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We pissed nothing away invading those two.

Iraq: 4400 American lives lost - some of whom were people some of us knew and loved - in the service of a falsely-premised, bullshit-justified war. So fuck you.

Oh, and if you care about that sort of thing, we also pissed away $1.1 trillion in Iraq. Which is, like, kind of a incredible shit-ton of money.

Also, fuck you again for diminishing the loss of the thousands of American personnel and hundreds of thousands (if not more) of Iraqi civilians who died.

The Russian military suffered over 14,000 killed in Afghanistan and over 53,000 wounded.

The Coalition military (mostly US) suffered 4,804 killed in Iraq and 32,223 wounded; and 3,468 killed in Afghanistan and 17,674 wounded. That's less than Russia suffered in Afghanistan, but it's remarkably close - less than the order-of-magnitude I was expecting.

Not really. Its 3.4K US/UK/CA/etc vs 14.4K RU. Russia lost 4.2 times as many troops in a shorter war with an army nearly 3 times larger than what the US and its coalition had.

You can't add in Iraq since that it an entirely separate war. As was Russia's second Chechen War ('99-'09) etc.

The Russian military suffered over 14,000 killed in Afghanistan and over 53,000 wounded.

The Coalition military (mostly US) suffered 4,804 killed in Iraq and 32,223 wounded; and 3,468 killed in Afghanistan and 17,674 wounded. That's less than Russia suffered in Afghanistan, but it's remarkably close - less than the order-of-magnitude I was expecting.

Not really. Its 3.4K US/UK/CA/etc vs 14.4K RU. Russia lost 4.2 times as many troops in a shorter war with an army nearly 3 times larger than what the US and its coalition had.

You can't add in Iraq since that it an entirely separate war. As was Russia's second Chechen War ('99-'09) etc.

The Russian military suffered over 14,000 killed in Afghanistan and over 53,000 wounded.

The Coalition military (mostly US) suffered 4,804 killed in Iraq and 32,223 wounded; and 3,468 killed in Afghanistan and 17,674 wounded. That's less than Russia suffered in Afghanistan, but it's remarkably close - less than the order-of-magnitude I was expecting.

Not really. Its 3.4K US/UK/CA/etc vs 14.4K RU. Russia lost 4.2 times as many troops in a shorter war with an army nearly 3 times larger than what the US and its coalition had.

You can't add in Iraq since that it an entirely separate war. As was Russia's second Chechen War ('99-'09) etc.

The Russian military suffered over 14,000 killed in Afghanistan and over 53,000 wounded.

The Coalition military (mostly US) suffered 4,804 killed in Iraq and 32,223 wounded; and 3,468 killed in Afghanistan and 17,674 wounded. That's less than Russia suffered in Afghanistan, but it's remarkably close - less than the order-of-magnitude I was expecting.

Not really. Its 3.4K US/UK/CA/etc vs 14.4K RU. Russia lost 4.2 times as many troops in a shorter war with an army nearly 3 times larger than what the US and its coalition had.

You can't add in Iraq since that it an entirely separate war. As was Russia's second Chechen War ('99-'09) etc.

The Russian military suffered over 14,000 killed in Afghanistan and over 53,000 wounded.

The Coalition military (mostly US) suffered 4,804 killed in Iraq and 32,223 wounded; and 3,468 killed in Afghanistan and 17,674 wounded. That's less than Russia suffered in Afghanistan, but it's remarkably close - less than the order-of-magnitude I was expecting.

The Russian military suffered over 14,000 killed in Afghanistan and over 53,000 wounded.

The Coalition military (mostly US) suffered 4,804 killed in Iraq and 32,223 wounded; and 3,468 killed in Afghanistan and 17,674 wounded. That's less than Russia suffered in Afghanistan, but it's remarkably close - less than the order-of-magnitude I was expecting.

The Russian military suffered over 14,000 killed in Afghanistan and over 53,000 wounded.

The Coalition military (mostly US) suffered 4,804 killed in Iraq and 32,223 wounded; and 3,468 killed in Afghanistan and 17,674 wounded. That's less than Russia suffered in Afghanistan, but it's remarkably close - less than the order-of-magnitude I was expecting.

The Russian military suffered over 14,000 killed in Afghanistan and over 53,000 wounded.

