The War in Iraq: 6 Years Later

[UGAalum94]

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf

That link just has some interesting data for comparison.

The table that reports active duty deaths by year (1980-2006) is interesting to me as are the tables that present numbers of how many served, were wounded, or died per conflict.

While I'm sad when almost anyone dies under any circumstances (and even the rare exceptions don't make me happy or anything), from a numerical standpoint it's hard to argue that it's a particularly deadly war or even a particularly dangerous (in terms of the percentage wounded) war as wars go.

Even if you aren't crazy about why we went to war, unless you were just exceptionally pissed about Arch Duke Ferdinand, we're still doing much better in Iraq than we did in WWI. It's hard to think of much more senseless slaughter than WWI. We lost more than 100,000 guys in less than a year and a half.

I hate that I'm probably coming off as all, "well whatever, it's no Pacific theater in WWII, who cares?" But when people want to discuss numbers in Iraq, I feel like they should have to mention that we lose 700-1000 people in the military in a year when aren't actually engaged in wars.

It's a dangerous job in the best of circumstances.

[Zephyrus]

I'm all for the Iraqi war. I don't think Bush gets enough credit for his actions in Iraq. It's all negative bullsht. It's looks fked now, but give it another 20 years and watch his ratings go up. They said the same bullsht about Truman. He turned out to be a good president. Think about it people. If Bush wouldn't have gotten rid of Saddam, then he would have attacked Israel and that's when the sht would have hit the fking fan. We're over in Iraq and will stay there from now on. Just like we are in Germany. We've been there since WWII.

[moe.ron]

Originally Posted by Zephyrus

If Bush wouldn't have gotten rid of Saddam, then he would have attacked Israel and that's when the sht would have hit the fking fan.

Wha? I've herd of WMD and Democracy argument, but never herd of this one.

[Zephyrus]

Originally Posted by moe.ron

Wha? I've herd of WMD and Democracy argument, but never herd of this one.

WTF??? You don't think Saddam would have attacked Israel???

[moe.ron]

Originally Posted by Zephyrus

WTF??? You don't think Saddam would have attacked Israel???

Uhm, no . . . he couldn't even attack the Kurd area. You really think he could've attacked Israel? With what weaponry? Let me guess, the WMD that could've hit Europe in 45 minutes?

[Zephyrus]

Originally Posted by moe.ron

Uhm, no . . . he couldn't even attack the Kurd area. You really think he could've attacked Israel? With what weaponry? Let me guess, the WMD that could've hit Europe in 45 minutes?

He probably wouldn't be successful at it, but all it would take is an attempt on his part to cause a war.

[kstar]

Originally Posted by Zephyrus

He probably wouldn't be successful at it, but all it would take is an attempt on his part to cause a war.

And it would take Israel less than 6 days to shut him down, we've been there 6 YEARS.

[moe.ron]

Originally Posted by Zephyrus

He probably wouldn't be successful at it, but all it would take is an attempt on his part to cause a war.

There is no evidence whatsoever that he had the ability or even the intention to attack Israel. There was more evidence that WMD was in Iraq and he could've sent the WMD to europe in 45 minutes, which was all false and close to lies.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

While I'm sad when almost anyone dies under any circumstances (and even the rare exceptions don't make me happy or anything), from a numerical standpoint it's hard to argue that it's a particularly deadly war or even a particularly dangerous (in terms of the percentage wounded) war as wars go.

Even if you aren't crazy about why we went to war, unless you were just exceptionally pissed about Arch Duke Ferdinand, we're still doing much better in Iraq than we did in WWI. It's hard to think of much more senseless slaughter than WWI. We lost more than 100,000 guys in less than a year and a half.

I hate that I'm probably coming off as all, "well whatever, it's no Pacific theater in WWII, who cares?" But when people want to discuss numbers in Iraq, I feel like they should have to mention that we lose 700-1000 people in the military in a year when aren't actually engaged in wars.

It's a dangerous job in the best of circumstances.

Yes, there are fewer deaths in the War on Terror than in previous wars, but that's due in part to the fact that there have been major advances in medical treatment. Injuries that may have proven fatal in WWII or even Vietnam are survivable now. Also, the nature of the combat has changed, where the weapons--on both sides--are far more precise in their target than ever before.

Also, for the generations born just after the Vietnam War or who don't live with the shadows of Vietnam, this is our "first war," so it may seem like a lot of people regardless of how you feel about the war.

[VandalSquirrel]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

Yes, there are fewer deaths in the War on Terror than in previous wars, but that's due in part to the fact that there have been major advances in medical treatment. Injuries that may have proven fatal in WWII or even Vietnam are survivable now. Also, the nature of the combat has changed, where the weapons--on both sides--are far more precise in their target than ever before.

Also, for the generations born just after the Vietnam War or who don't live with the shadows of Vietnam, this is our "first war," so it may seem like a lot of people regardless of how you feel about the war.

You are very correct about injuries and deaths. The two things that changed survival rates the most are helicopters and antibiotics (firstly penicillin). Vietnam was the first US involvement with regular use of helicopters and that changed the survival rate of soldiers immensely, also there are many other advances in technology (medical, transportation, and communications) that increase survival rates of injured soldiers.

