Death Toll now > then the war

Hobbes

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3226189.stm

It is all uphill from here.

Redleslie

It said on the news that there were now about 30 attacks a day on US forces. Isn't it odd that there's no embedded tv crews about to film some of them? Send Geraldo back in I say.

Behind him on that day was a banner proclaiming "Mission accomplished" and, earlier this week, the president said it had all been the idea of the ship's crew.

Yeah, blame the grunts for everything.

Éomer of Rohan

Quoted From Redleslie
Yeah, blame the grunts for everything.

Did you expect anything less?

As for comparisons with Vietnam that a few people I know have been making, I reckon the American version of the Soviet-Afghan war is nearer the mark.

Sparks

Originally posted by Éomer of Rohan
Did you expect anything less?

From a guy that deserted from the national guard during wartime?
Who is fighting US POWs from the '91 gulf war from claiming damages from Iraq for their torture and general mistreatment while POWs?
Who has cut death benefits and just about every other kind of payment for US soldiers?
Who is now recruiting US soldiers from non-US citizens with the promise of citizenship if they survive a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan?
And who has not yet attended even one funeral of a US soldier killed in Iraq????

No, actually, I didn't.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Redleslie
It said on the news that there were now about 30 attacks a day on US forces. Isn't it odd that there's no embedded tv crews about to film some of them?

Not really. If something goes on long enough it is no longer news. It gets pushed aside by other stories. There are other reasons too, of course, but I doubt if it's something the TV networks are terribly interested in doing.

Sand

How many US personnel died freeing Kuwait?

Thank You.

rob1891

How many Iraqis are killed in the some 30 clashes a day that the Americans are enduring. Did they ever bother to work out how many they killed during the war?

I'm guessing there are a large number of casualties we are not hearing about and the uphill struggle is a lot steeper for the Iraqis.

Éomer of Rohan

Quoted from Sand
How many US personnel died freeing Kuwait?

Come now Sand, no US personnel 'freed' Kuwait - it was taken from one dictator and put straight back into the hands of another dictator; what the US personnel did was put the oil back into hands safe for US and indeed world use.

Éomer of Rohan

Quoted from rob1891
How many Iraqis are killed in the some 30 clashes a day that the Americans are enduring. Did they ever bother to work out how many they killed during the war?

I'm guessing there are a large number of casualties we are not hearing about and the uphill struggle is a lot steeper for the Iraqis.

Though neither of us have our figures to hand, I'd say that the grounds for your assumption are shaky; the Iraqis are on home turf, always a bonus for a geurrilla army, they will have been getting more and more confident as time passes and the Americans fail to shut down their activities and they are probably using their own advantages, such as highly mobile and well blended with the background natives to good effect.

rob1891

While this does not look like an impartial resource it's better than nothing:

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

From April 14th to 31st August, 2,846 violent deaths were recorded by the Baghdad city morgue. When corrected for pre-war death rates in the city a total of at least 1,519 excess violent deaths in Baghdad emerges from reports based on the morgue's records.

I wouldnt' go accusing the Americans of murdering 1519 Iraqis in this time frame, but I would like to know how many individuals they kill each week, and a breakdown of civilians vs. terrorists/malitia/guerrillas/whatever-you-like. I'd consider this kind of information far more newsworthy than the number of soldiers killed since the "war" ended, because frankly, their job entails the risk violent death and if they're willing to make the gamble then why the fuck should I care if the luck out. Its only relevance is in how it effects public opinion in America and thus policy.

It might also be interesting to know this kind of information from the time during the war, I remember quite clearly the occasion when Tommy Franks gave us the line "We don't do body counts".

It's not very reassuring to hear that the Americans do not value the lives of the Iraqi people enough to count the number they are killing. Or more likely they do not want to publish the numbers because the details of X dead Iraqis every week might have a significant effect on global opinions on the occupation.

That is my point ... while the American death toll is important in how it will change their policy (we are already hearing that they are moving for a quicker than planned hand-over of power), the civilian death toll is going unreported, because it is easy to suppress and telling the world that the occupation is causing 54 deaths a week in Baghdad alone isn't going to help at donor conferences and the Security Council votes.

Rob

Ping Chow Chi

Originally posted by Sand
How many US personnel died freeing Kuwait?

Thank You.

humm this has got me thinking, a slight side issue I know, does everyone in Kuwait have the right to vote now? I seem to remember the TV informing me that Kuwait was the closest thing to an arab democracy when we where freeing it and that they would go further along the lines of democracy after they had been freed.

I think 97(ish) US service people died in that war?

Cork

I think it is horrifying to see the waste of life. Today was a bad day for not alone the US army but all who want stability to be restored to Iraq.

I don't know the origns of these attacks on US troops or the attacks on the Red Cross Organisation.

But I am sure that the US needs to rebuild Iraq - A time table for open and democratic elections needs also to be put in place.

Éomer of Rohan

Quoted from Cork
But I am sure that the US needs to rebuild Iraq - A time table for open and democratic elections needs also to be put in place.

It is perverted to think that after the US have pulled down stability in the country they can justify their continued occupation by restoring stability! It's a sham and they know it and increasingly the rest of the world knows it. The US is in this for it's own good - and let's not pretend that they care about the deaths of their own soldiers - Vietnam is example number one for that and Spark's enlightening endictment of the erosion of social benefits for US soldiers is number two. This charade is for the benefit of the US ruling class. Nothing more.