The Costs of War and Peace
Perspective you will never get from the main stream media:
The total military dead in the Iraq war between 2003 and this month stands at about 3,133. This is tragic, as are all deaths due to war, and we are facing a cowardly enemy unlike any other in our past that hides behind innocent citizens. Each death is blazoned in the headlines of newspapers and Internet sites. What is never compared is the number of military deaths during the Clinton administration: 1,245 in 1993; 1,109 in 1994; 1,055 in 1995; 1,008 in 1996. That’s 4,417 deaths in peacetime but, of course, who’s counting?
You can view an entire break down of total US military casualties since 1980 here. Personally I don’t like playing the body count game, but the media and the left continues to hammer the body count to the public. It sickens me when I watch the news and the current total deaths of US service members in Iraq is treated as some kind of basketball score. However, to those of us in the military the number of this basketball score includes real people that we in military know, worked with, were friends with, and respected. The way the media and the left plays the body count game is disrespectful to those soldiers and families who have died for their country.Â
What the US is doing in Iraq shouldn’t be judged by casualty totals, but even if it was the US’s casualties in Iraq are comparable to a peacetime army and well lower than any other major US military conflict in our nation’s history. As I discussed before, it is a good thing the United States didn’t give up on South Korea based on casualty statistics from the Korean War.Â
The bottom line is that being in the military is dangerous whether it is peace time or war time. Soldiers die in training and work related accidents. I can remember major training events in Korea where soldiers died during river crossing training across the Imjim River as well as when a M113 rolled over into a rice paddy. I can also remember soldiers dyeing from flash flooding in Korea as well. Also just like civilians, soldiers die in automobile accidents, suicides, sickness, etc. However, when these things happened before the Iraq War it wasn’t treated like a running basketball score on every news channel.Â
Instead of casualty totals the media should be judging Iraq by political progress, by provinces handed over to the Iraqi government, the number of Iraqi Army battalions fielded, the number of schools opened, staffed hospitals, unemployment numbers, crime & murder rates, college graduates, etc. Hammer the US public with those numbers every day instead of playing the morbid body count game. However, the news media won’t do this because, though progress has been slow, there has been clear signs of progress, thus the need to keep playing the body count game.Â
If "progress" in Iraq is judged by a body count than the US military can show "progress" real easily by keeping everyone on base all day, but would a lower body count really mean "progress". No it would not. The things I mentioned above is how the US military judges progress in Iraq, while at the same time doing everything possible to protect soldiers’ lives while still accomplishing the mission. The fact that our military leadership has been able to make steady progress while keeping casualties low enough to compare to peace time casualty numbers is really a testament to the great work done by our military leaders and service members in Iraq.Â
If you look at the complete statistics I linked to above something else that is really interesting is the suicide numbers. The peace time military of the Clinton years has a significantly higher suicide percentage than the war time military of today. Yet what headlines do you hear about in the media today about military suicides? They blast you with headlines that US military suicides have increased due to deployments, which the Reuters journalist had to conveniently manipulate statistics to show. However, as I showed in this posting, the US military suicide rates have in fact stayed stable on average throughout the war in Iraq and are lower than when compared to civilian rates. Young men and women today actually are more likely to commit suicide going to college than they are if they joined the military. Even more telling is that a young man or woman joining the war time military today is less likely to commit suicide compared to the peace time military during the Clinton years.Â
Statistics don’t lie, demagogues do and unfortunately more and more of our media is filled with demagogues.Â
HT: Milblogs
statistics are the weakest form of any argument because they can easily be manipulated
the funny thing is that the democrats wont even acknowledge those numbers you put up
during those 8 years of slick willie a lot of incidents happend all over the world and we just sat back and did nothing or pulled out and ran with our dicks between our legs
sound like a familiar strategy???
I started thinking like this a couple of months ago for the same reason — I don’t even pay attention to the US press daily, and I was getting shell-shock from the massive barrage of death news.
It seems only natural to me that a reasonable person would start to see if the death toll is horribly high or not…
Pershing lost that many in a couple of days in 1918. That should put it in perspective.
WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! Big fella. Back the train up if yoou please………
The numbers you quote are peactime statistics that do not include combat casulaties ( for the most part…)
Now go back and include those non combat casulties from the rest of the world during the period you mention and it will be about the same or more. Plus, as an extra added bonus during the Clinton years you did not have 24,000 injured 14,000 of which could not return to duty in 3 days.
