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War is good for creating jobs, if only we could be at 1999 military and civilian casualty and injury levels.

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

Of course, I don't have a problem with our gov't safeguarding us and preventing another 3,000 of our citizens from being killed by terrorists, but I guess I'm not blinded by hatred of our President.

So when we get to 3000 kids, dubya sent to die, we'll be even, right. I guess the 18,350 kids who were wounded is a fair price to pay for you to "feel safer"

Those unacceptable numbers pale in comparison to the casualties and injuries incurred by non-us civilians. Estimated to be 35,000 to 42,000 people. Hmmm. 40,000 family members all love the US now. No reason they would join the insurgents. Was only dad, brother, son.....

War sucks, however, war is sometimes necessarry. Unecessarry war is morally repugnant. Red State/Blue State makes no damn difference.

You couldn't be more wrong if you were president. The majority of American casualties and deaths in Iraq are due to firearms. The idea that firearms are ineffective is, much like you, beyond stupid.

Hrm, wouldn't it be wonderful if somebody kept track of the causes of troop fatalities in Iraq? Then we could tell which one of us is really stupid. But wait! SOMEBODY DOES KEEP TRACK!

Top 10 causes of troop fatalities in Iraq, March 2003->May 2006:

Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack 863 - 32.1%
Hostile - hostile fire 389 - 14.5%
Non-hostile - vehicle accident 215 - 8%
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire 154 - 5.7%
Hostile - hostile fire - car bomb 101 - 3.8%
Hostile - hostile fire - mortar attack 89 - 3.3%
Hostile - hostile fire - RPG attack 78 - 2.9%
Non-hostile - helicopter crash 78 - 2.9%
Hostile - helicopter crash 66 - 2.5%
Hostile - hostile fire - ambush 60 - 2.2%

That includes the start of the war though. If you look at the past three months (March->May):

IED/Car Bomb/Explosion/Helicopter/missile: 119
Non-specied hotile fire/small arms fire: 37

That counts unspecified hostile fire (which could be anything) in the 2nd category, as I would guess it's more likely that actual IED casualties are classified as IED deaths than just hostile fire deaths while gunfire is more likely to just get lumped into hostile fire.

36.4% of all fatalities (combat AND non-combat fatalities) in Iraq since March 2003 were caused by IED. In the past three months, over half of *ALL* troop fatalities (99 out of 183) have been caused by IED. If you take out the non-com deaths, 63% of combat deaths are by IED alone.

The longer the war has gone on, the more insurgents have been relying on IED's. Why? Because the insurgents who use guns are dead. That's the tactical environment in Iraq: Use your gun to kill a few US troops before you get killed, or use your IED to kill more troops and do it again later.

Source:

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

Deaths by month. It all looks like statistical noise to me. Sure, it looks like there was a strong decreasing trend over the last six months, but it started from the fourth-highest monthly toll in the war's history.

The monthly toll alone says nothing about whether we're winning or losing in Iraq. A lot depends on what missions the generals think their troops should be undertaking, and a lot is just white noise.

Just because it turns out that Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11 doesn't mean it's not our reason for being there.

I guess the US army and its associates are fighting an illegal war.

Anyhow, this will probably be one of your most favorite sites: http://icasualties.org/oif/
My guess is: everything is going very well...
I'm waiting for the day the number on the above website will equal the number of casualties
of the WTC-disaster. After all, the war in Iraq is supposed to have something to do with 9/11???
Doesn't it...

Cheer up!

I'm sure Exxon and friends, with their 'oh snap look what's going on in the Middle East right now' speculative price hikes will manage to edge it closer to $200 this year. I mean, just take a look at the record profits these megacorps are raking in. All it will take this year is the threat of action against Iran, a few hurricanes here and there, and bam, another huge hike.

  Keep in mind that Cheney is still sitting on the board at Halliburton, which has recorded record quarters since the beginning of the Iraq war, by winning closed-bidding contracts for reconstruction. Strangely enough the US military is tasked with keeping Halliburton contractors safe while they work..which isn't always successful. If you look carefully at the list, you'll see the majority of KBR (Kellogg, Brown and Root, a Haliburton company) employees were involved in logistics, i.e. truck drivers. Convoys are popular targets for IEDs. KBR has been a thorn in the side for Halliburton, and they've considered selling it off for awhile, due to the PR nightmare and litigation that ended in a 4 billion dollar settlement over asbestos claims.

