the forgotten american dead: rural america paying the ultimate price in iraq

[Herbert Anchovy]

According to [one principal] study, the death rate "for rural soldiers (24 per million adults aged 18 to 59) is 60 [percent] higher than the death rate for those soldiers from cities and suburbs (15 deaths per million)." Of rural areas, Vermont has the highest rate of casualties, followed by Delaware, South Dakota, and Arizona. Only 8 of our states have higher urban than rural death rates.

To put all of this in some kind of crude context, let's consider the Iraqi side of this horrific equation. Just recently, the United Nations announced that in 2006, approximately 34,000 Iraqi civilians were killed. As Jon Weiner pointed out at the Nation Magazine's "The Notion" blog, this was clearly an undercount. Not all the December 2006 figures for the civilian dead were even in when it was toted up; bodies that didn't make it to morgues or hospitals couldn't be counted; embattled areas where officials might have underreported couldn't be dealt with; and, of course, though we don't know how the UN separated combatants from noncombatants, the report "almost certainly omitted deaths of Iraqi policemen, soldiers, insurgent fighters, and members of private militias like the Badr brigade."

Nonetheless, if the Iraqi population is about 27 million, then even that one-year undercount represents more than 0.1% of it. If, as such figures do indicate, total Iraqi deaths since the invasion reached even the low end of the recent Lancet study's estimates -- that is, several hundred thousand dead (and they could well be far higher) -- then we are talking about a country that has already lost at least 1% of its population as direct casualties of the [p]resident's invasion and occupation. (Remove relatively peaceful Iraqi Kurdistan from the equation and these numbers will, of course, look worse.)

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/5068

 

[BYH]

Lee, why do you hate America?

 

[Ben_Hecht]

Look! . . . men kissing!!!?!?!?! . . .

 

[Lamar Mundane]

Demcrats will raise taxes!

 

[Ben_Hecht]

For the top one percent -- ******* right. Any questions?

 

[D-Backs Hack]

Barack Obama's middle name is HUSSEIN!

 

[Football_Bat]

Clinton got a blowjob!

 

[User 1019]

I'm pretty sure no one's forgetting any dead American soldier.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

I'm pretty sure that, barring a miracle pony from the Surge, these numbers are why the Republican candidate is going to crater in 2008.

 

[friend of the friendless]

Sirs, Madames,

Bush is a man of principle. To prove it he's not pandering to his base. He's killing it.

YHS, etc

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

I'm pretty sure no one's forgetting any dead American soldier.

If you think Bush, Cheney and the king's men are thinking about the 3,000-plus dead Americans while riding stick horses through the Texas plains just as fast as any coward could, then you have much more optimism than I do.

Flimsy polyurethane bumper stickers supporting this illegal war do not square with a profound civic grief that is lacking from its creators.

 

[Lamar Mundane]

If you think Bush, Cheney and the king's men are thinking about the 3,000-plus dead Americans while riding stick horses through the Texas plains just as fast as any coward could, then you have much more optimism than I do.

W mentions 3,000 dead on a daily basis, just not the 3,000 he caused and the underreported 36,000 Iraqi civilians that died last year!! That's 12 9/11s and the Iraqis live in constant fear. I bet they thought that would end with Saddam's removal.

Surge was a bad idea for a soft drink, let alone a military strategy.

 

[User 1019]

I'm pretty sure no one's forgetting any dead American soldier.

If you think Bush, Cheney and the king's men are thinking about the 3,000-plus dead Americans while riding stick horses through the Texas plains just as fast as any coward could, then you have much more optimism than I do.

Flimsy polyurethane bumper stickers supporting this illegal war do not square with a profound civic grief that is lacking from its creators.

It's not that I'm optimistic. I'm just not cynical.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

It's not about cynicism, man, it's realism.

 

[User 1019]

And the reality is -- even if it is/was an illegal invasion, the wrong decision by the worst president ever, etc. -- that we're there, we're sending more troops, and leaving ain't on the table right now, no matter how many non-binding resolutions cross Madame Speaker's desk.

 

[heyabbott]

September 17, 1862: 23,000 American casualties at Antietam, Maryland.
June 6, 1944: US losses: 1465 dead, 3184 wounded, 1928 missing and 26 captured.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

Foederal casualties at Antietam are faulty, believed to be much more on both sides.

Just as in the Middle Eastern country shaped like a boot.

We'll never know.

 

[old_tony]

September 17, 1862: 23,000 American casualties at Antietam, Maryland.
June 6, 1944: US losses: 1465 dead, 3184 wounded, 1928 missing and 26 captured.

Hitting the "If-it's-difficult-we-should-run-away" jackals with facts will just get you ridicule.

 

[buckweaver]

And the reality is -- even if it is/was an illegal invasion, the wrong decision by the worst president ever, etc. -- that we're there, we're sending more troops, and leaving ain't on the table right now, no matter how many non-binding resolutions cross Madame Speaker's desk.

The reality also is: we the people do not WANT to send more troops over there. We want the men and women over there now to come home. Now.

 

[Lyman_Bostock]

For a great power to still consider itself to be a great power, it has to win one of these wars at least once in a while.