.S. military members who died since major combat ended on April 30, 2003...or 594 members of the Coalition forces who have died since the day after the election. I mean, what is it that makes a milestone, right?
He described the grim statistic as an "artificial mark on the wall" and urged news organizations to focus more on the accomplishments of the U.S. military mission in Iraq.
"Celebrate the daily milestones," Boylan suggested in another part of the article. Hmmm, okay, let's focus on the daily, or better yet, the minute-by-minute, second-by-second, the here and now, the current reality. How about this for starters?
Now I realize it's only numbers, and in this case, only money, but when you compare this (as the good folks at costofwar.com do) to what this money could do for providing health insurance for children (over 121,000,000 kids insured for one year in the U.S., at the last count, and that was thousands of dollars ago) or addressing world hunger (we could have fully funded global anti-hunger efforts for 8 years so far), you begin to count this in terms of lives.
And yet, which of these many numbers, and what of the many events that they refer to, are truly milestones?
The first definition for milestone in the American Heritage Dictionary is:
A stone marker set up on a roadside to indicate the distance in miles from a given point.
In this sense, Lt. Col. Boylan, I agree with you. None of these numbers give us any sense of how far we have to go before this insanely misguided war is over. We don't know how many thousands more must die before an end is declared. The Administration is firm in their refusal to even imagine a time that U.S. troops may be withdrawn.
However, here's one more number you might be interested in:
A Harris Interactive poll published in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal found that 53 percent of Americans now think invading Iraq was the "wrong thing to do." That's the first time that number has risen above 50 percent in the poll.
Which leads us to the second definition for milestone:
An important event, as in a person's career, the history of a nation, or the advancement of knowledge in a field; a turning point.
A turning point? Now that's the kind of milestone we're talking about!
posted by Rod @ 12:42 PM
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