I have a feeling there is some statistical misinformation going on here... Does anyone know where I can get this data ( I assume its a cluster study). Im a bit sceptical with these numbers, but I have been wrong before.
Some of our cities are indeed higher than 25/100K, but as far as states go, none are that high -- the very violent cities are countered by the relatively safe rest of the state. Only DC is higher (double). I'm sure Baghdad or Tikrit taken alone would score higher than any of our cities.
I agree with you and don't care for how it minimizes the sacrifices made by our troops.
For example, we have 140000-160000 troops on the ground and they have been sustaining in the neighborhood of 800 deaths per year, not to mention the casualties. That's orders of magnitudes higher than the cherry picked stats in the article.
Also, the Iraqis who stand up to be police and soldiers are getting wacked at a rate of about 800 per month! It's still a low intensity war people!
Well - you're wrong again
FBI-DOJ Uniform Crime Report
Google it up
Do some research before commenting you are dubious
I have posted info on DC & Chicago on FR for several years
The NRA-ILA or your US Senator's local staff will send out stats
Joe Lieberman has sent out full FBI-DOJ Uniform Crime Reports for years
New Orleans is another killer city as are Detroit, Miami, Gary, St. Louis, LA, Houston, ....
Teen black males in DC have a higher kill per/100,000 then during the Rwanda slaughters were
Compliments of the US Congress and the Beltway Media who bury the info
I ran the numbers once I the relative chances of violent death of a typical US male age 18 to 40. Those in the military, or just in the US. Basically the same. Those actually in Iraq, somewhat higher than the US average, and comparable to a US male in that age group in a large city with a crime problem e.g. Detroit or DC. Whole military is not that bad because lots aren't serving in Iraq etc. Chances of wounding were higher in Iraq, though.
If a US statistician tried to prove the US were at war by fatalities alone, he could not do it, and get the paper published in a peer reviewed journal. (Their standards of statistical significance would reject). Our losses in Iraq are so low they are basically at background. They can't go to zero - men do not become immortal -because- they are shipped to a -combat- zone.
There is no defeat in Iraq and never was. It is mostly media guff. There are enough Americans being wounded that we'd much rather have Iraqis take over the job of their own security.
Two other points of historical comparison. When Germany conquered France in about one month, it was considered a shockingly cheap and clear victory, revolutionizing people's expectations, "lightening war". The Germans lost 25 times as many KIA in that month as we have in 3 years in Iraq. (They still faced resistence fighters 4 years later, but nobody pretended they hadn't won, until US and British forces kicked them out again).
Second, because of the recent anniversary of the end of WW II, I happened to come across a figure for Russian losses in just the last 3 weeks of the war, in their victorious offensives into Berlin and Prague. They lost 93,000 KIA in just those 3 weeks. Winning. We haven't lost 3,000 in 3 years in Iraq. The rate is lower by a factor of 1600.
Don't forget the death rates for 750cc Kawasaki's, but I do wish someone was a New York Sun subcriber and could post the original article. Thank God he left the motorcycle behind.