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March 31, 2004
March US Combat Casualties in Iraq
Just when all the RWAP was singing the praises of a lower causualty count, the month of March slaps them in the face:
51 dead American soldiers. All from hostile action (none from accidents). One of them a friend of mine. For those who care about such things, that is 1.6 soldiers dead per day. The highest number since November of last year.
For the month of March, 300 soldiers were wounded - 276 from hostile action, 24 from non-hostile reasons.
Somehow I don't think the RWAP is going to be crowing about the month of March.
Oh, and please note that these numbers are just the US soldiers killed and wounded. These numbers don't include the number of Iraqi policeman and Iraqi civilians killed, maimed and injured during the month of march. No word on those numbers, but from the news reports this month, it's got to be pretty high.
For details, go here.
Posted by Azael at March 31, 2004 07:43 AM
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Comments
My condolences for your friend who was killed.
My post cricized that widespread misleading graphic. Extending my graph through March would still show a more accurate picture.
The fairest summary of March numbers is that killed and wounded "continue unabated," below the November peak, and above February's dip. (I hate talking about these as if they were just numbers; they are lives.) Given fluctuations, the only fair, big picture, general conclusion would be that "casualties continue at same general level." I'll even give you the "resistance not fading away."
My forecast media spin? "DOUBLE FEBRUARY!!!!"
Re: Iraqi losses. I've emailed the same suggestion to Mike at Lunaville. In short, he feels the data is too wildly inaccurate. Also, the misleading graph (which was the subject of my post, right?) counted Coalition losses.
I hope to "sing the praises" of lower casualty figures in April.
Posted by: The Commissar at March 31, 2004 09:08 AM
Of course, the body count is still low by any historical standards for a conflict of this size--and anyone expecting us to take no casualties was a fool going in.
I can also think of no better way to dishonor our dead than to cut and run now--especially when things in Iraq are going so very well.
I know too many people who served in places like Vietnam who think this is the right conflict, and too many people who have actually served in combat over there and know we did the right thing, to feel the need to do anything but grieve for our losses--which anyone who reads my blog knows what I'll do on a regular basis.
There is of course nothing to "crow" about, whether the losses go up or down. What strikes me as a little vile, however, are people who crow at casualties going up, as if this is somehow proof that politicians they dislike are incompetent, or as proof that the work our soldiers did and are doing over there every day is not a vital and noble mission.
FOr that's exactly what it is.
By the way, since March isn't over yet, shouldn't you wait to see if there are more casualties before announcing them?
By the way, you might also want to mention that there were days in conflicts like the Korean conflict where we lost more soldiers than we did during the entire month of March. There were hours in World War II where we lost more than we did the entire month of March 2004. The question with any war effort is whether it's worth expending the blood and treasure that war always entails.
I for one have no doubts still. I will neither crow nor hide from the reality--if you don't believe it after linking me ask me for a list of all the messages I've posted noting our casualties. I think about thm constantly.
(I seem to still be in your blacklist for my domain name. If you don't want me posting just say the word, but if it was accidental you might want to clean me out of there.)
Posted by: Dean Esmay at March 31, 2004 10:05 AM
Sorry about that Dean, I really don't know how you got in there - it wasn't intential, believe me.
As I said, I think it's a matter of cost/benefit. For all that's been ballyhooed regarding the benefits of Iraq, we still don't have anything tangible:
1) No WMDs - not even a whiff
2) No links to Al Qaeda - not even a whiff
3) No help from the outside
4) Terrorists where we had none before
5) A precarious political position bordering on civil war
6) A constitutional process being led in large part by a known fraud - Chalabi
The costs are high. While not high by historical war standards, you're forgetting that what would have been causualties in previous wars are now injuries due to incredible advances in battlefield medicine and armor. So I think it's a bit misleading to compare apples to oranges. . .
People - heck, even me - are willing to pay the price for something that actually makes sense. The problem is the price has been enormous and the benefits are dubious and long term - at best.
