You aren't anyone to let anyone get away with anything. You have yet to make your case. And if you do the math with the figures in the op you will see I am right.
First let me clarify that the 5x deaths is not in dispute - that I agree is accurate. The dispute is over
a. whether your claim of only 40% increase in troops is accurate
b. whether the increase in deaths has reasonably follows from the increase in troops
First let me note something about your % increase of 500%. This is misleading. Technically a 5x increase is not a 500% increase but instead a 400% increase. To understand this more easily, think about a 2x price increase (say, $100 to $200). The new price is 200% of the old price (take the $100 and multiply by 200%) but in terms of increase, its only a 100% increase (take the $100, multiply by 100% and add that value to the original $100). It would be more accurate to say that the current fatality rate is at 500% of the previous level, not an 500% increase. Same for my numbers in my previous post.
Regarding the 40% increase:
If you are using the 30k increase and the 100k current to reach your 40% conclusion, you are missing some key data and assuming several things that the article does *not* say. I am guessing you are thinking that Obama increased the troop levels from 70k to 100k. If this were accurate, then yeah, that gives a 43% increase (or 143% of the old level). However, this is not an accurate assumption. First, the report you cite gives only limited information. It mentions a 30k increase but doesn't say from what level. It also neglects to mention other increases since the initial one.
In fact, the 30k increase your article mentions was only the first increase. And, what your article doesn't mention is that the troop level before the 30k increase (and also the highest level of troops in Afghanistan under Bush) was around 30k (see
here and
here). That means that the Obama initially increased the troop levels by 100% (or raised it to 200% of the *highest* level under Bush). There was an additional increase of troops since then which will brings the total as of now to around 100k (the figure your article mentions). So in all, Obama will increase the total troop levels by nearly 3.3x or 230% of the *highest* troop level under Bush).
Additionally, what you fail to take into account is that the article is comparing increase in *average* deaths. You however, are only accounting for an increase in troops from the *highest* point during Bush. But the 30k troops under Bush was only true during his last year, not over the course of the war. What should be done to make sure you are comparing apples to apples is to compare the average troop level under Obama to the average troop level under Bush.
According to
the Congressional Research service, the average troops under Bush was around 17k. This is compared to an average troop deployment under Obama of around 70k (if someone can find a year by year figures of troops since 2009 I would appreciate it - till then I give a conservative estimate based on the graphs I can find). This gives an increase of average troop deployment under Obama as being about 4x that under Bush (a 300% increase or 400% of the average under Bush).
So, the most accurate comparison is to say that the average troop level under Obama is 4x of the average troop deployment under Bush and that the average fatalities under Obama is 5x that under Bush. So, as you can see, the increase in average fatalities under Obama is roughly comparable to the increase in average troop deployed under Obama. Nothing unreasonable about that.
