Losing the War Data For Iraq and Afghanistan 62
cervesaebraciator writes with an excerpt from an analysis of a kind we're likely to see more of as ubiquitous sensors and cheap storage continue to proliferate: "'The Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns are unique in that they were the first wars to be documented electronically. The use of computers to track stabilization efforts produced enormous datasets in which important indicators were tracked, including daily electricity-production rates, georeferenced insurgent attacks, factory employment numbers, military spending on locally sourced goods and services and public opinion. [...] Army Secretary John McHugh recently admitted to members of Congress that thousands of records from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are missing. [...] The problem is that much of the existing data were collected in an ad hoc manner that reflects the lack of planning for stability operations following both invasions. While certain data types were methodically maintained, others were kept by single individuals in more arbitrary ways—in some cases, on a single computer's hard drive, in a personal computer or within an e-mail account. As flash drives are lost, computers reformatted, files erased, and human and magnetic memory degrades, various data types have been and will continue to be destroyed." With apologies to Santayana, those who do not backup data sets of the past are condemned to repeat them."
Re:The records were supposed to be lost (Score:0, Informative)
No, there's the infamous propaganda piece "Collateral Murder" which purports to show US soldiers gunning down unarmed civilians, but that actually shows US pilots shooting at a group of insurgents (at least one was carrying a rifle, and another was carrying an RPG - conveniently, this wasn't shown in the CM video) who happened to have some journalists with them. And unfortunately, those reporters were killed too. In a war zone. Walking around with people with weapons. (Tragic - but hardly surprising. This is one of the dangers of combat journalism.)
And then it shows US pilots shooting at another presumed insurgent who pulls up shortly afterwards and starts trying to load the injured into his van.
I'm not saying that you're full of shit, but you seem to have forgotten that just about everything about "Collateral Murder" was highly edited to present a specific (and skewed) picture of those events.