The Coalition military (mostly US) suffered 4,804 killed in Iraq and 32,223 wounded; and 3,468 killed in Afghanistan and 17,674 wounded. That's less than Russia suffered in Afghanistan, but it's remarkably close - less than the order-of-magnitude I was expecting.

One word: Afghanistan. Hundreds of casualties on his watch. About 2/3 of total Afghanistan casualties are owned by him.

Seems like your boy Obama is in the prosthetics business, too.

Yep no wars. No one was shot and killed. No one is fighting against the US. We are at peace. No bombs going off inside our borders. No one killing our ambassadors. There aren't newly armed nuclear armed missiles being aimed at Hawaii. We sit around signing together. Happy happy happy. http://icasualties.org/oef/Fatalities.aspx

I was explicitly talking about escalation of the war in Afghanistan. So I talked about fatalities caused by hostile action in Afghanistan.

If the US quadrupled the number of troops it had in Japan, there would be an increase in the number of US troops killed in Japan, but that wouldn't tell you anything about a war being escalated (since there is no war in Japan to escalate); it would just be evidence that you get more fatal accidents in a country when you have more people in a country. On the other hand, deaths caused by hostile action tells you about how much more intense a war is.

Similarly, whatever happens in Iraq doesn't say anything about what's happening in Afghanistan, and so doesn't say anything about an Afghanistan escalation. It's like saying, "Truman presided over a great reduction in US casualties in Germany, so it's unfair to say he got into a war in Korea". Say what? Again, the point was to show there was a general escalation in Afghanistan, as opposed to a transitory spike during a few specific months.

So, dealing with the real numbers:

US fatalities due to hostile action in Afghanistan under Bush (for simplicity's sake, all from January 2000 through the end of January 2009): 424

US fatalities due to hostile action in Afghanistan in Obama's first term (for simplicity's sake, February 2009 through the end of December 2012): 1,305

(Go ahead, follow the link, use the US filter, the Hostile action filter, and the Afghanistan only filter.)

Hey, guess what? 424Ã--3 is 1,272, and 1,272 is less than 1,305. US fatalities due to hostile action in Afghanistan were more than three times higher in Obama's first term than in all of Bush's presidency. That probably indicates that Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan.

I was explicitly talking about escalation of the war in Afghanistan. So I talked about fatalities caused by hostile action in Afghanistan.

If the US quadrupled the number of troops it had in Japan, there would be an increase in the number of US troops killed in Japan, but that wouldn't tell you anything about a war being escalated (since there is no war in Japan to escalate); it would just be evidence that you get more fatal accidents in a country when you have more people in a country. On the other hand, deaths caused by hostile action tells you about how much more intense a war is.

Similarly, whatever happens in Iraq doesn't say anything about what's happening in Afghanistan, and so doesn't say anything about an Afghanistan escalation. It's like saying, "Truman presided over a great reduction in US casualties in Germany, so it's unfair to say he got into a war in Korea". Say what? Again, the point was to show there was a general escalation in Afghanistan, as opposed to a transitory spike during a few specific months.

So, dealing with the real numbers:

US fatalities due to hostile action in Afghanistan under Bush (for simplicity's sake, all from January 2000 through the end of January 2009): 424

US fatalities due to hostile action in Afghanistan in Obama's first term (for simplicity's sake, February 2009 through the end of December 2012): 1,305

(Go ahead, follow the link, use the US filter, the Hostile action filter, and the Afghanistan only filter.)

Hey, guess what? 424Ã--3 is 1,272, and 1,272 is less than 1,305. US fatalities due to hostile action in Afghanistan were more than three times higher in Obama's first term than in all of Bush's presidency. That probably indicates that Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan.

Because no one gets killed when you misuse your right to vote?

Right.

(Though more people are killed by guns in the US than have died in Iraq)

The right to free speech is not infinite. Especially when your speech infringes on the rights of others (try right to life of soldiers and CIA),

1) The revalations stemming from decoding the wikileaks cache are directly responsible for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq: http://www.salon.com/2011/10/23/wikileaks_cables_and_the_iraq_war/singleton/

2) 4483 US Military Deaths in Iraq in the last 9 years (498/yr): http://icasualties.org/

3) Documented civilian deaths (probably very conservative): 100k+ (over 11k/year) http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Plainly, it SILENCE that would cause death and destruction. In such circumstances, it is immoral, inhumane, and evil to keep the information secret. If anything should be a capital crime, it should be the failure to reveal information where such failure results in 1000s of deaths.

