The only goal of the study was obviously to get a headline, not add anything to the debate. It does get a little tiresome. Take this one for example.
Steve: Oddly enough I have a class tomorrow lead by Prof Chossudovsky, the editor of Global Research. Brilliant man, but allows some ridiculous stuff to pop up on his site from time to time.
Skippy: I apologize for the irrelevance of this comment to your actual post.
Great post Skippy... I made a similar point (regarding the biased sample period) on my blog, but completely missed the "tooth to tail" ratio, as I had never heard of this. Anyways, thanks for clearing it up.
Hmmm...what if you quote it sceptically? Can I still have some self-respect?
OK, you can have a little. 
But the elephant in the room on this "study" is the clear political motivation behind its conclusions. From CTV:
"'As we examined the troubling data, the question arose as to whether the Liberals misjudged the danger, and if the Conservatives ignored it,' Staples said."
Or, indeed, whether the Liberals ignored it, or the Conservatives misjudged it, or if DND misjudged it in the first place. But Staples seems to have reached his conclusions.
I know what you mean. That, and the fact that they made no attempt to explain why we might be losing soldiers at a higher rate than others pretty much rendered the report useless, which is why I thought the issue itself needed further study by someone who might actually be interested in finding some answers instead of just scaring up headlines.
What's disappointing (and points, again, to a key failure of the ideal of objective media) is that not one news report asks these questions. Not one even shows a sign of having challenged the authors to address these points.
Because that would be editorializing.
In fact, the CBC story I quoted threw in a ridiculous comparison to the Germans, who may have similar numbers to us, but are engaged in reconstruction in a relatively calm part of the country. Weird.
There will be less killed in Afghanistan than murdered in Winnipeg.
Maybe we should move everyone from Winnipeg to Afghanistan.
The ration now is close to 3 Winnipeggers dead for each soldier in Afghanistan.
Good thing we are nice to criminals.
Commenting by HaloScan
