Letters to the Editor
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Makes Body Counts Old Fashioned
Back in the Vietnam war, the body count metrics were used to show progress. There was controversy about how the counts were made - e.g. was a 10 year old counted to be a viet cong, and whether the numbers were fudged. And in the end, the metric did not show progress at all.
This time around there is not just one big metric, but a set of metrics, which are changing all the time, without agreement about what these are, how to count them, and where the data is. One would think that after all the years, the great USA military would at least learn how to account for what is going on.
But, when the game is to keep the game going, such scientific efforts as valid measurements are not taken seriously.
By the way: what game are we playing in Iraq? what are the rules? who are the score keepers? who are the refs? who is the audience?