I received an email forward from my mom this morning with the Subject: Surprising Facts, which claimed the hard to believe conclusion that there were more deaths of military personnel under the Clinton administration than that of George W. Bush. The conclusion was backed up with convincing looking “facts” in the email, but it still violated common sense. So, I decided to go to the source and see for myself. Unfortunately, what I found wasn’t much of a surprise — the supposed “facts” were lies and the conclusion they supported was simply not true.

Instead of 14,107 deaths under Clinton and 7,932 deaths under George W. Bush as claimed in the email, the actual totals from the Department of Defense are 7,500 for Clinton and 10,946 for W. More on the actual numbers in a minute, but first I’d like to talk about one of the worst (and most potent) forms of disinformation — the email chain-letter.

Chain emails are totally unaccountable, and thus a favorite tool of slimy political operatives to spread disinformation (deliberately false or misleading information) they can’t be caught spreading. It is a horribly underhanded tactic, and a special place in Hell should be reserved for those who make use of it.

But, they continue to do it because it works. And it works because people are too lazy to check the facts. If you know how to use email, you know how to use Google (or Yahoo! Search). But, even smart people, like my mom and her friends, blindly forward this crap on — thereby personally endorsing the lies and becoming complicit in their creators’ attempts to deceive the American public. In this case, a quick web search for “military fatalities” returns two pages debunking this specific email as well as the real data from the Department of Defense, all above the fold. Sites like the non-partisan http://www.factcheck.org exist for just this purpose, and it really only takes a minute to check these things out before forwarding them on and spreading lies to your friends.

So next time before you hit that Forward button in your email, please do yourself, your friends, and this country a favor by taking two minutes to check the facts you’re about to put your name on.

I found this email particularly repugnant because it appeals to our appreciation for the ultimate sacrifice made by brave American servicemen and women and then dishonors their memories by distorting the truth about their lives lost. So, I wanted to dig deeper than someone else’s response to the email and do my own analysis.

All the official data I accumulated is direct from the Department of Defense, and here is the full spreadsheet I put together to come up with the below conclusions. (DataVis geeks, knock yourselves out!)

Ronald Reagan (1981-1988):
Total Military Deaths – 17,201
Deaths as % of Total Military – 0.09%
Deaths from Hostile Action or Terrorist Attack – 353 

George H. W. Bush (1989-1992):
Total Military Deaths – 6,223
Deaths as % of Total Military – 0.07%
Deaths from Hostile Action or Terrorist Attack – 172

Bill Clinton (1993-2000):
Total Military Deaths – 7,500
Deaths as % of Total Military – 0.06%
Deaths from Hostile Action or Terrorist Attack – 76 

George W. Bush (2001-2007):
Total Military Deaths – 10,946
Deaths as % of Total Military – 0.10%
Deaths from Hostile Action or Terrorist Attack – 3,513 

However, the absolute total numbers aren’t particularly illustrative of policy differences. Over the 28 year period for which there is data, only 9.30% of the military fatalities were classified as resulting from Hostile Action or Terrorist Attack. Since the vast majority of deaths in this period are classified as Accidents (53.22% ) followed by Illness (17.54%) and Self Inflicted (13.61%), the total number of deaths in a given year is more an indication of the total size of the military at that time than anything else. What is most likely the best metric for understanding the effect of policy differences is deaths as a percentage of the total military, which was an average of 0.08% over the entire period. By this metric, George W. Bush’s policies have been the most costly (0.10%), followed by Ronald Reagan (0.09%), then George H. W. Bush (0.07%), and finally Bill Clinton (0.06%).

But, I think the best measure is to look at the total human cost of each individual conflict, which the Department of Defense also provides. 

Iranian Hostage Rescue Mission (April 25, 1980):
President: Jimmy Carter
Total Casualties: 8*

Lebanon Peacekeeping (1982-1984):
President: Ronald Reagan
Total Casualties: 265*

Urgent Fury, Grenada (1983)*:
President: Ronald Reagan
Total Casualties: 19*

Just Cause, Panama (1989)*:
President: George H. W. Bush
Total Casualties: 23*

Persian Gulf War (1990-1991)*:
President: George H. W. Bush
Total Casualties: 383*
Total Wounded: 467**

Restore Hope, Somalia (1992-1994):
President: Bill Clinton
Total Casualties: 43*

Uphold Democracy, Haiti (1994-1996):
President: Bill Clinton
Total Casualties: 4*

Enduring Freedom, Afghanistan (2001-2008):
President: George W. Bush
Total Casualties: 606***
Total Seriously Wounded****: 8,601***

Iraqi Freedom, Iraq (2003-2008):
President: George W. Bush
Total Casualties: 4,169*****
Total Seriously Wounded****: 43,787*****

Afghanistan and Iraq have cost 4,775 lives and 52,388 serious injuries from 2001-2008, while all other major military engagements since 1980 (including the Persian Gulf War) had a combined total of 745 casualties. In comparison, the Vietnam Conflict resulted in 58,220 American military personnel dead and 153,303 seriously injured from 1964-1973 (** above). So, the Global War on Terror thus far has resulted 8.2% as many deaths and 33.7% as many serious injuries as Vietnam.

