As my regular readers know, a common theme here on this blog is one of media bias and the resulting public opinions elicited by editorials being disguised as news stories.
I’ve written tens of thousands of words ranting about the stupidity and obvious political motivations of the so called college educated “professional journalists,” but the good news is it seems to me that we might be turning the corner as the “dead tree” press and the major networks suffer declines in readership and viewers.
I’m going to take a break from my usual “bias” theme this morning, while at the same time continuing my criticism of the media. This time my subject is one of “sloppy reporting”—or more specifically, the media’s continuing failure to put any actual facts and information into their stories.
You know what I mean by “facts and information”, don’t you?
By "facts and information," I mean little trivial, inconvenient things like data, numbers, and statistics that would allow a reader to make an informed decision about whether or not to actually worry about the content of the writer’s story—things that much of the media apparently believe that we’re perhaps too stupid to understand?
Take the 2471 casualties incurred to date in the war in Iraq, for instance. Every day we get an update and running total pounded into our heads as if the world has never seen such carnage and savagery.
Upon hearing these figures, the media and many private citizens are prone to tilting their heads back, throwing their arms into the air, and running around in circles, hysterically screaming and lamenting the losses and inhumanities of war.
Now don’t get me wrong here, each and every single loss of life in the defense of our country is a personal tragedy of an unimaginable magnitude, and I personally would never trivialize such sacrifice in my thoughts and writing…
BUT…do you have any idea how dangerous and deadly it is to serve in the military IN PEACTIME?
Do you have any idea how many people are routinely killed every year in things like normal military operations and training accidents?
Check out the casualty tables found on this Department of Defense website. Here’s a little summary for you:
In 1980, at the beginning of President Regan’s first term in office, there were 2,159,630 active duty, reserve, and national guard forces in our military. In that same year, there were 2,392 deaths of military personnel, and only one was killed by terrorist action, and 231 committed suicide.
In 1983, the year of the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon that killed 263 soldiers; there were 2,273,364 troops and a total of 2,465 deaths, including an addition 18 losses to hostile action.
By 1986, at the beginning of the end of the cold war in the middle of Regan’s second term, the forces had increased by over a quarter million to 2,359,855, while deaths were 1,984 with only two killed in hostile action.
In 1991 during the first gulf war, troop levels were down to 2,198,189 men & women, with 1,787 total military deaths and the war casualty count at 147 lives lost.
Now fast forward through the Clinton Presidency to the year 2000. With the resulting substantial reductions in military spending and troop strengths down to 1,530,430 personnel, we find that we lost 758 GI’s including 17 to terrorists.
Stay with me now, I’m almost finished…
In 2003 and 2004, the latest two years for which data is published, troop strengths were 1,732,632 and 1,711,916 respectively, while the deaths for those same years were 1,410 and 1,877. In 2003 we lost 344 and in 2004 there 737 killed in the Iraqi war.
So you see ladies and gentlemen, the 1,081 deaths sustained in the first 20 months in Iraq were actually exceeded by the 2,206 men and women that died in situations unrelated to combat. Things like training accidents and car crashes and death from natural causes.
2,206 versus 1,081
Have YOU ever, ever, ever, ever heard anyone in the lamestream media mention those
NO?
Do these "facts and information" put things into an entirely different perspective when considering the cost of "The War On Terror"?
Yeah…I thought so…
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