Grim Milestone... Iraq War Loss Number Gives Media & Democrats New Hope For Surrender
UPDATE: America's North Shore Journal has been tracking numbers from MNF-I and put together this graph:
US troop losses verus anti-Iraqi Forces
This won't make any headlines today.
The US military has been fighting in Iraq for over 5 years.
The losses have now reached 4,000.
The US has never lost so few soldiers in a major conflict over the same period of time. This shows the superior ability of the US military. But, sadly this won't get played out that way in the liberal media. Don't expect the media to put this grim milestone into context.
More soldiers were lost during the Clinton years than during 5 years of war in Iraq:
Numbers from Iraq Coalition Casualties and CRS report to Congress (pdf)
The media has not been able scream quagmire for a while so watch for the MSM to take full advantage of this milestone today.
Iraq Coalition Casualties
Regardless of how well things are going in Iraq or how important it is to the international community that Iraq becomes a success, today's news will give Democrats and the media hope that the US will still lose this war.
MORE... And, this may come as a surprise to antiwar Democrat John Murtha anyway, but the military is not broken after 5 years of fighting in Iraq.
Hat Tip George Lauer
posted by Gateway Pundit at 3/24/2008 05:43:00 AM
13 Comments:
They say you learn something new every day. I am quite shocked to here there was more loss of life in Clinton`s reign.
It is quite shocking that you believed that table without doing any further research. I love you GP played with the numbers.
If you open up that Report to Congress and look at Table 5, you will see cause of deaths.
For hostile action:
from 1992-2000 under Clinton: 1
from 2000-2006 under Bush: 2596
Now, the numbers change drastically when you take into account things like illness.
However, if we are looking solely at the responsibility of the President, Clinton is nowhere near where Bush is, in terms of deaths for which he is responsible.
This is "reporting" at its worst and GP, I expect nothing more of you than twisting the numbers.
Can you at least respect our troops enough to report these numbers accurately?
Anonymous - There was more than 1 death from "hostilte action" during the infamous Battle of Mogadishu ("Blackhawk Down") in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1993 alone. So if that table is saying there was only 1 death from hostile action during the Clinton years, it is completely wrong.
The Battle of Mogadishu
Heck, the two most famous casualties in that Battle were Gary Gordon and Randy Shugart, who received the Medal of Honor for their actions there.
So maybe you need to check your facts.
And in the same period of time more than 11,000 Californians were murdered. Guess the press can't play the 'get Bush' angle off of those numbers so it goes ignored.
Dear "anonymous,"
Can you at least respect this blog enough to come out from behind an "anonymous" handle? Or is that too much to ask?
By the way, buddy, if you check the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website, you'll discover that, since 2003, nearly 220,000 Americans--about 60% of them military age (i.e., 16-44)--have been killed in vehicle-related accidents with an additional 10 MILLION injured. In 2006 alone (one of the worst years for us in Iraq), nearly 43,000 people were killed in U.S. traffic accidents and 2.6 MILLION injured.
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/portal/site/nhtsa/menuitem.6a6eaf83cf719ad24ec86e10dba046a0/
In short, this means the average soldier in Iraq is safer there than driving his car in a large metro area on any given Saturday night. I'm also sorry to say that a number of Iraq and Afghanistan vets have gotten through their tours without a scratch...only to become murder victims after returning home. I don't have figures available, but thorough research of military and law enforcment sources would likely establish a figure reaching into the dozens.
Now, pal, put the above numbers in your bong and smoke them.
Anonymous, besides the "Blackhawk Down" incident mentioned there was Khobar Towers bombing, Cole bombing, plus embassy bombings. Does combat deaths during Clinton years equal Bush years - No. Clinton took no large strategic chance and Bush did.
Anon, do you realize yet that you've been beat down, or are you still snorting the party line?
The war that I was in had 58,000 casualties. You remember the one that Kennedy switched modes on and Johnson expanded while he was micromanaging it.
Your outrage is phony.
One, I prefer "anonymous" so I'll keep it that way, but thanks for the consideration.
Two, were we not supposed to look a the CRS Report to Congress that is directly underneath the bar graph? I thought that link was there as "proof" of the info in the bar graph. My apologies for not understanding the use of the link.
So if the author did not use the CRS report to get the false, twisted numbers of fatalities, pray tell, from where did those numbers come?
It's easy to conflate all the deaths reported from 92-00 and say, "Look at how many soldiers died."
It's honest to examine the cause of death of those same soldiers and realize that there is a vast discrepancy in the numbers.
So go on thinking the causes of death are the same. I prefer honesty to lies.
Hmmm, five years of combat and insurgency has resulted in 4,000 deaths of our volunteer heros...
Sad!
Yet for as bad as that is in this country for the year 2006 deaths from murder and nonnegligent manslaughter resulted in 17,034 deaths...
It wouldn't suprise me if the leading homicide areas are run by Democrats like New Orleans for instance...
Anonymous does have a point. According to the chart, one, only one was killed due to hostile action. Regarding Blackhawk Down, perhaps those deaths fall under the category of Terrorist Attack. To which conflict(s) during the Clinton years do we attribute 7,500 deaths? Nothing of the magnitude of the Iraq War comes to mind.
I will note that there more suicides under Clinton's watch. Now, that might be something to explore.
I should quickly add: I support our effort in Iraq. I see Iraq as the central front in our war against the Jihadists. 4,000 deaths, though tragic, is not a reason for retreat.
I have made this comment before, but it is silly and practically dishonest for Gatewaypundit Jim to compare all military deaths during the Clinton years to just Iraq war-related deaths during the Bush years. If you include all military deaths under Bush, the number is 8,792 in just 6 years, or 1,465 per year. That is 56% higher than Clinton, despite a smaller military. The combined rate of deaths by accident, illness, homicide and suicide have remained basically the same during the Bush years as during the Clinton years, as a percentage of average military size.
Notice how all the usual suspects have been unusually quiet in this thread... truth hurts.
And Dave, "silly and practically dishonest" is how their MO. It's the only way they can make their world make sense.
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home