Free Republic

Estimating casualties of war is a difficult science. Exact counts are nearly impossible to achieve, especially in areas where violent conflict continues long after the last of foreign troops have withdrawn. Determining a death toll for Iraqi civilians during the eight-year U.S.-led occupation has proven especially challenging. Multiple attempts by different organizations have covered only a few years of the war, and the resulting tallies range from as low as just over 100,000 to as high as 600,000. The latest estimates, detailed in a study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, come from an investigation into the total number...

All last week, the media was fixated on the story of Lindsay Lohan, 24, coke whore actress. While at the same time, last week .... Lance Cpl. Anthony J. Rosa, 20, USMC, of Swanton, Vt. Lt. Col. Robert F. Baldwin, 39, US Army, of Muscatine,Iowa. Chief Warrant Officer Matthew G. Wagstaff, 34, US Army, of Orem, Utah. Chief Warrant Officer Jonah D. McClellan, 26, US Army, of St. Louis Park, Minn. Staff Sgt. Joshua D. Powell, 25, US Army, of Pleasant Plains, Ill. Sgt. Marvin R. Calhoun Jr., 23, US Army, of Elkhart, Ind. Lt. (SEAL) Brendan J. Looney, 29,...

<p>With the end of the first week of March, there has so far been only a single American fatality this month (incurred in a non-combat Iraqi helicopter crash). If that were to continue (and it could change tomorrow), we are in a period in which the entire war could be redefined as something analogous to ongoing operations in Afghanistan or even the Balkans. And that, coupled with Iraq’s strong economic performance and political improvement, would radically change the Obama message of Iraqi as an ungodly horror worthy of abject withdrawal.</p>

We hear of the casualities of "Innocent" civiliens and the IDF, Bur I haven'r seen the casuality count of the bad guys.

Over the past month, the average rate at which U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq has significantly fallen, the but the rates at which they are being wounded have dramatically increased. U.S. mainstream media reports have focused only on the numbers being killed. But over the past eight months, we have repeatedly emphasized in this column that the far larger numbers of U.S. troops wounded, especially those wounded too seriously to return to active duty, represent a far broader and more statistically significant figure of the scale of insurgent activity and the degree to which it is succeeding or...

<p>Editor -- The constant loss of U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- after the war is "won" -- is a tragedy. However, if this is what it takes to retire the Bush administration at the next election, the sacrifice is justified.</p>

This past weekend, war news suddenly turned from ghostly images of ''shock and awe'' bombs exploding in the distance to bloody ambushes, misfires, stiff enemy resistance and mounting casualties. A helicopter crash on Friday claimed 12 allied fighters. On Saturday, two Royal Navy helicopters collided over the Persian Gulf, killing seven. A Patriot battery meant to intercept enemy missiles downed a British jet in Kuwait. A grenade apparently set off by a U.S. soldier at a Kuwait camp took another American life. Then, in the type of atrocity that haunts even veterans of combat, Iraqi television put on display Sunday...