Posted on 09/24/2004 7:17:50 AM PDT by Homo_homini_lupus
Death may not be a final medical diagnosis but the state of being dead is final! Are the deaths of our courageous soldiers any more final than those who die on our own streets?
On September 8, 2004, the Los Angeles Times reported (The Conflict In Iraq, U.S. Toll in Iraq Reaches 1,000) that through September 7, 2004, 1,000 US soldiers lost their lives in Iraq due to both hostile and non-hostile actions. This is certainly a tragic loss correctly reported in the media and mourned by the US populace. However focusing exclusively on these statistics does not provide the much needed perspective.
According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report of May 24, 2004, the number of murders reported during calendar years 2002 and 2003 show a comparable death toll exists in several US cities. Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City reported 1,168, 1,246 and 1,184 murders during the subject 24-month period.
[...snip...]
The average monthly death toll for US soldiers in Iraq is 55.6 deaths per month while the average reported murders per month in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City are 48.7, 51.9 and 49.3 deaths per month. The murder statistics in the US cities are for hostile deaths only — whereas the death toll in Iraq includes both hostile and accidental deaths. This makes our own murder rates in LA, Chicago and NYC even more appalling. Yet there is not an equivalent amount of reporting or hand wringing.
[...snip...]
Reasonable people can disagree about the wisdom of going to war in Iraq. But objectivity requires that these deaths be put in perspective. Do we continue to condemn death in Iraq while simultaneously ignoring the concurrent deaths in our own cities — or should we consider all violent deaths a terrible waste of life?
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Ping!
Thank you for posting....Asked about the facts just last month....
Sec. Rumsfeld tried to make this exact same point a few months back in a press conference. He said something to the effect that the murder rate in Washington, D.C. is higher than in Baghdad. Of course, he was crucified for saying this by the MSM and the DC city gov't.
Wow!
Good read.
Here are some facts you may need to contradict the left.
Good point, but notice that this is for US soldiers in Iraq. I wonder what the rate would be when you count Iraqis and other foreign nationals?
While we're on the subject, the number of people who died in the WTC on 9/11/01 was comparable to the number of people aborted in a typical day.
Thank you for getting this out there. I was looking for this exact info just the other day. RATs are making themselves look completely stupid when they try to paint the picture that Iraq is only a success if nobody is being killed while people get killed every day in this country.
We had a young man who just returned from Iraq and was killed in an auto accident shortly afterward.
But wait a minute...from what I see here, the two are not comparable.
This writer is comparing death rates of soldiers in combat to murder rates in American cities, but says "Murder rates in US cities comparable to Iraq!"
If American murder rates were truly comparable to Iraq, then that would mean major Iraqi cities would have similar murder stats as American ones.
"Yea, and I've been wondering what would be the death rate here in the US of 130,000 men in this age group in a similar length of time"
I would also like to see the stats on military deaths in
time of peace....training accidents, etc. I expect it is pretty high.
How many of those are GANG related killings??
You have a good point, except that the US soldier is a TARGET.
The US soldier dreads getting orders to LA, NYC and Chicago.
The death toll in Iraq also includes suicides AND natural causes, in addition to accidental deaths as well as those KIA.
I marvel everyday at that number, NOT because it is so HIGH but because it is so LOW.
All Democrat strongholds. Murder rates are higher in Democratic areas - and higher in states with gun control laws. hmmm...
On the overall point, deaths of Iraqis are certainly much higher. It is undoubtedly more dangerous to be a terrorist in Iraq than a street hoodlum in the US - the former are up against the US army and the Marines, the latter only up against police and each other. The former are likely to continue until killed, the latter usually end up in (and out of) prison.
Overall deaths in the US from murder run around 30,000 per year. Deaths from traffic accidents run around 40-45,000, with injuries much higher. In the period we've been in Iraq, which is longer than a year, the two combined have probably killed 100,000 people.
As for the divisor, it is probably less than the US population, focused on people of driving age, disproportionately focused on young men, etc. But roughly 1 out of 2800. The loss rate for our military serving in Iraq might be 10 times that, if the force there has turned over once.
If you look at the military as a whole - only a tenth of which has gone to Iraq or Afghanistan - the divisor is bigger and the rates are probably comparable. Maybe a twice as high with accidental deaths in other parts of the world included, but the same order of magnitude.
Anecdotally, the loss rate among Iraqis is something like 10-20 times as high as that for our guys. A lot of them belligerents who deserve it, some of them victims of the terrorists who do not. If they've lost 10-20k, out of a population of 25 million, that comes to something between 1/2500 and 1/1250. The former is about the same as the US loss rate, maybe 10% higher. The latter would be twice as high. And they have their own accidental deaths and murders, so their overall loss rate might be 2-3 times that of the US civilian population at this time.
Loss rates in their belligerent groups would be far higher, obviously, because the divisor is much lower. By most accounts, a fifth to a tenth the size of our armed forces there, and taking perhaps half of the above losses. So the loss rate among the terrorists is probably 100 times that among our military, which is roughly 10 times that of our civilians. Or, with the US civilian population risk rate as "1", you'd have -
terrorist - 1000
US military in Iraq - 10
Iraqi civilian - 5
US military overall - 2
US civilian - 1
I hope this helps.
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