The U.S. military’s stats on deadly airstrikes are wrong
The U.S. military’s stats on deadly airstrikes are wrong. Thousands have gone unreported
By: Andrew deGrandpre and Shawn Snow, February 5, 2017
In 2016 alone, U.S. combat aircraft conducted at least 456 airstrikes in Afghanistan that were not recorded as part of an open-source database maintained by the U.S. Air Force, information relied on by Congress, American allies, military analysts, academic researchers, the media and independent watchdog groups to assess each war’s expense, manpower requirements and human toll. Those airstrikes were carried out by attack helicopters and armed drones operated by the U.S. Army, metrics quietly excluded from otherwise comprehensive monthly summaries, published online for years, detailing American military activity in all three theaters.
Most alarming is the prospect this data has been incomplete since the war on terrorism began in October 2001. If that is the case, it would fundamentally undermine confidence in much of what the Pentagon has disclosed about its prosecution of these wars, prompt critics to call into question whether the military sought to mislead the American public, and cast doubt on the competency with which other vital data collection is being performed and publicized. Those other key metrics include American combat casualties, taxpayer expense and the military’s overall progress in degrading enemy capabilities.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees military activity in all three war zones, indicated it is unable to determine how far back the Army’s numbers have been excluded from these airpower summaries. Officials there would not address several detailed questions submitted by Military Times, and they were unable to provide a full listing of annual airstrikes conducted by each of the Defense Department’s four military services.
“It is really weird. We don’t track the number of strikes from Apaches, for example” said a U.S. military official with knowledge of CENTCOM’s internal data collection and reporting. The official, who spoke to Military Times on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss internal procedures, was referring to AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, which the Army has used prolifically in combat over the last 15 years, most recently in support of American allies battling the Islamic State.
Much more at the link
=====
Some number-cruncher got assigned a task with no data to work with (typical)
What’s worse is that the final report will run for years and cost millions
Category: Politics
The people that need to know knew about it. No cover up. Just bean counters and hand wringers crying because they were left out of the loop.
I suspect that since the rotary wing strikes weren’t fragged as such on the ATO they didn’t get counted. This probably extends to USMC rotary wing ops as well.
The more troubling thing to me is this kind of laissez faire op with regard to rotary wing ops contributed to the Blackhawk shootdown in April of 1994.
Not unlike the widely reported deflated numbers and convoluted definitions used to report so-called unemployment rates. Some bureaucrat, elected official, or media tool decides to only include part of the data. The rest go with the numbers and definitions given from their trusted friend.
Why conflate the numbers, any numbers? It serves the purpose of some cause or illuminates the “needs” of some bureaucrats. It certainly doesn’t serve the general public.
Does a helicopter firing just one round count as an “airstrike?”
What about if it lands for 30 secs, takes off again and fires another single round.
Is that the same airstike or a different airstrike?
A nothing burger by the media. What is the current national debt?
Don’t worry, they will start wailing about that soon enough. Just need to give them enough time to figure out how to blame it all on Trump rather than St. Obama of Chicago.
The problem with this of course is that the lack of reporting will allow those who want to make claims the freedom to do so with respect to collateral damage casualties and the absence of hard data disputing lies is much more difficult.
Sounds like the spinmeister’s trying to emphasize effectiveness… if you achieve X results in Y strikes, versus in 3Y or 4Y strikes, you look more efficient. Reminds me of the emphasis on body counts in Vietnam… an obsession with gathering statistics on goals rather than actually achieving goals. Maybe I am too cynical.
Force the military to keep score by “body count”.
Point out the futility of war because nothing is achieved except an ever-growing pile of corpses.
Repeat until the nation is dead and conquered, or simply dissolved of neglect.
Celebrate the Triumph of Civilized Man, as you Slave for your Barbarian Overlords.
The dumb fucks that -want- us to lose can’t see the endgame of losing to slaving barbarians. The seem to think that as the “sophisticated ones”, they will tame the barbarians, and thus rule over all.
Idiots.