Mar 23 2008
As US Deaths In Iraq Approach 4,000 Over 5 Years, Some Perspective
The ghouls in the liberal media are counting body bags as their way of ignoring the myriad indicators of progress in Iraq achieved over the last year. What is important is not how many have sacrificed their lives in Iraq, but whether that sacrifice will be honored by finishing the job or will it be thrown away for political expediency? The liberals and left have made their choice, they want power and could care less about the sacrifices (no matte what lame rationalizations they use to avoid facing the successes in Iraq).
So while we await the more important data, which will show the level of violence al-Qaeda can inflict in Iraq and which has been dropping as we and our Iraqi allies have purged the Islamo Fascists from Iraq, we can put the US effort in Iraq into some perspective. At this site are the mortality rates for the US, by state, for the year 2004. As can be seen the 5 years of fighting first Saddam and then al-Qaeda and their allies equals the annual death rate for Wyoming. It is a fraction of most US state death rates from just one year. In fact, more Americans died in the tiny city of Washington DC in 2004 than died in the entire Iraq war effort. To put it in even more perspective take a state like NY, and divide the annual rate by 12, and you get 12,000 deaths per month, which dwarfs the numbers lost in Iraq over 5 years.
Is this a fair comparison? Of course it is. It is meant to give context to a number that sounds big (4,000), but is actually small. Gateway Pundit showed recently that the Iraq War casualties were lower than the military casualties during President Clinton’s terms.
So let’s keep these things in perspective – shall we?
AJ,
Tsk, tsk…
I hate to say this but you are talking apples and oranges. To compare the death rate of NY with Iraq requires you to include all natural deaths that occurred in Iraq, all the non-conflict violent deaths, and all the conflict deaths. My guess is that Iraq is a bit more violent than NY. But, I think it less violent than the Saddam era now.
However, your main point is taken.
Here is another way of looking at the media ghouls simply waiting for fatalities. Had the ratio of daily fatalities remained at the April 2007 through September 2007 they would be celebrating this event sometime around
Thanksgiving in 2007
Rather than
Easter 2008
Do you think that fact will be triumphed…
Er duh – the levcls in Iraq are not even close to the natural, non-violent death rates in the US…..
Thanks for proving my point.
AJ,
A closer statistical look implies (Using the ICC stats, assuming a 6 month average of 552 wartime fatalities per month which seems to be the current level):
Iraq Civilian Casualties as a result of the war: 24.1/100,000
The pre-surge rate was: 74.7/100,000
The site you pointed to (this site seems fair):
United States murders and suicides: 16.3/100,000
United States murders only: 5.6/100,000
So, Iraq is not the United States. It is not England. It is not Japan. Iraqi’s are not as worried about single payer healthcare or whatever as we are. However, the situation has dramatically improved and that improvement is accelerating.
From ’ What is the real death toll in Iraq?’ (The Guardian)
Maximum Saddam-Era state sponsored mortality (1 million killings over 35 years) rate was: 105.45/100,000
Stats that seem acceptable to most reviewers imply 380,000 Saddam state sponsored killings over his 35 years – not including Iran/Iraq war: 41.1/100,000.
Thus, Saddam killed about 11,300 per year every year. And these were state murders – not illnesses, accidents, old age, etc. And, should we not include Saddam’s unjust wars? And, the ratio seemed to accelerate through the years!!!
Surge era killings by ‘militants’ and coalition troops will result in about 6,600 per year at the current ratio. And, this ratio has a solid chance to decline as al-Qaeda weakens. Thus, the norm in Iraq under Saddam was almost double that of the current ICC stats and the differential will likely widen.
Anyone want to claim that Saddam and his lovely children and sycophants would have worked hard on behalf of the Iraqi people to reduce the state sponsored murder rate?
Or, would that pathetic genocidal murderer simply assume he had a god given mandate to murder citizens since they voted for him at a 95+% rate?
The 4,000 deaths does include all accidental and natural deaths among the troops as well death to due to combat. If you are in theatre the DoD does not differentiate.
Death in Perspective…
Since the only gage that the left has for success in Iraq is how many have died in the cause, now approaching 4,000 or so, which in itself is phenomenally small considering how many troops we’ve had over there five years, let’s do a little …
AJ: look at it this way: in the same time frame, from 9/11 until today, we’ve lost ~4500 service members, fighting TWO wars, Afghanistan & Iraq.
4500 military deaths, including ast Terrye pointed out, “accidents”, etc., not just combat deaths, in six and a half years!
During that same time, we’ve continued to MURDER ~approximately 16,000 of your fellow Americans, EVERY SINGLE YEAR!
And that is down substantially by the way, from the Clinton years, when we had less population; the average annual murder rate during the Clinton years was ~approximately 21,000; though to give Clinton credit, the murder rate did tail off dramatically the last few years he was in office and the ’99 & 2000 rates were the lowest since ’69.
Anyway, here the annual murder rates since 2001:
16,037
16,229
16,528
16,148
16,740
17,034
I cannot find the 2007 final murder stats, but there appears to be a slight drop, not much; just for an average, let’s say 16,500
Including that number, plus only 1/3rd of the 2001 total (I want this since 9/11, and the beginning of our invasion of Afghanistan); and including NO estimate for the first quarter of 2008, which would be at least another 4000; I come up with a number of over
104,000 of our fellow Americans, MURDERED, while in the same timeframe, we’ve lost ~4500 while fighting TWO WARS overseas!
IF you start to include the totally unnecessary deaths of car accidents, which include Drunk Driving, you can pitch in another ~20,000 per year, plus! But that is another issue.
Regardless, where is the OUTRAGE from the Anti-American Left, about that fact that in the same timeframe that we’ve lost ~4500 of our brave troops fighting two wars, we’ve MURDERED TWENTY-SIX times that amount of our own?
Where is the OUTRAGE of the Left, I wonder!
And Newbusters had this story from way back in 2006, how the actual Murder rate in various US Cities was actually HIGHER than the level of violence, at it’s worst, in Iraq!
http://www.newsbusters.org/node/9932
Bottomline is this; if you are a young American male, especially a young American black male, upon whom US murder rates fall disproportionately; you are actually SAFER in Iraq or Afghanistan, fighting Al Qaeda or the Taliban, than you are walking the streets of America!
That’s a FACT, and it’s so sad on so many levels, especially for the Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi treason of the Left in this country!
The Left Drag Out the Body Count…
Unable to deny the success of the surge, and still bent on surrender, the left are dragging out the ol’ body count which is now at the 4,000 mark. However, while this gets labeled as a “grim milestone”, its important to keep things i…
4000…
And, by way of Think Progress, this note from the AFP:
At least 97 percent of the deaths occurred after US President George W. Bush announced the end of “major combat†in Iraq on May 1, 2003, as the military became caught between a ragi…
Cables, dispatches and memoranda…
Cables, dispatches and memoranda for 3/24/2008……
It really amazing that Bush has pretty much managed to beat out the “Kobayashi Maru scenario” as put forth by Congressional Democrats.