Tuesday, October 10, 2006

2400+ Iraqi war dead

World War II


The battle of Okinawa (April 1-July 2) - 50,000 American 200,000 Japanese dead

To retake the Philippians from the Japanese - 60,000 dead

Iwo Jima- 6821 American dead estimated 20,000+ Japanese dead.

D-Day- Omaha Beach- 3,000 people in 12 hours.

The Vietnam war. - 50,000 (20/day)

According to the worst war numbers I can find-- from, of all places, a site called antiwar.com -- total dead in the Iraq war on the American side is 2743. Dead from combat: 2235.

What I can't find anywhere are the numbers of the dead in Afghanistan. I did a search, and all I got were Iraq body count sites. I needed to ask a military expert I'm friends with, and he estimates between 350-500, although he thinks it might be even lower than 350. Essentially, it is lower than any war the US has ever fought.

Now, I have a question. People say nothing about the dead in Afghanistan. They do not honor the fallen in Iraq, but carp about the body count. Yet, we have sacrificed less blood in this entire war than in any major battle in World War II.

We lost more men on D-Day- June 6th, 1944- than in the ENTIRE 9/12/01- 10/9/06 timeframe. We lost more people on September 11th than in the whole war.

Why is it that the American dead in Iraq is worth more than the American dead in any other battle? Why is it that protestors crying out about simple numbers care more for Americans than for Iraqis? Why are Iraqis not worth dying for? What makes the Iraqi people LESS special?

Iraqis are so "useless" to the body counters that I've only seen "Iraqi civilians dead" counted... when they count terrorists killed. Are Iraqi civilians really considered the moral equivalent of the terrorists who kill them?

Every human life is precious, every one is special. American soldiers volunteer to be in harm's way. Even a man like Casey Sheehan, son of Cindy Sheehan, believed this, and deliberately stated that he fought for Iraqis.

The US shed blood for Philippinos, Japanese, German Jews, Soviets. Why not Iraqis?

For every one US soldier who has died, approximately 1,000 Iraqis died during Saddam's reign. Are they not worth it?

Even if the most wild, borderline psychotic numbers about Iraqi civilians dead are accurate, [50,000, from http://www.iraqbodycount.net/], taking into account that Saddam killed 80,000 people per year, we have still saved 190,000 civilians. Are they not worth it?

If you truly hate the war, and you cite the body count, what are you saying? Are you saying that Iraqis aren't equal to our men and women? Are you pleading a humanitarian cause for soldiers who volunteered to go into harm's way instead of civilians who get killed by dictators or terrorists?

The lives of our soldiers are not to be thrown away lightly. But to devalue what they fight for, to dismiss the Iraqis being defended, you devalue them. They're in the field to defend the Iraqi people.

People who cite the death toll say they do it to support the troops, but there are troops who want to stay and finish the job. Do they support them? Do these people truly and honestly support and honor THEM?

No honor is given them by throwing Molotov cocktails at police officers to protest the war.

Or by trying to set fire to buildings to "support the troops."

Or by rewriting what our soldiers say.

May I ask, for those of you who cite the death toll as a starting point to rally against the war, why?

I would submit that those people do not give a tinker's damn about the soldiers, but they feel that reducing soldiers to numbers would be good for emotional shock value. Could it be possible that they do not actually belittle the lives of the Iraqis saved, but also the lives of the soldiers lost? After all, how much could a a soldiers death be worth if the lives of 1,000 Iraq civilians just barely equal his life? Isn't his death worthless because the people he died for are all but worthless?

And could it be that these people, so eager to "bring the troops home," care nothing for the dead in Afghanistan? They don't even count in the news cycles. By this math of the human life, as calculated above, does this mean that soldiers who die in Iraq are worth more than those who die in Afghanistan? In which case, how much must an American soldier be worth in Afghani lives?

I would submit that the dead are worth more than their weight in gold, and that the people they've died for are worth just as much. I would also suggest that the protesters who hurl the body count out like so many cold and callous numbers do not care what happens, as long as their agendas are secured.

3 comments:

Captain USpace said...

..
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
never confront Islamists

just let them push you around
change your culture to fit them
..

Pen of Jen said...

Thank you for this post! Excellent!
Jennifer
penofjen.blogspot.com

John said...

They don't give a tinker's damn. It's driven by BDS. They cite the numbers for shock value, and they welcome them for the spiteful glee of being provided with more blood to smear on Bush's face.