Surging "success" one dead body at a time.

The early reports, before the monthly total was finalized, stated that "only" 73 U.S. military had been killed in July (overlooking, as usual, the other coalition military deaths), and pointed to this as evidence that the "surge" was working. The media headlined this as good news. Well, it turns out that the actual count for July is 80, which is just about the number of deaths in each of the 3 months before the surge (81, 81, 83), and, including the other coalition deaths, puts the figure above the numbers for those 3 months (89 vs. 82, 85, 86). In other words, in spite of the surge (356 deaths in 3 months April-June), the number of miltary deaths is right back where it started. In spite of this, the U.S. military is claiming that the "reduction " in deaths among its forces is a sign that the strategy "is improving security"--improving security?!: "Iraqi government figures released on Wednesday showed a sharp rise in the number of Iraqi civilians killed in July to 1,653 from 1,227 in June. The July figure of civilian deaths was in line with previous months this year after June had seen deaths fall by more than a third." So the conventional "wisdom," abetted by a lazy media that begs to be manipulated, becomes that the surge is working, if not politically, than at least militarily, in spite of the deadly reality that it isn't.