The malleable metric of bodies.

The AP as a story, "More than 1,800 Iraqis killed in August," Reuters has a story, "Iraqi civilian deaths rise slightly in August," the LATimes has a story, "Iraqi civilian deaths climb again," and the military has a story,

"It's a bit macabre but some areas were literally on fire with hundreds of bodies every week and a total of 2,100 in the month of December '06, Iraq-wide. It is still much too high but we think in August in Baghdad it will be as little as one quarter of what it was," the newspaper quoted Petraeus, who gave no specific figures.

But what I keep thinking through all of this analytical tug, is that these are people we're talking about, not line items from an agricultural production report. These are lives gone. Dreams, laughter, family members.....

(Here's two posts looking at how civilian deaths have been definitionally shifted in the military reporting over the past year to support various claims. TPM, DemocracyArsenal. (and let's remember there was a time when carbombings were not included in "sectarian deaths.))