Menschliches, Allzumenschliches

Britain's leading liberal newspaper, where comment is free but facts are sacred, has a data blog of British dead and wounded in Afghanistan, month by month. The number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan now exceeds the number killed in Iraq, a war which Britain's leading liberal newspaper has generally considered at least mildly disagreeable. Today's entry notes, with an irony so sophisticated as to be almost military, that "We've broken Afghanistan down month-by-month", and sets out the classification of British personnel killed, British personnel seriously wounded, British personnel registered at field hospitals and British personnel evacuated by air. These figures are the answer Britain's leading liberal newspaper has for the question: "What is the human cost of the war in Afghanistan?" Naturally, one would not expect Britain's leading liberal newspaper to count the debased, primitive, Talibanised semi-orcs whom the human cost have been sent to civilise; but I had not realised until now that Obama's election had made the American personnel as über as all that.