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Number of US casualties in Iraq dropping sharply

Matteo Martini

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http://icasualties.org/oif/US_chart.aspx

I have no idea if this has been posted before, but it seems that things in Iraq are improving, but as the US number of casualties is declining, and as the number of Iraqis getting killed is also declining

7th month in a row with US troops deaths declining
 
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While it is heartening to see that fewer people are dying, and by implication fewer are being injured, I don't think you can draw the conclusion that "things in Iraq are improving" as a general statement. Perhaps more accurately, things are improving in Iraq for the US forces.
 
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Zep said:
While it is heartening to see that fewer people are dying, and by implication fewer are being injured, I don't think you can draw the conclusion that "things in Iraq are improving" as a general statement. Perhaps more accurately, things are improving in Iraq for the US forces.
Click to expand...

Well, it seems that the number or civilians Iraqi getting killed is getting smaller by the day
 
Yes, I've read about this before. Unfortunately I cannot find that article among my bookmarks. However, I remember the main theme, which was that the US army and local elders fed up with the destruction have begun to cooperate in many areas in Iraq.

ETA: I honestly hope the Democratic candidates will resist the temptation to beat each other in the the discipline of promising the swiftest pulling out of Iraq. It's important to get this finished properly, no matter who started it and why. The declining numbers of casualties will hopefully make it easier to do the right thing here.
 
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danielk said:
ETA: I honestly hope the Democratic candidates will resist the temptation to beat each other in the the discipline of promising the swiftest pulling out of Iraq. It's important to get this finished properly, no matter who started it and why. The declining numbers of casualties will hopefully make it easier to do the right thing here.
Click to expand...

According to many, did the US pull out the troops tomorrow, there would be no blood bath at all ( at least, nothing worse than it is now ). Vietnam is an example.
 
Matteo Martini said:
According to many, did the US pull out the troops tomorrow, there would be no blood bath at all ( at least, nothing worse than it is now ). Vietnam is an example.
Click to expand...
Yes, I know there are people who say that. But let's be real here. The Iraq is not Vietnam, and I have a hard time believing that pulling out at this point would solve anything. Sounds more like wishful thinking to me.

Also, this has nothing to do with whether the war was justified or not. I for one believe that, all in all, this war was a bad idea. But I also firmly believe the US troops need to stay now until this is sorted out.
 
danielk said:
Yes, I know there are people who say that. But let's be real here. The Iraq is not Vietnam, and I have a hard time believing that pulling out at this point would solve anything. Sounds more like wishful thinking to me.
Click to expand...

We do not know what will happen if the US pulls out tomorrow.
But, after 4 years of war, I have a hard time thinking that a pullout could make things worse

danielk said:
Also, this has nothing to do with whether the war was justified or not. I for one believe that, all in all, this war was a bad idea.
Click to expand...

I think it was a crime.
 
Matteo Martini said:
We do not know what will happen if the US pulls out tomorrow.
But, after 4 years of war, I have a hard time thinking that a pullout could make things worse
Click to expand...
Well, I think it's more likely to get better with the US troops staying. Pulling out at this point just seems irresponsible to me. The thing is, the people I've heard argue for pulling out immediately seem to be the usual suspects, who only argue that way because it fits their political roles. I'm still waiting for a convincing case to be made.

Matteo Martini said:
I think it was a crime.
Click to expand...
Ah, well. If international law wasn't so horribly inadequate I'd be inclined to agree. Unfortunately it is.
 
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danielk said:
Well, I think it's more likely to get better with the US troops staying. Pulling out at this point just seems irresponsible to me. The thing is, the people I've heard argue for pulling out immediately seem to be the usual suspects, who only argue that way because it fits their political roles. I'm still waiting for a convincing case to be made.
Click to expand...

I understand, even if I do not agree.

danielk said:
Ah, well. If international law wasn't so horribly inadequate I'd be inclined to agree. Unfortunately it is.
Click to expand...