When I google "killed because of leaked cables", I end up with this: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/02/cable-reveals-airstrike-killed-21-children-yemen/

But that's a story about our proud government killing 21 children in Yemen and how the information was contained in the cables. So instead of some theoretical bullshit about how the leak endangering soldiers, the truth is it will save 500 soldiers per year and we won't be responsible for 11,000 (min) civilian deaths per year in Iraq. Every person involved in leaking the cables deserves a Nobel Peace prize.

60% of U.S. Military Deaths in Afghanistan Have Occurred Since Obama Was Inaugurated in 2009.

Funny thing about reporting, it says as much as what is reported, as what is excluded by reports. AntiWar is just Anti (R) war, not the current (D) wars, including the new one in Libya.

http://icasualties.org/OEF/index.aspx

At the current rate of increasing deaths in Afghanistan, Obama will surpass GWB by the time the 2012 elections come and he is either re-elected or we have President Trump (or worse, Palin). Stop reporting about a war and diminishing death rate, and start reporting the other war and the ALARMINGLY increasing death rate under Obama.

Well, its very difficult to estimate numbers for this sort of thing without doing some in depth research, but from just a quick scan of the internet:

Iraq War:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
- 97,000 - 106,000 Civilian deaths

Afghanistan:
http://icasualties.org/oef/
- A few thousand military casualties on our side, didn't see civilian casualties or taliban ones.

Cuban Revolution:
http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/forum/dominicans-abroad/latin-america/2203/VICTIMS-OF-THE-CUBAN-REVOLUTION
- Call it 85,000 deaths for the listed items.

Yeah. But all those soldiers that are dying over there in the war are expected, right? We can just ignore all of those deaths, and just focus on the informants.

The information was leaked because it is critical that the voters know what they're supporting over there. Otherwise, we could be told that "everything is rosy!" and given the government control over media, we'd be none the wiser.

Do you really want to be in that position?

I had 'jet fuel' as on my list of things that wouldn't ever likely get replaced with electric storage, and now this reduces the list a bit. Can we just start putting up some modern nuclear reactors and get out of the Middle East then? We've got plenty of sources here for real oil needs.

No one has died of a radiation-related accident in the history of the U.S. civilian nuclear reactor program. but 10,000 or so Americans have died so far as a result of making war in the Middle East.

While we're on the subject of numbers. Deaths from 9/11 attacks: 2,752. U.S. Military Fatalities under Operation Enduring Freedom: 1,125. U.S. Military Fatalities in Iraq under Operation Iraqi Freedom: 4,407.
http://www.icasualties.org/ http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Northeast/10/29/wtc.deaths/
So the U.S., by their own ambitions, more than doubled the 9/11 death count with their own soldiers and they still haven't brought the man behind the heinous act to justice. I'm not even going to bring up civilian casuatlies as that would just bring me to tears.

I am calling BS on this.

A) The USA already did this twice and remains to this day the only country to ever use nukes to kill civilians of a non-nuke nation.
B) The rational for using nukes was public opinion. The USA knew that their public would never support a war in which they would accept such heavy losses, which they would have during a conventional invasion of Japan. For this reason the only option for victory was to kill as many civilians as possible to force Japan to capitulate, which they did.
C) If EVER faced with a similar situation; exactly how long do you think it will take to destroy that newly developed doctrine? About as much time it takes to tear it up.
D) Given that the only two uses ever specified for Nukes are 1) Deterrence, 2) Mutually assured destruction or doomsday, and 3) See "B)" nothing has really changed.

So it is all ready pointless to create said document other than to abstractly give more weight to the nonproliferation treaties, which really is BS other than mentally. Having said all that, I don't think the USA would ever use it on Iran, as I am pretty sure they could wipe the floor with them conventionally (and be left with a mess like Iraq likely). As for NK, that is another matter. I would say of all countries, that is the one place in the world it would be used. The reason for this is that NK is so fortified, and militarized, that any conventional victory by the USA would fail. The troops would get chewed to hell (even if they are winning), and public opinion for the war would go into the toilet, and a new leader would be elected and end the war.

http://www.icasualties.org/

To date about 5000 Americans have died over a period of 9 years in Iraq. Look how much opposition there is to that war, and how much media coverage every time there are causalities. When the USA went to invade Japan, they were pretty much defeated, yet casualty estimates were into the MILLIONS of allies. NK would be not a whole lot different I don't think. For this reason I hope the people of NK get a more moderate leader than old Kim Jon, as if he does something crazy, there is NO WAY the USA is invading that mess, they will turn it into so much blackened glass before that happens. I believe it is the only place in the world that has that danger.