Furthermore the news media has reported all the "good news" you suggest. Problem is, that this is American media reporting news of interest to Americans. All I care about is keeping Americans from having to get killed for Iraqis who can't or won't put their problems behind them to accept the gift they were given by the US.
Using numbers like this is dishonest and wrong. Yoou need to tell the whole story. And if you really want to tell the whole story lets compare budget numbers and how much of the military budget for things other than Iraq has been sucked away to pay for the war.
Modern, developed countries with a future don't have car bombs going off every day. However Iraq does. Thats the news in the long run. Iraq society is dysfunctional and will be for a long time to come. The reporters know that so they report it.
A better statistic is the number of Arab troops in Iraq-0 or the fact that the British are leaving in spite of the fact that Basra is not considered "pacified".
Trouble with stats is that you can find a set to back up whatever political axe you're grinding. The young guys I know that have served in Iraq have very negative things to say about the impact of our efforts there, and the Iraqis. Our political leaders owe a duty to those serving in uniform not to gamble with their lives. It took me a while to come to this conclusion but after three-plus years I can say the White House that launched and Legislators that allowed this war failed that most sacred duty owed to its military service members.
Skippy,
I you look at the statistics table that I included in the posting everyone can see for themselves the complete statistics. Bottom line is that solely Iraq War casualties are less than the first four years of the Clinton years. If you want to compare Clinton's first four years of casualties to Bush's first four years here are the numbers that come out:
Clinton: 937.5 per year
Bush: 1296 per year
Once again the numbers are as I said before, comparable. However, like I said before Iraq shouldn't be judged by morbid body counts. The things I listed below aren't all "good news" like you say and I never called them good news stories. If you think crime and murder rates as I listed above is good news story in Iraq than obviously you were not reading very closely.
As far as the British they are cutting forces to move them to Afghanistan because of the cowardly NATO nations not providing additional troops for Afghanistan.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/02/23/afgha…
Basra does not have car bombs going off every day and the British have lost very few troops which both are your admitted sign of success so why shouldn't they begin a pull out? You should be holding this up as a sign of success because they met your criteria for success. Afghanistan is more politically suitable for the British so it was a wise move to begin a pull out from Basra where they have to many troops there for the current mission they are doing. Afghanistan is where they are needed now.
As far as a US pull out if the Congress wants to pull the US troops out than cut funding now. I'm more than likely going back over there in a year. I don't want to go back over there as part of Murtha's slow bleed strategy. Why should I or any soldiers put our lives on the line for a Congress that is committed to a slow defeat for their own political purposes? If they really cared about US soldiers' lives than they should pass a bill to cut funding now. They control both the house and the senate so they can do it. I would actually respect them then because then they are actually acting on what the supposedly believe in.
However, they won't do it because when the mass slaughter and regional war breaks out after a US withdrawal that probably sees Saudi Arabia arm itself with nuclear weapons to off set Iran's nuclear weapons, than the Democrats would be held responsible for it. Not to mention that every jihadi wanting to kill an infidel would be on the one way Iranian express train heading instead of west to Iraq, but east to Afghanistan. If anyone thinks the jihadis are going to stop by kicking the US out of Iraq is nuts. So if the US withdraws from Iraq, the US might as well withdraw from Afghanistan as well because Skippy's signs of success body counts and car bombs will rise dramatically.
So that is why the Democrats are trying to pass legislation for slow failure so then they can blame Bush for it and hold the Iraq War as political card in the 2008 presidential election.
I guess the problem I have is that comparing Iraq to Afghanistan is an apples and oranges type of thing.
Look at Basra. Its been reported that contrary to the administrations claim, the British are leaving without meeting the pre-conditions that they had agreed to for security:
GI,
Statistic shows that there are more young men (18-30) are killed in streets of DC than streets of Iraq and Afghanistan per capita. So we should also pulled out of DC ASAP.
Skippy,
Iraq is in need of a Park Chung-hee and Maliki is more Syngman Rhee than a Park Chung-hee. The British had no interest in confronting the militias in Basra because of the threat of casualties. So if those soldiers are going to be unused in Basra than use them instead in Afghanistan where the mission still has political support in Britian.