Regardless of how you feel about any or all of these military operations, it is important that we all recognize and value the very real costs paid by the men and women of our armed forces. So if you received or forwarded this erroneous email, I sincerely hope you will take the time to follow up with the correct information and make sure we properly honor the sacrifices of these brave soldiers.

Rock on Colin Powell!

I think the most important aspect of the General’s much talked about endorsement of Barack Obama on Meet the Press today was his head-on repudiation of the despicable whisper campaign to spread the misconception that Obama is a Muslim (ironically — or not — enough, similar to another presidential disinformation campaign in recent memory):

I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say and it is permitted to be said. Such things as: “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.”

Well, the correct answer is he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He has always been a Christian.

But, the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being Muslim in this country?

The answer is no, that’s not America.

Amen! If you haven’t watched the whole thing, you really should — it’ll make you want to write in Colin Powell in November. 

In the immortal words of Sarah Silverman: “Yes, Barack Hussein Obama, it’s a super-fucking-shitty name. But, you’d think that somebody named Manischewitz Guberman might understand that.” Otherwise put, we are a nation of immigrants, a conglomeration of people who represent ethnicities, cultures, and religions from all over the world. This country began as a safe-haven from religious persecution, and made history by being the first to enshrine measures against intolerance (i.e. separation of church and state) in its founding documents. The sad irony of the long and violent history of xenophobia in America is that it is generally the last people to be shit on who are first in line to shit on the new arrivals. It’s like the frat boys (full disclosure: I was in a fraternity ) who haze the pledges because they had themselves been hazed.

But in this case, this latent anti-Muslim sentiment being exploited isn’t just un-American, it is a threat to our national security. Not just our nation, but our entire way of life, is under siege by Islamic Fundamentalism. However, the operative word here is the second, fundamentalism, *not* the first. We are not being attacked by Muslims, we are being attacked by fundamentalists, who happen to be hiding behind the banner of Islam. They are painting the western world, led by the US, as modern day Crusaders intent on wiping Islamic culture from the earth. We, they argue, are the ones who have made this an all-or-nothing battle for the very survival of Islam — it is *our* intolerance and need for Judeo-Christian culture to dominate that dictates the inability for our two worlds to peacefully coexist. So, for Americans to let the heinous acts of extremists foment mainstream intolerance of Muslims in our country is truly to let the terrorists win.

I believe the true front-line in the “War on Terror” is not on the ground in Iraq or Tora Bora, it is ideological. There is no doubt that we must find and bring to justice the leaders of these terrorist organizations. That is absolutely necessary, but it is also far from sufficient. Because without winning the ideological battle, new leaders will spring up to replace them. The only way to truly win the war for the possibility of peaceful coexistence is to starve these organizations of their oxygen — to take away the support of the people. It is not Osama Bin Laden who is blowing himself up at US checkpoints in Iraq, and it is not true believers who are providing food and supplies to the Al Qaida leadership hiding in the mountains of Pakistan. The Fundamentalists have successfully convinced an ever growing portion of the Muslim world — the individual people, not the governments — that it is us or them, and the support of those people is the true source of their strength.

More than 20% of the world’s population is Muslim, including over 150M Muslims in each Pakistan and India, both with nuclear weapons, and 70M in Turkey, which is likely to become a member of the EU in the next 15 years. And in France, the Muslim population is estimated to be as high as 10% (the French census doesn’t ask religion). Our way of life cannot survive if we continue to let the Fundamentalists’ campaign of disinformation persist, or even worse, if we contribute to it. We must demonstrate to the people of the Muslim world, with our words and our deeds, that ours is a culture of tolerance and that there is another choice beyond having their culture destroyed or supporting terrorists. And, the responsibility to spread this message of coexistence does not just lie with our governments, it is ours as citizens as well.

Some links of note:

• More information on the Muslim US soldier, Kareem Khan, Powell mentions
• The photo of Kareem Khan’s mother that inspired Powell
• Full transcript of Powell on Meet the Press

<update>
Credit where credit’s due. As much as I like to malign cable news, props to CNN’s Campbell Brown for tackling this issue (with an almost identical title) before Colin Powell (and even before The Daily Show!). Thanks Sean for the find.
</update>