A total of 4371 US military deaths have occured since the invasion began in Iraq.

Considering that US Highway deaths since 2003 are roughly 200,000 and the casualties in Iraq for US troops are 4311 It would seem that many Americans accept that as okay.

In the Grandparent's synopsis, you fall under:

people opposed to war without regard for body count

Additionally, you were being pedantic by building a straw man of his position, instead of addressing his point of comparative body counts from previous wars showing that the US Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines are faring much better in this war then any previous one.

I happen to agree that nobody should have died in Iraq, as we should have never been there in the first place. However as I said before, GP already covered people like me in his post.

We're just wrapping up the longest war the US has been involved in since World War 2
Hmmm, let's see.

Vietnam ran, conservatively, from the Gulf of Tonkin (2 August 1964) to the Vietnam Ceasefire (5 Feb 1973). During those roughly 8.5 years there were 56820 US casualties (http://www.militaryfactory.com/vietnam/casualties.asp). Of course, there was a US presence there before and after those dates.

During the roughly six years from 20 March 2003 up to today the Iraq war has resulted in 4266 US casualties (http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx).

Not the longest war.

Had we seen daily pictures of dead soldiers on TV for seven years, the public acceptance would have been far lower and diminished far faster than it did.
During Vietnam we DID see pictures of the body bags holding dead soldiers and sometimes the press even slipped in a photo of an (unidentified) body or two. Almost every day. We saw more dead in a week than we've seen in months in Iraq.

No, I'd say your premise is highly suspect.

Now war really is hell and only those who have been through it can truly know what it's like. But, if you're going to play politics with it then at least get your facts right.

Collation Casualties http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx
Iraqi Casualties http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
Overview: 4,261 US Dead, 91,337-99,721 Iraqi dead. Those in the army knew the risks and took them for their country when they joined the army knowing they could be sent to war, Iraqi civilians were stuck in the middle of it.
Now shut the fuck up bitch.

Are you talking about our (US) casualties or the deaths of A-Stan/Iraqi people? You can get those pretty much any time you want. Hers a few I found with a quick Google searhc: http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/ http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

We should change the laws to hold devices used in state and federal elections to similar or same standards as life-critical medical devices.

They are life-critical. Just ask Saddam.

I would rather ask these: http://icasualties.org/Iraq/index.aspx

Couple weeks ago they blocked icasualties.org for a few days.

"The Bush docterine has in fact, been highly successful. We have not been attacked at home again since 911. There is no getting around that fact. "

In the 9/11 attacks 2,998 people died and over 6,000 were injured. The world responded with a huge outpouring of support and quickly became allies in ousting the Taliban. In the Iraq war, there have been 4,102 American military deaths, and another 313 military deaths from other countries. 29,978 Americans have been injured by tally from iCasualties. Over 900 contractors have been killed and 12,000 wounded by May 2007. Iraq Body Count, which probably has the most stringent standards (ie certainly will under-report) in reporting Iraqi deaths has an estimated 85,060 to 92,787 fatalities. The in/famous Lancet studies estimated 654,965 Iraqi fatalities through the end of June 2006. In addition to the carnage, we've got a military in a shambles that will take a decade or more and hundreds of billions of dollars to refit and rebuild. Our deficit has swelled. Our economy is staggering around punch-drunk. We've pissed off the world in a way that has never been done before. We've taken our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, and the Taliban are regaining strength both there and in nuclear-armed Pakistan. It is indisputable that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, indeed Saddam was an enemy of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism. Iraq is now a terrorist breeding ground.

And the evidence that this is protecting us, rather than killing, maiming, bankrupting, and making us less safe is that there hasn't been another attack on (excluding the frequent mortar and rocket attacks on our embassy in Iraq) US soil yet? I got a magic rock to sell you. Ever since I started carrying it I haven't been attacked by tigers. Low cost, only $140,000--about the same cost of one minute of the Iraq war.

