Democracy Has Prevailed.

August 2, 2007

Iraq Numbers In Perspective

Think Progress puts it better than I could, so here it is:

At least 73 U.S. troops are reported to have died in Iraq this past month. The numbers are a decline from the all-time highs of 108, 131, and 117 from the previous three months.

Media reports herald the statistics as encouraging and as demonstrating “steady progress” in Iraq. Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno said that the lower death toll was a “positive sign.”

According to icasualties.org, at least 3,653 U.S. troops have died in the 53 months that the war has been going on — a per monthly rate of nearly 69 U.S. troop casualties. Thus, the current month’s total still exceeds the average monthly casualty rate of the entire war. [emphasis added]

They even have a chart showing that "73 is also greater than the average monthly casualty rate of each of the first four years of the war."
2003 - 48.6 per month
2004 - 70.8 per month
2005 - 70.5 per month
2006 - 68.5 per month
2007 - 92.9 per month
What a bloody mess.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are the Sunnis now saying to each other, "Don't worry. The American invasion is in its last throes?"

Social Justice NPC Anti-Paladin™ said...


By The Numbers

Chuck Simmins of TDW had been toiling away diligently, recording the deaths of terrorists as reported by MNF-I flaks. Turns out, they weren’t reporting them all. Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno had a press conference recently, largely ignored by the press, in which he reported 3,184 terrorists killed since January 2007, and another 1,018 wounded. Simmins took that number, subtracted the ones he had already logged to avoid duplication, and then averaged them out over the last six months. Turns out our soldiers are killing terrorists at a rate of up to 10 to 1.

AP likes death numbers. Why doesn’t AP like these death numbers? I read AP’s Iraq copy every working night. I have not seen these numbers in the AP copy that comes across my screen.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure you had a point in mind when you posted that, Mein Heir. Care to share your thoughts with us? Or did you think we goddam libruls just needed a fresh dose of right-wing idiocy?

Anonymous said...

Good to have at least one resident wingnut back. Can you please define "terrorist" for me, as used in the unadorned-by-commentary "news" you provided?

And, gee, why would anybody doubt the veracity of the military leadership in Iraq right now? Maybe it's all of those "top" al Qaeda leaders we've apparently killed twice? Or the inability to explain how NFL-players-turned-soldiers were killed and then hiding behind "executive privelege" rather than just tell the truth incidents?

Just because you can use the intertubes, heir, doesn't mean you should.

Sherry Pasquarello said...

amen to that.

Anonymous said...

As ridiculous as Master Lie is, he at least has the stones to hang around and debate his points. (Although we could certainly debate about whether he debates.) The most damning indication of trollism is exemplified by Mein Heir who drops into a thread, takes a bowel movement, and leaves before he can even smell it.

It's cowardly behavior; it's despicable; but he learned it from the masters: People like O'Reilly and Limbaugh who control access to their shows the way Scrooge McDuck controls access to his money.