Top 9 NY Times headlines regarding decline of troop deaths in Iraq:
9. (tie) Bush Manipulates Numbers Of U.S. Troop Deaths In Iraq To Detract Attention From His Causing California Wildfires
9. (tie) Bush Fails To Maintain Status Quo In Iraq
8. Promise of Clinton Presidency Lowers U.S. Troop Death Rate
7. Experts Say Less U.S. Troops Dying Because They’re Busy Raping Iraqi Women And Puppies
6. (tie) U.S. Troop Mortality Decrease Offset By Increase In Surviving Soldiers
6. (tie) Number Of U.S. Troops Cut Down In The Prime Of Their Life Last Month Slightly Less Than The Number Of U.S. Troops Horrifically Slaughtered The Month Prior
5. (tie) American Military Casualties In Iraq Up 100% From Twenty Years Ago
5. (tie) Sources Say NYT Op-Ed Page Primarily Resonsible For Declining U.S. Troop Deaths In Iraq
4. Imperialist Superpower Reports (Alleged) Decrease in Death Rate Of Fascist Soldiers In Illegal War For Oil
3. Insiders Say U.S. Troops Dying Less Frequently, But Far More Painfully
2. Despite Decline In Troop Death Rate, Leading Experts Agree That All U.S. Troops Currently In Iraq Will Be Completely Obliterated By The Turn Of The Century
1. U.S. Casualties in Iraq Decline: Undertakers, Florists Hardest Hit
Faced with the difficult prospect of mortality and injury rates for American soldiers dropping to the lowest levels since the onset of the Iraq War, The New York Times has revealed a bold new plan for measuring military casualties in that conflict. The Times has departed from the traditional school of thought and has moved, in their words, towards a “more streamlined and progressive manner of measuring war-related incidents.”
“The decline in the number of dead and wounded soldiers is a bit misleading,” said Times spokesman Alison Beckworth. “Historically, casualties have been counted by looking at the actual number of soldiers killed or wounded while in a particular theater of operations. As we now know, many things that are seemingly unrelated are in fact interconnected. The archaic system we now use, developed during the early days of the Roman Empire, is simply not relevant in our more complex times. That’s why we’ve expanded the definition of ‘casualty’.”
Expanded they have. Under the new plan, soldiers who contract gout, get sand in their eyes or who have a friend back home who catches crabs from that brunette with the squinty eyes that hangs around the Dairy Creme all summer, will now be considered ”wounded”. Meanwhile, military personnel who die within fifty years of their last tour of duty will be counted among the mortalities from the Iraq War (numbers to be extrapolated using a variety of impartial sources including: AP reports, Al Jazeera internal memos, and Sean Penn’s diary).
“Many on the right have accused us of doctoring the numbers with regard to the way that casualties in Iraq are going to be measured,” said Beckworth. “That’s patently false. We are simply trying to be proactive. If a 93-year-old Iraqi war vet just drops dead near the end of this century, who is to say that his death is not directly related to the Battle for Fallujah? We’re just trying to run the numbers now while the issue is fresh in everyone’s mind.”
Top 9 NY Times complaints over downed U.S. helicopters:
9. The dust being kicked up from the crashes is causing all sorts of respiratory problems for the freedom fighters.
8. Concerned this might take away from serious issues like gay marriage, people wearing fur, and ferocious neo-con attacks on innocent bloggers.
7. If there had been an i-Pod ban in place, 99% of these crashes could have been prevented.
6. President Bush is not even being questioned as a suspect.
5. Worried the loud noises might spook the French.
4. Very concerned about the danger posed to freedom fighters who have to crawl over the sides of bridges to display the bodies of downed crewmen.
3. This probably means that the poor Iranians and Syrians will be scapegoated again.
2. Not one single member of the Bush administration was on board.
1. The now motionless helicopter blades are just going to add to global warming.