But... when Clinton said that Iraq had those weapons, he knew it was true because Bush Sr. and Reagan gave Saddam those weapons to fight Iran, and Chemical Ali had used a couple on some towns. When Bush Jr said it, those weapons had probably already been moved. So, while you're probably very correct about the wag the dog idea, I don't think parroting incorrect slogans is the way I'd describe it. If anything, I was making up my own incorrect slogan. While I do appreciate the fact that you think it's slogan-worthy, I will have to take offense at the parroting portion =)

The point, which I think you may have missed, was in my response to someone talking about Clinton perjurying himself, as if that's some real big deal in the grand scheme of things. Again, my point was that I'd rather have a President who lied under oath about a really stupid matter than to have one lie during a state of the union address (or just get his black general friend to do it for him to the UN) about a very important matter that got over 4000 Americans killed in Iraq, just shy of 500 killed in Afghanistan (which added together is the population of my home town, and my little town has had one twenty-year-old die there), around 30,000 Americans wounded officially (though many sites put it much higher), and moderate estimates putting about 30,000 Iraqis dead as a result of our escapades over there.

Blowjob and lying or Operation Iraqi Freedom... you tell me, then accuse me of parroting again. You can go back in the archives and get all the Clinton stuff you want (and I'd recommend the stuff that Black Hawk Down was based on), but it still won't come close to the fuckup Bush has wrought on the world. Give me a blue dress with a cum stain any day, because I'd rather that then see another teenager die a thousand miles from home.

Whoever destroyed the World Trade Center killed 3,000 Americans. The decision of Cheney and Bush to have a war with Iraq has killed more" Americans than that.

See these stories, for example:

Iraq Conflict Has Killed A Million Iraqis: Survey.

The number is rapidly rising. In October 2006 the number of Iraqis killed was estimated to be 655,000.

The highest estimate of Iraqis killed by Saddam Hussein was 1 million, so the U.S. government has killed more than Saddam. See, for example, Survey: Saddam killed 61,000 in Baghdad.

"... not the word of an infallible being either."

You are going down a slippery slope. Next you will be saying the U.S. president wasn't right when he said "When Saudis attack, invade Iraq", and "The answer to violence is more violence", and "We'll show them! They killed 3,000 Americans, we'll kill more", and "The way to make Muslims more gentle is to attack and kill them".

To put it into more perspective, there's the '10 most deadly jobs' list. Careers like fishing(142), professional pilots and flight engineers(88), logging(82), Iron and Steel workers(61), etc...

The US active duty force is about 1,426,700 active duty military members, with an additional 1,259,000 in the various reserve and guard units. There were 882 military deaths in Iraq in 2006. This would be a mix of active and reserve members though, and wouldn't count deaths otherwise. Afghanistan would add some, but outside of combat military members are about as likely to be killed at work as office workers.

Counting just the active duty members, that gives us 61.8 deaths per 100,000, or right around being a steel worker, plenty of whom make it to retirement.

Through September 22, 2007 approximately 19,429 insurgents/militia were reported to have been killed according to the U.S. military, including 1,309 bombers

In addition as of November 21, 2007 approximately 1,357 suicide-bombers have also been reported killed

Grand total: 14,393-20,697 insurgent dead

U.S. armed forces. 3,800 dead.

Ah, I see we've reached the part of the conversation where you babble like a drunken idiot.

if I jerked off all over one of my co-workers, are you going to tell me to tell me she can't come back to file a sexual harassment lawsuit against me?

WTF does this have to do with anything, anywhere?

Being that the activity between Bill and Monica was consensual, it was still a sexual relationship.

But it wasn't sexual relations. You do know there can be a difference between what words say and what they mean, right? Like how someone learning the English language might hear "Sally is sleeping with Tommy" and think they are two people who sleep in the same bed, when "sleeping with" means they are having sex. Similarly, you might read "sexual relations" and think it applies to everything from a hand job to a rim job, but it means penis in vagina. But those are the difficulties you run into when you try and come up with nice diplomatic phrases for various methods of fucking.

Were talking about a man whome was elected to the highest politcal office in this country. And you, can honestly say it's none of OUR fucking business and have NO right to an honest answer?

