Posted on 10/23/2005 12:22:39 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
Shortly, the 2,000th death of an American serviceman or woman will occur in Iraq. That will generate an orgy of coverage in the American press on how “deadly” the war is. Sidebars will suggest that citizens are becoming “increasingly doubtful” about the conduct of the war. This Newsbusters article denounces that coverage as dishonest, in advance.
I wrote on 24 April, 2004, that the War on Terror is the LEAST bloody war in the history of the United States, measured by deaths per month. This is true going back to the Revolutionary War, even though the nation’s population then was only 1 percent of what it is today. (In impact on the population, every death in the Revolution was equivalent to about 100 deaths today.)
Source: http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=7041
Now, Dan Hallagan has done the detailed research to put all of America’s wars in context and compared them, by their cost in blood and money, to the nation’s populations and economies when those wars occurred. I had used “deaths.” Hallagan uses the correct military meaning of “casualties” including all those killed and wounded.
His conclusions are that Gulf War I was the least bloody war in our history with a casualty rate of 0.00029 percent of the population at the time. The second least is the War on Terror, with a rate of 0.00529 percent. Third, the Spanish American War, at 0.00551. By contrast, the three bloodiest wars were the Revolutionary War at 0.30351 percent, then World War II at 0.80761 percent, and by far the highest, the Civil War at 2.82865 percent.
Note that Mr. Hallagan uses a total of 2,184 for American troops killed in the War on Terror. This is because he includes all deaths in this war, those in Afghanistan plus a few in other places such as the Philippines, whereas the American press today ignores those other deaths. The not-so-subtle bias is that deaths other than in Iraq are in a good cause, and should be ignored. The effort to delegitimize this war applies only to Iraq.
On the cost of the wars, Mr. Hallagan presents his “War Cost Index” which divides “the average annual cost of a war ... by its ending Gross Domestic Product GDP.” In short, this measures how much of the nation’s total economy is devoted to each war.
The three least expensive wars, by that measurement, are Spanish-American War, War Against Terror, and the Vietnam War, with respective indices of 0.00271, 0.00746, and 0.01132. The three most expensive were WW II, the War of 1812, and the Revolutionary War, with respective indices of 0.33676, 0.49069, and 0.59524. Gulf War I and the War of 1812 both move far up the scale compared to their cost in casualties, because these two were fought mostly with more expensive assets, air and sea power.
Source: http://www.logictimes.com/dissent.htm
Mr. Hallagan presents his information both in text and numbers, and in simple, clear graphs. So even the editors and readers of USA Today can read and understand them.
In short, I condemn every reporter and every editor in every media source of all types who reports on the 2,000th American military death in Iraq as professionally incompetent, if they do not put those deaths in context with other American wars. Any competent reporter can click the link above, read Mr. Hallagan’s statistics (and their sources), check his math, and then write an honest and competent story when that “milestone death” in Iraq occurs, which will be soon.
I’m not holding my breath for the American press to become competent overnight on this subject, however.
John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
We can't let facts interfere with a good, anti-war article, now can we?
John / Billybob
Thanks for the post, C.B.! These stats are LETHAL to the entire left/CRAT insane ideaology.
Oooooh but that was a DEMOCRAT war, one that left the Soviet Union sitting pretty.
Answer: The Media, Peaceniks and Democrats in Congress.
Question: Who are Al Quada's best allies in the world right now?
>> pretend that this war is the worst ever. Most will not, however, mention a word about the costs of prior wars
Or single battles in prior wars.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/okinawa-battle.htm
We will never be able to sustain an actual conflict if attacked today by a viable military force.
Would be nice to know how many of the 2,000 are not combat related. Traffic accidents etc.
with all due respect , just for perspective :
http://www.civilwarhome.com/Battles.htm
438 are non-hostile 1558 are hostile see: http://icasualties.org/oif/hnh.aspx
So does that mean that this one is a Republican war?
In some respects, but my point was about the MSM propaganda that was the topic of the article.
That's absolutely repulsive. These pukes are crawling out of the woodwork.
But getting back to your first point. Since you classify them by party, are Democrat wars bad wars and Republican wars good wars?
Keep up the good work.
Whatever the cost of the war in lives, dollars, etc., the cost of doing nothing in the face of tyranny and terrorism is much higher.
Don't be silly. I was pointing out that, in the eyes of the MSM, Iraq is "bad" because it started with a Republican president in charge while WWII was "good" in all respects, regardless of the outcome because socialists were in charge. If you need further explanation than that, you aren't going to get it.
Probably not. I just don't have your...slant on things. I just think of wars as American wars, regardless of who's in office at the time.
;-)
Why do we not hear about the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998? Have you guys seen this? Spread it around!
http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Legislation/ILA.htm
And this from Slick Willie:
http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/libera.htm
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