[AGDee]

Should we mention the number of Iraqi civillians who have been killed? This web site has been trying to keep a count and have it at somewhere between 92,000 and 99,000.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

[Forgotten Zeta]

Originally Posted by AGDee

Should we mention the number of Iraqi civillians who have been killed? This web site has been trying to keep a count and have it at somewhere between 92,000 and 99,000.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

the website defines a civilian as a non-combatant but during this war most of the attacks on coalition forces were from people who wore no uniforms so how accurate can it really be? also, it just give a number of deaths since the beginning of the war, how many were from violent acts committed by other iraqis? between ied's and suicide bombers many civilians were killed and last i checked the army wasn't using either of those methods. not to mention that this website is propaganda for an anti-war movement so i'm not putting too much stake in it.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

Yes, there are fewer deaths in the War on Terror than in previous wars, but that's due in part to the fact that there have been major advances in medical treatment. Injuries that may have proven fatal in WWII or even Vietnam are survivable now. Also, the nature of the combat has changed, where the weapons--on both sides--are far more precise in their target than ever before.

Also, for the generations born just after the Vietnam War or who don't live with the shadows of Vietnam, this is our "first war," so it may seem like a lot of people regardless of how you feel about the war.

Originally Posted by VandalSquirrel

You are very correct about injuries and deaths. The two things that changed survival rates the most are helicopters and antibiotics (firstly penicillin). Vietnam was the first US involvement with regular use of helicopters and that changed the survival rate of soldiers immensely, also there are many other advances in technology (medical, transportation, and communications) that increase survival rates of injured soldiers.

No doubt.

But it's still a low number of injuries or deaths especially considering the length of the US involvement. We don't simply have fewer deaths and an equal number of injuries. We have fewer casualties generally. I'd expect that we'd show that even if we adjusted for the number of people involved, but I'm not eager to do that math. (ETA: The data does have a ratio of deaths vs. injuries in one of the later graphics. What a morbid stat: but it was about 1:1.8 for WWI and it's 1:7.4 for Iraqi Freedom.)

This isn’t attempted commentary on the morality of the war, but quoting the number of injured or dead isn’t a particularly effective anti-war commentary, unless you're just an absolute pacifist.


EATA: it's interesting that the Vietnam survival observation doesn't seem to bear out compared to Korea, unless there were more helicopters in Korea than Vandal Squirrel was thinking. Look at CSR-9 http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf.
Maybe that ratio isn't really showing what we're talking about. You'd need some measure of the seriousness of injuries survived, I guess.

[VandalSquirrel]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

No doubt.

But it's still a low number of injuries or deaths especially considering the length of the US involvement. We don't simply have fewer deaths and an equal number of injuries. We have fewer casualties generally. I'd expect that we'd show that even if we adjusted for the number of people involved, but I'm not eager to do that math. (ETA: The data does have a ratio of deaths vs. injuries in one of the later graphics. What a morbid stat: but it was about 1:1.8 for WWI and it's 1:7.4 for Iraqi Freedom.)

This isn’t attempted commentary on the morality of the war, but quoting the number of injured or dead isn’t a particularly effective anti-war commentary, unless you're just an absolute pacifist.


EATA: it's interesting that the Vietnam survival observation doesn't seem to bear out compared to Korea, unless there were more helicopters in Korea than Vandal Squirrel was thinking. Look at CSR-9 http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf.
Maybe that ratio isn't really showing what we're talking about. You'd need some measure of the seriousness of injuries survived, I guess.

Well look at the length of involvement, Korea was 3 years, Vietnam was 9 (according to that link). Just rough number, if Korea lasted as long, multiply the deaths by three, it would have been 109,722, and Vietnam for 9 years was at 58,209, almost half. In the ten years between the two engagements technology improved the use of the helicopter immensely. Just look at the difference between the size and capacities of a Korean era Bell H and a Vietnam era Huey.

http://www.korean-war.com/KWAircraft.../bell_h13.html

http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/man/...otary/uh1.html

[Zephyrus]

Originally Posted by moe.ron

I don't disagree that leaving Iraq would be a disaster. Bush finally got it later on his administration, which is why you saw a lot of the neo-cons being swept out of power, with Wolfowitz being moved into the World Bank and Rumsfeld being replazed by Gates.

Listen, Hussein was a thug and he played chicken with Bush. He didn't factor in the psyched of the American mind after 9/11. If he played a long with Bush and open up, he would still be in power, right now or his son would've replaced him. Instead, he played chicken and lost.

Before 9/11, neo-con always had the plan to invade Iraq and try out this domino theory of spreading democracy in the middle east. The whole thing was written, look for it. However, back then they didn't have a reason to invade Iraq. Sanction was working and Saddam's army wasn't moving. Did you know that there was a deal between the regular armed forces and the Bush admin that when Saddam fell, the regular army would stay still and become the guard.

Remmember, Saddam himself didn't trust the regular armed forces, that is why he created the Republican Guard. However, when Bremmer came into power as the viceroy of Iraq, he didn't keep his word and instead broke a part the Iraqi military. Guess what happen, you have thousands of jobless, highly trained individuals with guns. They're all pissed that the promises wasn't kept. They became the insurgent. Not the same insurgents from Al-Qaeda though. Just pissed off, highly trained military folks.

I don't disagree with any of this. The only part I'm not familiar with was Saddam playing chicken with Bush. I can see that now. Kruschev tried that shit with Kennedy during the Cuban Missle Crisis. I still feel Bush did the right thing. After 911, he said there will be a war on terror. I think to most people that it sounds like an intangible thing, and it is to a degree, but eventually people will see the progress. It just takes time. I know this sounds sick as fuck but I honestly think we need to take out a lot of the leaders in the Middle East one by one. Iran is another potential problem, and why is Saudi Arabia our friends? Those guys who hijacked those planes were all Saudis. No one in that region, with the exception of Israel, likes the United States, so why should we give a shit about them? Dude, I don't think he could have played along with Bush. I think Bush was ready to take him out long before 911.