No, it's not your fucking business, anymore than it's my fucking business that Bush is an alcoholic. Except that he saw fit to ask it of Ann Richards when he was running against her in Texas. Any more stupid questions? Oh yes, I guess you have one more:

Hah, I'll remember that next time you ever bitch about Bush misleading the American public on Iraq. Cause remember, it's noneoftheirfuckingbusiness!!!

3700+ Americans would slap your face for making such an unbelievably asinine analogy, if they were still alive to do so.

If I had mod points I would mod you up.

today the death toll of us troops is up to 3500. http://icasualties.org/oif/BY_DOD.aspx its amazing the amount of IED deaths that people (not just us troops) are taking. more then a few IED's go off every day on us troops but the design of the humvee's save there lives.

Bush needs to be impeached!

The first thing to do to avoid Americans being killed by terrorists would be not to send them where terrorists are killing them, Iraq.

i think a crazy is not likely to be able to put together an effective bomb in the timeframe that they are looking for.

You think? Try linking to some hard examples, next time. Unbacked thoughts are cheap.

that shit is for movies,

Wrong. It is quite real.

just a few bottles of household bleach and suddenly you can blow up buildings, that's all crap,

Maybe not blow up a building, but bleach can easily be used in conjunction with ammonia to make deadly chlorine gas.

the defence of the home/person against thieves who could turn violent is a lead to the basic level of gun protection in many homes. (So the thieves themselves have to carry guns, et al mini-firearms race begins.

If this "mini-firearms race" you speak of really exists, I'd like to see some articles about street muggers holding people up with bazookas.

I've been reading a lot of disturbing stuff on slashdot today, there are many posters that either believe the movies are real and you can kill many with a pocket knife.. or that it's just a trivial matter to fashion an improvided explosive out of chewing gum and toothpicks.

Strawman. I never said anything about making explosives with chewing gum or toothpicks.

Also unilateral gun restriction of the jewish is unrelated to gun laws that effect everyone.

I'd like very much to see a reasoned explanation of why you feel it's unrelated.

Guns aren't going to keep you safe from a corrupt government.. they're certainly not working right now.

Agreed. Guns won't protect you from all levels of corruption in government. That said, it really depends on what kind of corruption we're talking about. If you're just talking about bribes, under the table deals, pork-barrel spending, or even fake foreign wars for personal profit, individual ownership of firearms would probably have no perceptible influence in such matters. The one area where it might make a difference is when said government reaches such a level of corruption that it begins to consider the cost-benefit of going door-to-door and exterminating large segments of its' citizens. The goal here is to make the cost sufficiently high as to nullify any possible benefit to such an organization (Incidentally this is why the reference to the Jewish Holocaust above is relevant).

also in the news : http://www.icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

seeing as there over 32,000 injured soldiers

from
http://icasualties.org/oif/
TOTAL - MEDICAL AIR TRANSPORTED 32,544

which will have to be supported for years to come
remember the methodology of land mines ? in war wounded are a much worse burden than dead as they require a lot of personnel to support them, GO USA WE CAN WIN !!!

your trillion tax dollars at work

But I can comment on how it would effect casualties.

According to this study:

"According to the data, drinking a moderate amount of alcohol -- up to four drinks per day in men and two drinks per day in women -- reduces the risk of death from any cause by roughly 18 percent"

So, lets look at the hard facts here.

According to http://www.icasualties.org/oif/ there is a total of 2953 confirmed US deaths in Iraq. So, if we had started all soldiers on a "moderate daily" drinking program, there would only have been 2421.4 deaths. I would say this is pretty important. Someone should forward this thread to Bush immediately.

The soldier I asked was pretty drunk, but I figure we can forgive that since he was discharged due to losing his right leg above the knee from a roadside bomb.

If you see him again, buy him a beer for me.

This is something we don't hear about very much. I was deeply distrubed when the news and government started to only report U.S. fatalities. Every other report of war I'd ever heard talked about casualties, as in soldiers taken out of combat by death or injury. It sounded very suspicious -- the numbers sounded fairly low (at the time) relative to other conflicts, but all I knew about other conflicts were casualties, which are always several times higher than the number outright killed. Yet those numbers weren't being mentioned, making it sound like a deliberate attempt to hide the larger and thus more depressing number.