I think that the Iraqi war was totally useless, non-sensical, not linked to 9/11, not linked to WMD, and linked to oil ( as Greenspan said ), but I would like not to write more on this..
 
danielk said:
Yes, I've read about this before. Unfortunately I cannot find that article among my bookmarks. However, I remember the main theme, which was that the US army and local elders fed up with the destruction have begun to cooperate in many areas in Iraq.

ETA: I honestly hope the Democratic candidates will resist the temptation to beat each other in the the discipline of promising the swiftest pulling out of Iraq. It's important to get this finished properly, no matter who started it and why. The declining numbers of casualties will hopefully make it easier to do the right thing here.
Click to expand...
A close friend and neighbor is blogging from Fallujah right now. He has written a few really good articles on the changing situation in Iraq, especially when he was there earlier this year when the surge first took affect. There are several reasons, one of which is just timing and the fact that the troops changed their strategy from "small footprint" to a more hands on approach. Most importantly of course, the death rate of civilians has declined dramatically. His stories from Fallujah are far more depressing than the fairly uplifting stories from Ramadi .
http://www.michaeltotten.com/
Another Article by Mike on the surge in NY daily news:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2007/08/29/2007-08-29_frontline_lessons_from_the_iraq_surge.html
 
Interesting news. The report of declining US casualties is heartening, but far more heartening is decreasing civilian deaths.

If Iraqis really have grown tired of killing each other (or of having foreigners kill Iraqis) that's a huge step in the right direction.

-Gumboot
 
One element affecting the declining death rates is that in many areas, the insurgents have won. Sunnis have successfully killed or expelled all the Shiites in some neighborhoods, and Shiites have successfully killed or expelled all the Sunnis from some neighborhoods. Having accomplished their goals, they have run out of targets. Not sure if this is a cause for celebration though.

The Titanic is no longer in danger of sinking...
 
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Random said:
One element affecting the declining death rates is that in many areas, the insurgents have won. Sunnis have successfully killed or expelled all the Shiites in some neighborhoods, and Shiites have successfully killed or expelled all the Sunnis from some neighborhoods. Having accomplished their goals, they have run out of targets. Not sure if this is a cause for celebration though.

The Titanic is no longer in danger of sinking...
Click to expand...
Yeah, after the ethnic and religious sect cleansing is complete in an area, there's little reason to start killing members of your own ethnic or religious group.

Plus, the "declining death rates" claim is misleading. This has been the bloodiest year of the war for the troops. These numbers don't include contractors.

Don't forget the fact that the numbers have been cooked to pretend that Iraqi casualties are down, by reclassifying deaths so that they don't have to be counted.
 
Oliver said:
If you completely ignore the casualties and the false reason
to invade the country, it is.
Click to expand...
Ah, so you're one of those people who believes in that mythical beast - the casualty-free war.

Oh wait: Triple Iraq bombings kill at least 26
Click to expand...
You seem to have me confused with someone who claimed the war was over. Or are you trying to say that this proves the last seven months are phony? Using your reasoning, I'll say that global warming is phony because we had unseasonably cold weather here earlier this week.

Anyway: Iraq is a shame for America IMHO. Those "good
news" from Iraq doesn't change my and others disappointment.
Click to expand...
But on balance, you consider this good news.

Some Dems see it as a "problem":

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Monday that a strongly positive report on progress on Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party's efforts to press for a timetable to end the war.

Clyburn, in an interview with the washingtonpost.com video program PostTalk, said Democrats might be wise to wait for the Petraeus report, scheduled to be delivered in September, before charting next steps in their year-long struggle with President Bush over the direction of U.S. strategy.

(...snip...)

