War on Facts (Part CXXII)

As I have written before about the War on Facts, another of its aspects came to my attention today. As Juan Cole notes, Tom Lassiter's article in the Kansas City Star (click through for subscription) observes:

There is no comprehensive way to quantify how rebel activity has been affected nationwide by the Fallujah assault. American officials no longer make available to reporters a daily tally of the number of incidents reported around the country.

In others words, we have no way to judge the effectiveness of our military operations in Iraq because the American government no longer releases official totals of incidents around the country each day. Juan Cole responds,

Because we, the American public are simply not being told the truth by the Bush administration. This cover-up is absolutely outrageous. We, the American people, are paying for this war. We, the American people, are providing the troops for this war. We, the American people, are engaged in a national debate. We, the American people, will be going to the polls to vote for candidates who take a position on this war. We, the American people, deserve to have the full truth about how many attacks are launched by guerrillas every day in Iraq. We deserve to know how many Iraqis are being killed. We deserve to know what in hell is going on over there.

As Pontius Pilate asks, "What is truth?" This is the War on Facts.