Here's a little graphic I stole from the National Security Network. Even once we're done surging we're still going to be at a high level of troops by the historical standards of this fiasco.
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Graphing Troop Levels
18 Mar 2008 11:13 am
Comments (12)
We need to see this graph with the baseline at
0 troops, not at 100K troops. That would make it
clear that for all the crapola about drawdowns and surges, the painful truth is that we've got about 140K troops in Iraq forever, give or take a few,
at vast expense and for no discernible purpose.
You won't even see these peaks and valleys when you graph it out over 100 years.
But the MSM will continue to talk about troop reductions without it being put into perspective.
Now the real "value add" would be to create this graph with a line that showed a meaningful measure of levels of violence...
Ooooh, I'd like to see that kilroi. Anyone with some graphing skills want to volunteer? (Fame and fortune could be yours!)
I can make a decent "fail dog," but beyond that...
Second the commentators who suggest starting the chart at zero, but a richer understanding of what's going on would start back in January 2001, and chart US soldiers committed to active service in war theaters.
So you'd have a stack column chart with forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, showing the build up to and major combat phase of the Iraq war, with any concommitant effect on the Afghan deployment. It would also be helpful to compare these numbers with total deployable forces (the third/third/third deployed/preparing/home) to get a sense of the strain on resources.
I guess the chart is better than nothing, but to be really illustrative of what it pretends, it needs to start in 1991, with about a half a million troops, carrying through the '90's with everyone deployed to Turkey, Saudi, and the Greater Persian Gulf running combat operations with Northern and Southern Watch, Marine Intercept, etc.
Why do so many people have trouble with the basic fact that the war started in 1991, and ended with the capture of Saddam Hussein? This is not a war, or even an occupation. It's an operation to support a freely elected allied government at its request.
Powell: STFU.
It's an operation to support a freely elected allied government at its request.
Good luck with that talking point.
What I like are talking points that are factual.
Propagandists and their victims like to shut the truth with by rudeness and buffoonery. You never see any evidence to support their constant meme that Iraq had no meaningful history before the election of George W. Bush, and that all the stuff that went on between 1991 and then is down the memory hole. You may be sure that the people of Iraq don't have such a selective grasp of the history.
Comments closed April 01, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
I wish the National Security Network had made the Y-axis start at zero rather than 100...
Posted by Eric | March 18, 2008 11:34 AM