"...if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us," Clyburn said. "We, by and large, would be wise to wait on the report."
Click to expand...
But the Dems didn't do that. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha were quick to proclaim the surge was a failure, Reid going so far as to say the war was "lost." And now that the surge appears to be working, Clyburn's prophecy is coming true:

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), one of the leading anti-war voices in the House Democratic Caucus, is back from a trip to Iraq and he now says the "surge is working." This could be a huge problem for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic leaders, who are blocking approval of the full $200 billion being sought by President Bush for combat operations in Iraq in 2008, and Murtha's comments are a stark reversal from what he said earlier in the year.
Click to expand...
So I guess the answer to my question, "This is good news, right?" depends on whether or not you rushed forward to yell "The surge isn't working! All is lost!" while the issue was still in doubt.
 
BPSCG said:
Ah, so you're one of those people who believes in that mythical beast - the casualty-free war.

You seem to have me confused with someone who claimed the war was over. Or are you trying to say that this proves the last seven months are phony? Using your reasoning, I'll say that global warming is phony because we had unseasonably cold weather here earlier this week.

But on balance, you consider this good news.

Some Dems see it as a "problem":

But the Dems didn't do that. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha were quick to proclaim the surge was a failure, Reid going so far as to say the war was "lost." And now that the surge appears to be working, Clyburn's prophecy is coming true:

So I guess the answer to my question, "This is good news, right?" depends on whether or not you rushed forward to yell "The surge isn't working! All is lost!" while the issue was still in doubt.
Click to expand...


No, I believe in the Casualties-filled lies. Based on facts.

I honestly don't care about bad or good news about the war.
It was a failure from the beginning - and to say "Hey look, we're
winning" doesn't compensate this fact.

Who cares about Dem's and Rep's - I see no difference
about those two parties regarding the war. Sure, they
complain about it to make an opposing impression. But
they don't act like that.

And you believe there is a opposition between Dem's and
Rep's if they don't even act differently about such an
important issue? .... *lol* You guys are funny as [censored] Seriously. :D
 
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BPSCG said:
So I guess the answer to my question, "This is good news, right?" depends on whether or not you rushed forward to yell "The surge isn't working! All is lost!" while the issue was still in doubt.
Click to expand...

I agree but, as skeptics, we know full well that people will forget these misses.
 
Well, the surge utterly failed, the invasion and occupation has been a disaster for years now, and there are still people who believe the White House and their lies and half-truths? Really?

Same folks who still believe the WMD lie as well... glorious times we live in.
 
Tailgater said:
Huh? Vietnam is the example for no blood bath?

Wow, just wow.
Click to expand...


Just imagine the US never invaded Vietnam and just blew
away the opposing force. It would've saved millions of lives.

US interventions never were about morality or foreign lives.
That's the point.

Even if Kosovo may have been about that - I never researched
this point of history that much.
 
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JoeEllison said:
Well, the surge utterly failed, the invasion and occupation has been a disaster for years now, and there are still people who believe the White House and their lies and half-truths? Really?

Same folks who still believe the WMD lie as well... glorious times we live in.
Click to expand...
Are you trying to convince people of something? I ask because I don't feel you're doing a particularly good job, if that's indeed your goal.
 
Oliver said:
Just imagine the US never invaded Vietnam and just blew
away the opposing force. It would've saved millions of lives.

US interventions never were about morality or foreign lives.
That's the point.

Even if Kosovo may have been about that - I never researched
this point of history that much.
Click to expand...

That's not what he said.
 
JoeEllison said:
Don't forget the fact that the numbers have been cooked to pretend that Iraqi casualties are down, by reclassifying deaths so that they don't have to be counted.
Click to expand...
I'd like to see you support that assertion with facts. This charge was brought up in the Congressional hearings back in September, and soundly slammed.

Do you have some supporting data, which I would find of considerable interest, or is this the usual "assumption of wrongdoing by accusation" game being played?

As noted above, the decline in the butcher's bill is not necessarily a cause effect relationship betwen surge and pre surge. The points on neighborhood cleansing and other factors have to be taken into account. Also needing consideration is the million to two million Iraqis who fled the country.

How do they get to come home? Where do they get to live? Odds are, their old neighborhoods are not going to welcome them. The silence on that score is deafening.

