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

---

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.

Turning the corner...

One of the things that annoys me about the Bush administration: We are forever "almost there" - whether it's the turning point in the war in Iraq, the economy, or - you name it. I drew this up back in 2004 when the economy and the job market were at best a mixed bag of indicators. Today in 2007, the market is reeling from defaults on mortgages in the sub-prime sector. Brought on no doubt in part by over-selling of ARMs and other perhaps unscrupulous lending practices, but also in part because the improving economy isn't reaching everyone. I'm sorry, but the rising tide just doesn't lift all boats.

The way it isn't

A poke at Dan Rather and CBS's 'thorough 2004 investigations' into 'authentic' proof of George W. Bush's service - or lack thereof - in the National Guard. Very sloppy work on the part of CBS, methinks. What must Walter Cronkite think?

Not much to see (or say here)... just some random political (poorly drawn) doodles that ended up striking me funny.