PRESSWATCH: Who's Counting?
Taranto, James
LTHOUGH YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED it amid the holidays and the news of Gerald Ford's death, the last weekof2006broughtnotonebuttwo"grimmilestones" in the Iraq war. The first was reported...
...Little Christine was [my daughter's] age, give or take a month...
...CNN.com noted in September that the sum of America's Iraq and Afghanistan deaths had surpassed the "sober benchmark" of 2,973...
...Themilestonecamewithamilitaryannouncement that three soldiers had been killed Monday [Christmas Day...
...soldiers...
...The 3,000th death had no inherent news value...
...And this is a milestone...
...death toll, including soldiers' families, peace activists, politicians, veterans and others, many say they will commemorate the 3,000 mark as both a way to honor the dead and demand an end to the war...
...response to 9/11, then why did the AP exclude deaths in Afghanistan from the military side of its body-count comparison...
...Whereas the 9/11 death toll includes citizens of nearly 100 countries, Torchia's Iraq count leaves out soldiersfromnon-U.S.coalitionpartnersandalliedIraqi forces...
...One might as well compare Iraq deaths with the number of statesidefatalitiesfromdrowning(3,180in2004alone, accordingtotheCentersforDiseaseControl...
...In a haunting 2002 blog post, James Lileks described one of them, Christine Hanson, a passenger on flight 175, which hit the second World Trade Center tower: She was two...
...Going on the offense against enemies before they could harm Americans meant removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, pursuing members of al-Qaida and seeking regime changeinIraq,Bushhassaid...
...But to describe soldiers as victims, and as "kids," is to dishonor them...
...Three more service members were killed today in roadside bombings near Baghdad, the military said...
...J A M E ST A R A N T O...
...Most reporters would say getting a story is a noble enoughcausetoriskone'slifefor.Whywon'ttheysay the same about liberating a country...
...They are adults who have made an adultcommitmenttoundertakedangerousworkinthe serviceoftheircountry.Actualkidsweremurderedon 9/11...
...HisAPdispatchcontinues: President Bush has said that the Iraq war is part of theUnitedStates'post-Sept.11approachtothreats abroad...
...In Chicago, anti-war activists will hand out black ribbons, each bearing the name of a U.S...
...by contrast, some 20 percent of U.S...
...Petersburg Times, in Florida, recently denounced "claims that journalists suppress goodnewsfromIraq": Statistics proving the Iraq War is the most deadly conflict in history for journalists didn't stop these boneheaded accusations from conservative punditsandwarhawks....Butwith126journalistsand support staff dead so far, perhaps the Ann Coulters of the world could ease up on reporters who are risking their lives...
...bin Laden's lackeys killed her--and didsotoensurethatotherfathers,mothers,brothers,andsistersdiedaswell,preferablybythetensof thousands...
...Everyone who died "on 9/11" did so as a result of enemy action...
...The family was flying to Disneyland when the terrorists slaughtered the flight attendants, stabbed the pilots to death, and drove the plane into the building...
...If Iraq and Afghanistan were both part of the U.S...
...Ithasbecomeatropeoftheanti-warlefttoinfantilize American servicemen, portraying them as vicP R E S S W A T C H Who'sCounting...
...Ifmore civilians than soldiersdie,thiswouldhardlyindicatesuccess...
...The two numbers are incomparable in many ways...
...That is a legitimate point of view, but it makes theAP'sexerciseincomparativebodycountingseemall themoreodd.Afterall,foryearswe'veheardthemantra: Iraqhadnothingtodowith9/11!Ifthat'strue,whyisthe 9/11 death toll a suitable "milestone" for Iraq...
...The more closely you look at it, the more arbitrary this "milestone" seems...
...military death in Iraq, a milestone that is likely only days away...
...military death toll since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003 to at least 2,977--four more than the number killed in the Sept...
...Among those keeping track of the U.S...
...Indeed, Reuters issued a dispatchDecember28anticipatingthe3,000thdeath: InKansasCity,theywilllightcandlesandlayout more than 80 pairs of empty combat boots...
...Most important, the vast majority of 9/11 casual-tieswerecivilians,andeventheservicemenwhodied whileondutyatthePentagondidnotknowtheywere in harm's way...
...A soldier's death is no less a cause for griefthanacivilian's.Yetthosewhodiedon9/11were, with some exceptions, not heroes but victims...
...The first was reported by Christopher Torchia of the Associated Press on December 26: The deaths of six more American soldiers pushed the U.S...
...No one suggests that journalists should cut and runfromIraqbecauseitisadangerousplaceforthem...
...When the Pentagon announced on New Year's Eve that the death toll had reached that mark, reporters were ready...
...Thenumber3,000isarbitrarytoo,butatleastnot tendentiously so...
...well, why exactly...
...News organizations that give themsuchprominenceareeffectivelytakingtheantiwarsideofthedebateoverIraq--thesidethatusesthe deaths of soldiers to further the argument that they died for nothing...
...4 6 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R M A R C H 2 0 0 7 Aby James Taranto M A R C H 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 4 7 tims...
...James Taranto is editor of OpinionJournal.com, the website of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page...
...But wait...
...This allows the anti-warrior to have it both ways: to "support" the troops while opposing their mission...
...soldier killed in Iraq...
...heroic adults are risking their lives voluntarily to prevent it from happening again...
...This little girl's death wasn't even a commainthemanifestotheyhopedtowrite.They made sure that her last moments alive were filled withhorrorandblood,screamsandfear;theymade sure that the last thing she saw was the desperate faces of her parents, insisting that everything was okay, we're going to see Mickey, holding out a favorite toy with numb hands, making up a happy lie.Andthenshewasfireandthenshewasash...
...OFCOURSE,SOMEPEOPLEBELIEVEthattheliberation of Iraq made another 9/11 more, not less, likely...
...Nor was the life of Specialist Luis Ayala, the 3,001st American serviceman to die in Iraq, any less precious than that of Specialist Dustin Donica, the 3,000th...
...Yetjournaliststendtoberathermorerespectfulof their own colleagues who've fallen in action...
...Eric Deggans, TV critic for the St...
...Thistellsyouallyouneedtoknowaboutthejournalistic preoccupation with war-death "milestones...
...And in New Haven, Connecticut, opponents ofthewarplantoreadaloudthenamesof3,000dead U.S...
...the situation in Iraq was not appreciably different from when 2,999 American servicemen had died...
...11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania...
...In all, organizers say some 140 demonstrations in 37 states are planned to mark the 3,000th U.S...
...military deaths in Iraq have been from non-hostile causes, including accidents, illness, and suicide...
...To his credit, Torchia does address this question...
...Thosewhosupportthemissionofthetroopsmay grieveeverydeath,butthenumber2,973or3,000has nomeaningforthem.AsthatReutersdispatchmakes clear, these "grim milestones" are a propaganda symbol for war opponents...
Vol. 40 • March 2007 • No. 2