So as we cross past the 3,000 mark of dead coalition soldiers, we have 46,000 non-mortal casualties. Not all of those are crippling injuries, but nevertheless we're going to be seeing a whole lot more soldiers like the one you met. Especially like that, since the roadside bomb taking out a soldier's legs but not killing them seems to be the most common mode of injury.

I hope to God all those people who support this war will "Support the Troops" when they see one sitting at the traffic light on a board, no legs, holding a sign that says "Iraq vet, need food and work" and drop the man some cash. I know I will.

Figures are from http://www.icasualties.org/oif/

By January or February of 2007, more american lives will have been lost in Iraq than were killed on September 11th.

Actually, we're almost certainly at that point already.

3,030 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks, including WTC, Pentagon, and Shanksville. Wikipedia says 2,973. In the ballpark anyway.

icasualties.org says 2,885 US military personnel have been lost in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

What people forget is that those who died at the World Trade Center were not all Americans. Conservatively, 10% of those on the scene must have been foreign business people, consultants, workers on H-class visas, foreign student interns, and international visitors. Wikipedia says about 316 were non-Americans.

So if you're comparing Americans to Americans...

The US soldier fatality percentage is the same for the current Iraq War as for the entire WW2.

WW2 (5 years)
American soldiers
16,113,000 serving
292,000 battle deaths
1.8% dead

Operation Iraqi Freedom (3 1/2 years and counting)
American soldiers
133,000 deployed
2,461 hostile deaths
1.8% dead

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/a rchives/facts_for_features_special_editions/001747 .html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_or bat.htm
http://icasualties.org/oif/

will not be pleased if the only thing to come out of the House in the next two years is a bunch of investigations and impeachment hearings.
...
Now that the Dems control the House, and will have a solid say in what happens in the Senate (regardless of outcome in Montana and Virginia), I want to see some action on real issues.

Well, in some cases action on real issues is about investigation. I (for one) am concerned about:

• War profiteering and torture. There are a lot of issues about how Iraq war is handled and what private contractors (Halliburton, mercenary companies) are doing. Did you know, for instance, that there were private, non-Army interrogators in Abu Ghraib, not bound by US Military Code of Justice (I highly recommend watching "Iraq for sale" movie, BTW) ? Then there are CIA secret prisons. I definitely want that investigated.
• Illegal wiretaps. I have my 4th ammendment rights and I want to know if government was violating them.
• Reasons we got into war. 2839 Americans and about 600,000 Iraqis are dead. Somehow no one even got fired for that. I don't like the idea of politician being able to murder more than half a million people and just simply get away with it.
• Corruption. Well, I don't have high hopes for that, because all politicians are corrupt and they won't put themselves in jail. Still, this needs to be investigated.
  

9/11 deaths: 2,819

US soldier deaths (Afghanistan): 901 (total, fourth table)
US soldier deaths (Iraq): 2,823 (total, first table)
Iraqi Security Forces deaths: 15,249 (total, third table)
Iraqi civilian deaths: ~48,000
Afghan civilian deaths: 3,485

And this is just plain scary.
Do the math.

9/11 deaths: 2,819

US soldier deaths (Afghanistan): 901 (total, fourth table)
US soldier deaths (Iraq): 2,823 (total, first table)
Iraqi Security Forces deaths: 15,249 (total, third table)
Iraqi civilian deaths: ~48,000
Afghan civilian deaths: 3,485

And this is just plain scary.
Do the math.

9/11 deaths: 2,819

US soldier deaths (Afghanistan): 901 (total, fourth table)
US soldier deaths (Iraq): 2,823 (total, first table)
Iraqi Security Forces deaths: 15,249 (total, third table)
Iraqi civilian deaths: ~48,000
Afghan civilian deaths: 3,485

And this is just plain scary.
Do the math.

http://icasualties.org/oif/

About 2600

I hope our army, the US army which is dubbed the "strongest" and "best equiped in the world", will not buy into this nonsense. Right now, we are being whipped in Iraq by an army supposed to have been defeated years ago.

Our casuality count has not improved at all despite my commander in chief's "major combat" speech 3 years ago! Our military chiefs have resorted to calling this an insurgency. Casualties are high according to http://www.icasualties.org/.

Why don't they concentrate on finding a solution to these IED's? Guys I'm sorry to say, but I think we as a nation are sinking fast. The American people should demand results.