While, on one hand, this
may be considered making "mountain out of a molehill", on the other hand, and in the larger sense, it certainly is not. Today's (Sunday, Aug 7) NYT's front page story on the deaths of all those Ohio Marine Reservists is, all in all, very respectful, very informative ("Death Visits a Marine Unit, Once Called Lucky"). But where it continues on Page 21, 4th full 'graph down, you'll read the following:
". . . A little more than 23,000 of the 138,000 American troops in Iraq are marines, but they have had more than a quarter of the roughly 1,820 casualties."
Excuse me???!!! Look, there've been roughly 1,820 U.S. Armed Forces DEATHS in Iraq, but there have been 18,000-20,000+ U.S. CASUALITIES in that military theater (we don't know exactly as the Pentagon won't say with any precision. See, e.g., this UPI piece quoted in Truthout from almost a year ago):
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/printer_091704C.shtml
More...
The point is, to me, NOT a small one or a matter of a mere typo or sloppy copy editing by the NYT: if the NYT is allowed to define "casualty" as
only "Killed in Action", then it is (whether intentionally or not) effectively "carrying water" for Rumsfeld and downplaying the cost of an inconceived and ill-planned war in Iraq. See this fine Salon article on this subject, for example:
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/salon55.html
Of course, this doesn't begin to touch the matter of the Iraqi civilians killed and maimed since March 2003, but that is another tragic story. . .
At any rate, I encourage you all to write the New York Time and reporters John Kifner and James Dao (who wrote this otherwise fine article) and request a Prominently Displayed Correction to the effect that the world "casualties" in the August 7, 2005, feature article was misused, and word "deaths" should have been used. That, or when writing of U.S. military "casualties" in Iraq since the war's beginning, the phrase "at least 18,000, including roughly 1,820 combat-related deaths," should be used.
Again, while this may have been a mere "slip-up" on the reporters' or The Times' part, it is one the MUST be corrected; this should, nay, ought to be made right.
NYT Corrections:
nytnews@nytimes.com
or call:
1-888-NYT-NEWS
BenGoshi
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