Posted by: Hal at March 31, 2004 11:20 AM
Hal,
Other than #1, your other items are debatable, and phrased in such terms as to discourge me from pursuing such debate.
Perhaps you've read Thomas Friedman's Four Reasons for the War, published last July(?). I buy 'em; I suppose you don't. If you haven't read it, .... it's the best summary of the pro-war position. If you have read it and disagree, let's not burn more pixels banging away at each other.
Posted by: The Commissar at March 31, 2004 12:47 PM
So Chalabi isn't a fraud? That's one I thought was pretty clear. But, yea, let's not burn pixels rehashing the same positions :)
Posted by: Hal at March 31, 2004 01:44 PM
The Jordanian court system is world-famous for its impartiality, incorruptibility, and complete lack of error.
I dislike it when people use absolutes in these debates. For instance, "No help from the outside." Come on, you know full well that there are dozens of countries with troops in Iraq. And you know full well that even if we had the full cooperation of France, Germany, Russia and whoever else you insist must be on board before you acknowledge that it's an international effort, the vast bulk of the personnel and resources would still be American.
Another erroneous absolute: "No links to Al Qaeda - not even a whiff." Indeed? There are literally more than 50 documented links between Al Qaeda and Iraq. You can't pretend they don't exist just because they undermine your argument, er, I meant to say, because their veracity is in dispute.
You can say the evidence is debatable, claim it isn't proven. But surely it constitutes at minimum a "whiff" of links. A better statement would be "No PROVEN links to Al Qaeda."
Posted by: inkling at April 3, 2004 03:41 AM
I consider 90% our troops as the equivalent of "no outside help". I also consider 99.999% of the money being spent from our pockets as "no outside help".
You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig. Token support is all we have. Compared to the first gulf war, it's not even token support.
As to your Al Qaeda "links", we haven't seen the documents. Everyone else on the planet - except Britian - thinks these "links" are a joke.
Fine. Wave around some "scraps" of evidence and the token support.
It only makes my point that much more obvious when it's all that you have. . .
Posted by: Hal at April 3, 2004 07:38 AM
Only about 22% of the allied troops involved in the first Gulf War were from nations other than the U.S. In addition, only 32 or 34 countries sent troops (depending on the source).
In the current conflict at least 33 nations have sent troops. 15% of the total coalition troops in Iraq (154,000 -- 130,000 are American) are from nations other than the U.S.
As you can see, your 10% threshold is easily surpassed. And the overall involvement by other countries is not that far off from the first Gulf War.
Naturally, the media would prefer to make assumptions (the first Gulf War was much more multilateral than the second one) and ignore the facts. That's why you've been hoodwinked into accepting the conventional wisdom.
Next time, examine the facts for yourself before leaping to conclusions, no matter how conveniently prepackaged for you by the "mainstream" media.
Posted by: inkling at April 4, 2004 04:51 AM
Well, you're right. This is actually something I don't really care about at all. And as to the numbers of countries, it's not the NUMBERS that count to me, it's the particular countries. Considering the major population (and our allies) are bound to INDIVIDUAL countries, I find that actually having Russia, China, France, Germany - note only FIVE countries - a very big deal that they're missing in the second gulf war.
So my main point is that you on the right are making category errors - errors confusing the number of thing with, for example, the amount of population represented by those individual things.
Another example of this is using the square area of land that Bush won in the election as being larger than the square area of land that Gore won. This kind of thinking completely and utterly ignores population concentration.
But you're right. In any event it would be the bulk of US troops that would be doing the job.
I still think that we'd have had a hell of a lot more MP's and peace keeper types after the war if we would have actually had real allies instead of two bit countries that only count in the number of countries game, but not in actual political, diplomatic and capability.
Posted by: Hal at April 4, 2004 08:37 AM
How many people actually watch fox seriously?
Posted by: Dan at April 18, 2004 04:07 PM
Way too much.
Posted by: Hal at April 18, 2004 04:27 PM
