Failure a reality; failure an option

I ran across this USA Today article about the troop death rate in Iraq. Remember how I said that the average daily death rate for American troops is 2.1? Let's do some more math.

In the year before last, 657 American soldiers died in Iraq, a daily rate of 1.8. In this last year (beginning 365 days ago, that is), 882 soldiers died in Iraq, a daily rate of 2.4. So over time, the death rate in Iraq has actually gotten worse.

If the death rate increases at the same constant rate, next year the daily death rate will be 3.0; the year after that is 3.6.

On this model, in the next year, 1095 American soldiers will die in Iraq; the year after, it will be 1314.

If (worse) the same broad trend in the increase of the death rate continues (a one-third increase over the previous year), in the next year, the daily death rate for American soldiers will be 3.2; the year after that is about 4.3.

On this model, in the next year, 1184 American soldiers will die in Iraq; the year after, it will be 1589.

These are crude calculations, of course. You could graph the death tolls fluctuating month to month, fit a line or a curve to them and get more detailed results that might correspond with more precision to specific events on the ground.

"The politics of failure have failed! We must make them work again!" says Kang or Kodos, in what, for my money, is one of the best acts in any Simpsons episode. Unfortunately for our army and our country, it is actually the politics of success that have failed. "Stay the course", "turning a corner", "light at the end of the tunnel", "throes", even "winning" are not fair assessments of America's prosecution of the invasion of Iraq and consequent Sunni rebellion.

Let us not try to make the politics of success work again; we need to lose boldly in Iraq. Unfortunately, it may take four more years to make failure an option.