It is also worth noting that this trend is still, in the context of the war, a short term change. I take little encouragement from it.

DR
 
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Oliver said:
Even if Kosovo may have been about that - I never researched
this point of history that much.
Click to expand...

It was a Nato intervention, and the only reason anything was done about it, was because it was in your backyard.

from wiki said:
The legitimacy of NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo has been the subject of much debate. NATO did not have the backing of the United Nations Security Council to use force in Yugoslavia but justified its actions on the basis of an "international humanitarian emergency". Criticism was also drawn by the fact that the NATO charter specifies that NATO is an organization created for defence of its members, but in this case it was used to attack a non-NATO country which was not directly threatening any NATO member. NATO countered this argument by claiming that instability in the Balkans was a direct threat to the security interests of NATO members, and military action was therefore justified by the NATO charter.
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Threat? What threat? LOL

Of course, this war was the fault of the US too....

Many on the left of Western politics saw the NATO campaign as U.S. aggression and imperialism, while critics on the right considered it irrelevant to their countries' national security interests.
Click to expand...

Win! win!
 
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Tailgater said:
That's not what he said.
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That's actually true. Even if I doubt that he actually meant
it the way he assumed - at least I think he has a good heart
but probably may have flawed facts.
 
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danielk said:
Are you trying to convince people of something? I ask because I don't feel you're doing a particularly good job, if that's indeed your goal.
Click to expand...

Do I think I can break through decades of lies and propaganda? Not bloody likely. You have the same access to evidence that I do. Why not use it?
 
Oliver, you don't need to
hit carriage return at
the end of every line
as you type it in the
edit box. It will wrap
automatically.
 
Beerina said:
Oliver, you don't need to
hit carriage return at
the end of every line
as you type it in the
edit box. It will wrap
automatically.
Click to expand...
Unless you have one of those horizonless, transcontinental German words like grammaphonegesselschaftfahrfegnugenbildernreichshimmelssofahrtesunsverhiessenschlugmeistersingernvonnurnburggotterdammerungdasrheingold.

In which case sometimes it does its own word wrap and unaccountably sticks a space in the middle somewheres, and sometimes it just trails off into the infinite.
 
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JoeEllison said:
Do I think I can break through decades of lies and propaganda? Not bloody likely. You have the same access to evidence that I do. Why not use it?
Click to expand...
Translation: I got nothing but some wild accusations.
 
Beerina said:
Oliver, you don't need to
hit carriage return at
the end of every line
as you type it in the
edit box. It will wrap
automatically.
Click to expand...


I know - but I'm a media designer and as such, it's pretty
impolite to violate the science of "comfortable sentence
length for monitor texts". :D

Anyway: Do you think the number of casualties is a success
for America - or rather a limitation in shame and damage of
Americas reputation?
 
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Oliver said:
Anyway: Do you think the number of casualties is a success for America - or rather a limitation in shame and damage of Americas reputation?
Click to expand...
Are you trying to claim that success or failure in a war can be measured by lives lost? If so, consider the following:
  • Gettysburg - 8,000 American soldiers killed in three days
  • Sharpsburg - 3,700 American soldiers killed in one day
  • Iwo Jima - 6,800 American soldiers killed February 19 - March 25, 1944
  • Cold Harbor - 11,000 American soldiers killed or wounded in twenty minutes
If you are claiming that success or failure in a war can be measured by lives lost, then you are staking out the ludicrous ground that the Iraq war has been a greater success than Gettysburg, even a greater success than the entire American Civil War.
 
Oliver said:
US interventions never were about morality or foreign lives.
That's the point.
Click to expand...


Well we all know the USA went into Somalia to steal their oil! And they sent troops to Lebanon to rob them of their vast coal deposits. And as for Bosnia, one word. Gold!

Oh wait...