As far as Europeans not providing troops in Afghanistan it just shows that the Europeans are getting more out of NATO than the US is. When the Balkans were falling apart who went in their to help the Europeans fix the place, the US. It wasn't popular but Clinton did what he felt was right and though some Republicans in Congress complained there was no Jack Murthas trying to backstab the troops and undermine the President. However, when it comes time for the Europeans to help shoulder some of the load in Afghanistan they hide. Canada has been incredible allies in Afghanstan and a non-NATO country Australia has done more in Afghanistan than the Europeans.
If we pull out of Iraq will America be willing to deploy a hundred thousand troops to Afghanistan to fight the newly emboldened jihadis that will be flooding there from not only Pakistan but Iran? I think not, so if the US is going to pull out of Iraq we might as well pull out of Afghanistan as well and retreat from the world.
**On the funnier side, Dr. Russ Bianchi wrote:**
If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theatre of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2,112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60
per 100,000 Soldiers.
The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 for the Same period. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in the U.S. Capitol, which has some of the strictest Gun Control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.
Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington.
There maybe enough NATO troops in Afghanistan if the French and the Germans where actually allowed to FIGHT!!!!!
NATO is a hollow shell….It took years for them to form a "fire brigade" and that was deployed, briefly, to Afganistan during the elections.
Gen. Jones, a Marine, now retired, has pleaded for more fighting formations for Afghanistan to no avail…
Seems like the highest death rate was back in the Reagan years. It doesn't fit a Republican's agenda to mention that, just as it doesn't fit a Democrat's agenda to talk about deaths in the Clinton years.
I also noticed quite a trend in the reduction of deaths during the later Clinton years. Funny, didn't hear Fox news cover that one…
Also, the vast majority of deaths in Clinton and Reagan years were not from war or conflict, but were accidental, self-inflicted, etc.. Are you claiming that we should hold Clinton and Reagon responsible for that in the same way that George Bush Jr. has responsiblility for the deaths in Iraq?
And again, the number of soldiers severely injured and maimed is not something to be dismissed. It would be quite surprising to see that the number of soldiers who suffered serious injuries during Clinton or Reagan years would be anything near the numbers we see now from Iraq.
You can draw a lot of things out of the statistics, that is why I included them for everyone to look at. The reduction in deaths in the later Clinton years was due to an increased safety efforts. In the late 90's there was a real push to decrease safety accidents.
If I was to get killed in Iraq I wouldn't want anyone to blame Bush for it as much as I wouldn't want people to blame Bush if I get killed in a tank roll over accident at the NTC. I can resign today and get out, but I don't. I knew the risks and willingly joined the military. Even without a war going on the military is dangerous work. It has been 5 and a half years since 9/11 and the beginning of the war on terror. All the young soldiers and young NCOs in the army today enlisted after 9/11, they all knew the risks before they enlisted. All the older guys in before 9/11 have had a chance to get out by now. This may be hard to believe but everyone in the military today is willingly serving knowing full well the risks involved.
Casualty statistics are something else that has become highly politicized because you have people on the left wanting people with a case of Montezuma's Revenge counted as a casualty. When I was in Iraq I had to be treated for an infection I received from sand fleas. I'm fine and there is nothing wrong with me today but I was technically a casualty. Additionally the casualties for a four year conflict don't come even close to the casualties of past major US wars. However, just like the body count list, the casualty list shouldn't be politicized but it is.
Like I mentioned before progress in Iraq needs to be judged by more than just a body count and casualties especially when the body count and casualties are so low when compared to past major US wars. However, if the majority of US people want the US to pull out of Iraq there is an election next year. However, if a pull out is going to happen it should happen all at once rather than implementing Murtha's slow bleed strategy. When genocide and regional war breaks out combined with Iran and Saudi Arabia equipped with nuclear weapons all we in the military ask is to don't go blame us.
What annoys me is the undertone of pity people have for the US military. I and many people I talk to don't want pity we want people to respect us for doing something that 99.9% of Americans are not willing to do.
If you want to pity people than pity the 17,000 people killed and the 500,000 injuried by drunk drivers every year in America. Those are needless deaths that should be pitied, not the brave warriors who willing serve in Iraq. Those warriors deserve everyone's respect not pity.