Media Blog reader George Clarke makes a great point:

Your analysis of Iraq “civilian” casualties from our “war” there makes it sound as if, at face value, the leftist report was bad news for either the US, conservatives, the military or NRO. I believe it is great news for all of these groups on the right, and bad news, even if spun their way, for the leftist fellow-travellers of the Islamo Fascisti.
Why? Here’s why. With the one year anniversary of the Iraq War, and even before, we heard the leftist cant that we killed 100,000 Iraqi civilians. I was skeptical, but since Hussein killed (by torture and starvation usually) on average 40,000 of his fellow-citizens (subjects) a year, I figured the math would catch up with us sooner or later as we brought justice and peace to that troubled region, and an initial loss of maybe 40,000 extra (many of them bad guys) seemed to me worth the cost.
Now it appears the number was not 100,000 a year (note that after the end of the second year this 100,000 number did not change) — now we find out the US military is killing “civilians” in an un-uniformed and foreign-fueled and led “insurgency” at a rate of 37% of 12,433 per year or 4,600 a year (half of whom we can call “bad guys” who want to bring Saddam back). Against Saddam’s 40,000 dead a year that means, even without assigning value to any dead Iraqi, we are saving 35,400 Iraqis a year from dire death, starvation and torture. Not bad, no?

True. Of course, the media will never present the issue in that context. Reporters have short memories and are notoriously bad at math (this reporter included).