-Gumboot
 
Matteo Martini said:
According to many, did the US pull out the troops tomorrow, there would be no blood bath at all ( at least, nothing worse than it is now ). Vietnam is an example.
Click to expand...
Vietnam after the US pulled out was hardly a paradise on earth. One source:

" Vietnam, post-war Communist regime (1975 et seq.): 430 000

* Jacqueline Desbarats and Karl Jackson ("Vietnam 1975-1982: The Cruel Peace", in The Washington Quarterly, Fall 1985) estimated that there had been around 65,000 executions. This number is repeated in the Sept. 1985 Dept. of State Bulletin article on Vietnam.
* Orange County Register (29 April 2001): 1 million sent to camps and 165,000 died.
* Northwest Asian Weekly (5 July 1996): 150,000-175,000 camp prisoners unaccounted for.
* Estimates for the number of Boat People who died:
o Elizabeth Becker (When the War Was Over, 1986) cites the UN High Commissioner on Refugees: 250,000 boat people died at sea; 929,600 reached asylum
o The 20 July 1986 San Diego Union-Tribune cites the UN Refugee Commission: 200,000 to 250,000 boat people had died at sea since 1975.
o The 3 Aug. 1979 Washington Post cites the Australian immigration minister's estimate that 200,000 refugees had died at sea since 1975.
+ Also: "Some estimates have said that around half of those who set out do not survive."
o The 1991 Information Please Almanac cites unspecified "US Officials" that 100,000 boat people died fleeing Vietnam.
o Hanson, Victor Davis, Carnage and culture (2001): 50,000-100,000
o Encarta estimates that 0.5M fled, and 10-15% died, for a death toll of 50-75,000.
o Nayan Chanda, Brother Enemy (1986): ¼M Chinese refugees in two years, 30,000 to 40,000 of whom died at sea. (These numbers also repeated by Marilyn Young, The Vietnam Wars: 1945-1990 (1991))
* Rummel
o Vietnamese democide: 1,040,000 (1975-87)
+ Executions: 100,000
+ Camp Deaths: 95,000
+ Forced Labor: 48,000
+ Democides in Cambodia: 460,000
+ Democides in Laos: 87,000
+ Boat People: 500,000 deaths (50% not blamed on the Vietnamese govt.)
* ANALYSIS: I'd say the most likely total would be 430,000. That's 65,000 executions + 165,000 camp deaths + 200,000 boat people. It's unlikely that VN alone caused 460+87T democides in Cambodia + Laos since estimates of the total deaths in these conflicts only run to a half million or so."

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat3.htm
 
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BPSCG said:
Are you trying to claim that success or failure in a war can be measured by lives lost? If so, consider the following:
  • Gettysburg - 8,000 American soldiers killed in three days
  • Sharpsburg - 3,700 American soldiers killed in one day
  • Iwo Jima - 6,800 American soldiers killed February 19 - March 25, 1944
  • Cold Harbor - 11,000 American soldiers killed or wounded in twenty minutes
If you are claiming that success or failure in a war can be measured by lives lost, then you are staking out the ludicrous ground that the Iraq war has been a greater success than Gettysburg, even a greater success than the entire American Civil War.
Click to expand...

Apparently, the 500000-1.2millions Iraqi deaths do not count
 
Random said:
One element affecting the declining death rates is that in many areas, the insurgents have won. Sunnis have successfully killed or expelled all the Shiites in some neighborhoods, and Shiites have successfully killed or expelled all the Sunnis from some neighborhoods. Having accomplished their goals, they have run out of targets. Not sure if this is a cause for celebration though.

The Titanic is no longer in danger of sinking...
Click to expand...


This is an important issue to consider. Also consider:

Is the Iraqi Government improved,,,this was the rationalization for the surge

Lower rates of death might not sound good to those still dying

Iraq has been a disaster for America's image around the world

Iraq is still a rallying call for bringing new converts to radical causes

The dollar cost has just begun, and it is already a disaster

There is no good way out and it's not a good idea to stay

Finally, I'm not a fan of the "Things are getting better because thery are getting worse at a slower rate" theory
 
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