Does Not Compute

I recently learned of Robert DeWitt, a journalist with New York Times owned and operated Tuscaloosa News in Alabama. When I read one of his weekly rants, I emerge doubly armed with reasons to push for education reform in America as a means of increasing reading comprehension, critical thinking skills, and statistical rigor. Mr. DeWitt's hyperbolic thoughts on paper might best be compared to handing out UN supplied rice in Uganda while expecting to see Harvard Business School applications pinned to the free substance for the villagers to contemplate while scarfing down their food. Silly Rabbit! Delusions are not just for kids anymore.

In DeWitt's latest, he recommends that the US pull out of Afghanistan and Europe, but remain steadfast in Iraq. Furthermore he less poetically suggests that complaints about the war in Iraq are nothing more than the feeble minded seeking to unfairly speak ill against the great Bush Administration. He dares to remind us that thousands of Americans died in the hands of terrorists on US soil. Though he does not cite by name which terrorists or attacks, we may deduce from the correlations he draws between Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yet the truth according to the Iraq Coalition Causality Count is that the US confirmed death toll in Iraq stands at 4,302. I'd say we are winning that war when compared to 2,751 dead (Not sure how many were actually US citizens) from the September 11th attacks and one AG birthday that went down in history. To ensure that the point is made and in case you are wondering, the US death count is currently 698 in Afghanistan while Vietnam was 58,159. There is no such thing as a winnable war...

Jon Stewart put it best about Afghanistan when he said bombing Iraq after September 11th was like bombing Brazil after Pearl Harbor. more...