IntelligentStandards.com

Today, a very respected colleague of mine forwarded me an email entitled, "Military Deaths for Twenty Years". I've posted a snippet below.

I don't know who the original author is, but the author goes on to state that there were more deaths in the active military during President Clinton's term than during that of the current administration. After inviting the reader to check out the source at www.fas.org, the article goes on to chastise "the media" for not promoting these 'statistics' and suggested that the media "hates the war". The writer even manages to back-hand Jimmy Carter - because the there were so many fatalities during his "reign."

Puffery and politics aside, there is a big problem here - and it's one of analysis.

Even without looking at the source of the data, you can see right away that the the originator of this email doesn't account for the fact that the military is a different size today than it was in 2000, than it was in 1990, than it was in 1980. Obviously, the larger the pool of active duty military personnel, the larger the raw number of deaths of those personnel.

So looking at the raw number of deaths is not the right way to analyze this.

Turns out there was.

The Census.Gov website, whom I presume to be pretty-much non-partisan, has a handy list going up through 2005 of all the same data - that is, Military Deaths by year.

http://www.census.gov/comp...irs/military_personnel_and_expenditures.html http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2007/tables/07s0502.xls

I pulled up the spreadsheet at the census.gov website and made some simple graphs of the data - which go thru 2005:  

Clearly, the numbers in this article are 'just wrong' during the Clinton years, although in non-Clinton years, they're (mostly) in agreement with the Census figures. How very odd.

A far better metric to look at for this kind of analysis is the deaths per 100,000 - or rate of deaths. Fortunately, the bean counters at the census bureau are already all over this. I created the following chart from the census bureau's spreadsheet:  

From the charts, there is an increase in (a) overall military deaths, and (b) military deaths due to to Hostile Action... At least up thru 2005.

Which leads to the next logical question: I wonder why the media hasn't covered this?

D

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By the way, I did some googling later this evening. It seems that this article has been making the rounds on some right-wing and pro-veteran sites since at least the January 2008 time frame. Anyway, one such link appears here should you wish to read the whole thing.

If you read the article, you'll see they invite the reader to go visit fas.org's website for a pdf and analysis. Interestingly, the quoted deaths in the pdf at fas.org match very closely with census reports and not so well with claims the author puts forth in his own post.

Alarm bells should go off in your head WHENEVER someone says, "we need to do [insert action] to protect OUR [insert noun]." When a candidate says anything that fits that pattern, it's time to find another candidate.

Here's some examples to make this more specific:

• "We need to boycott some movie to protect OUR children."
• "We need to prohibit flag desecration to protect OUR freedoms."
• "We need to create a "zero tolerance" policy to protect OUR schools.
• "We need to build a giant fence to protect OUR culture and very way of life."
• "We need to pass huge tariffs to protect OUR jobs."
• "We need to add an anti-gay amendment to the Constitution to protect OUR institution of marriage."

See how this works?
 
A well-intentioned (or perhaps over-reaching) politician can posit virtually any ridiculous notion and, by appealing to a perceived common interest (Our Freedoms, Our institution of marriage, Our way of life, Our Children, and so on), makes the argument not only seem plausible, but something we must act on now!
 

As if somehow there is a connection between the ridiculous notion and the proposed antidote! But there it is - all laid out for you in one neat little sound bite: OF COURSE we all want to protect our culture and way of life, so I guess we do need to build a big friggin' fence. No other choice about it. Nevermind trying to address or even understand the real issues... too hard. Let's just build a big friggin' fence. After all - we DO want to protect our culture and way of life, don't we?
 

This is the source of Group-Think - and we know now it gets folks into trouble. Let me suggest, if I may, that we see this principle at work every time someone says, "We've got to fight them there so we don't have to fight them here." Once people begin thinking this way, they become closed to other possibilities.
 

Today, more than ever, we need leaders in our workplaces, in our churches, in our schools, in our communities, in our homes, and in our government that comprehend nuance. Our planet, our world, the fabric of our society is too complex and simply cannot be reduced to a pure "black and white" proposition.
 

So the next time the politicians step up and say, oh, for example, "We've got to eavesdrop on our own citizens (without any real reason) - for OUR protection" - you'll be right to wonder whether they're more concerned about their OWN protection - than OURS.