Replies

just how many Americans have to die in Iraq before we leave?

What is your life worth? What is the life of your family worth? What's a couple of buildings in New York? After all, it doesn't affect you personally, so it doesn't matter, right?

This is a thread about Fallujah. What does this city or country have to do with 9/11?

I did a little bit of math on this a few weeks back. I compared US KIA in this war to some previous wars. I adjusted for population because that adjusts for the pain the population is enduring. He are some of the facts:

Approximate US populations at the height of various wars:

Iraqi 2004: 290 million
Viet Nam 1968: 200 million
WWII 1944: 140 million
Civil 1964: 35 million

Approximate KIAs in various wars:

Iraqi: 444
Viet Nam: 14,589
WWII: 100,000
Civil: 100,000

Clearly for WWII and the Civil War I had to estimate the KIA from war long totals.

So if we take those KIA/population rates and adjust them to today's population we would be losing:

Viet Nam rate: 21,154
WWII rate: 207,143
Civil War rate: 828,571

Look at those numbers. The civil war KIA rate compared to the population we have today was over 800,000 KIA a year. Now maybe a civil war is an outlier because it is the US fighting the US.

The WWII KIA rate compared to the population we have today was over 200,000 KIA a year. That was the pain the US population stood the last time the US was attacked. That is what John McCain was getting at when he mentioned the number of soldiers we were losing daily on Iwo and at D-Day.

The Viet Nam KIA rate compared to the population we have today was over 20,000 KIA in a year. Even though they are each very sad events, compare the numbers above to the KIA number of 444 for a year in Iraq.

I do think that with a representative government this could not go on for a long period of time. But this gives some evidence of the pain the US withstood before when attacked compared to today's population.