On Nov 29, 2006, at 11:13 AM, Michael Pugliese wrote:
> http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/061016_iraq_civil.pdf
> Look at the data here.
> Given how far the death toll has accelerated and all the leaks
> about approaches to the Sunni leadership, how can one be sure that the
> "Salvador Option, " of empowering the Shiite death squads has been USG
> policy for a while now? The reportage of Peter Maas on this was eons
> ago now.
The other week, Leninology cited a BBC account, based on U.S. DoD figures, showing the vast majority of attacks in Iraq were on coalition forces, not civilians. However, Cordesman says of that data series in this report:
> This calculation, however, ignores the fact that these provinces
> include the majority of
> the Sunni population – a clear measure of civil war. Moreover, it
> is based on a massive
> undercount of actual violence, since it does not [include] many, if
> not most, low level incidents
> where the source of an attack cannot be confirmed, and makes no
> effort to estimate
> “softer” forms of ethnic and sectarian violence like intimidation
> and non-violent ethnic
> cleansing. While not meaningless, this count is so narrowly defined
> as to grossly
> understate the level of civil conflict in Iraq.
Iit makes sense that the Pentagon would count attacks on it more carefully than it would count attacks on civilians. It's not only a matter of what they care about - it's also what they know about. The army knows when it's shot at, but how would they ever know if a couple of Sunnis shoot up a couple of Shias, or vice versa? So that data source seems less than reliable.
Doug