There are a total of 2,819 US civilian fatalities as a result of the September 11th attacks. There were more than 50,000 Kurds killed by chemical agents and this is but one single instance of the price of Saddam's tyrannical rule. As of today there are a total of 2,222 US military fatalities in Iraq since the war began. You may now decide by the numbers. The rest of my article...

Never mind that Dick Cheney said that increased insurgent activity is characteristic of kicks of a dying horse! This he said almost a year ago! Take a look http://icasualties.org/oif/. The picture looks ugly.

can get you killed

Only if you're seen - which, as I showed, odds are pretty low. The only real risk to insurgents "in general" is the local population, and in the case of Iraq, in places like al-Anbar the populace generally supports them (the province had only about a 2% turnout last election).

For some insurgent support statistics, the sunni provinces - especially al-Anbar - are largely supportive of the guerillas. The Kurds are almost universally against them, limiting their effectiveness in areas outside the Sunni districts (in cities like Mosul, for example). In the south, loyalties are highly split along party lines - al-Dawa and SCIRI oppose the insurgency, while the al-Madhi army supports it (all three movements are roughly the same size, the former two having more support in the south and the latter more support in Baghdad); al-Dawa and SCIRI are almost in outright war with the Madhi army currently.

how few people we lose in firefights

By US standards against enemies with no major powers supporting them, the casualty rate is pretty high - especially when you look at wounded, not just dead (I am really amazed at the sort of survival rates we're getting - our medics have gotten extremely good in the past couple decades. Of course, the downside is that the rates of severe problems to the survivors, such as major head trauma and amputations, has doubled).

fewer casualties than any war we've ever fought

Geez, how many wars did you manage to forget? The following have had less KIA (and again, our excellent medical care has shifted many "deaths" to "wounded") than the current Iraq war: the Barbary wars, the Northwest Indian War and various other Indian wars, the Mexican-American war, the US-French quasi-war, the Spanish-American war, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution, the occupation of Haiti, the Polar Bear Expidition, the El Salvador civil war, the Beiruit deployment, the bombing of Libya, the invasion of Grenada, the invasion of Panama, the Persian Gulf War, Somalia operations, Operation Uphold Democracy (Haiti), Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Phillipines, and Operation Secure Tomorrow (Haiti). Soon, we'll pass the War of 1812 and the Phillipine-American war; heck, if we stay another 2 years, we'll pass the Revolutionary War's KIA.

Or perhaps you're only counting congressionally-declared wars? Then you can't count anything since Korea, including Vietnam. And things like the Barbary War *was* congressionally declared (ah, our first experience with occupying arab lands...).

they've lost enough people emplacing IEDs that they're starting to favor suicide bombers

Um, I'd say not ((2).

convoy is likely to pass

Convoys are likely to pass wherever the US feels the need to send troops. The US sends troops to places where they think guerillas are operating. I.e., guerillas fortify places where they operate from; when the US invades, they attack. This has happened all through the history of guerilla movements. The US *has* to invade strongholds, or guerillas will launch hit-and-run attacks from there. When they invade, however, guerillas either leave or blend into the local population. That's what makes guerilla wars so hard to win; foreign powers almost never win guerilla wars, because it doesn't take many guerillas or supportive areas to outmaneuver occupying troops.

can get you killed

Only if you're seen - which, as I showed, odds are pretty low. The only real risk to insurgents "in general" is the local population, and in the case of Iraq, in places like al-Anbar the populace generally supports them (the province had only about a 2% turnout last election).

For some insurgent support statistics, the sunni provinces - especially al-Anbar - are largely supportive of the guerillas. The Kurds are almost universally against them, limiting their effectiveness in areas outside the Sunni districts (in cities like Mosul, for example). In the south, loyalties are highly split along party lines - al-Dawa and SCIRI oppose the insurgency, while the al-Madhi army supports it (all three movements are roughly the same size, the former two having more support in the south and the latter more support in Baghdad); al-Dawa and SCIRI are almost in outright war with the Madhi army currently.

how few people we lose in firefights

By US standards against enemies with no major powers supporting them, the casualty rate is pretty high - especially when you look at wounded, not just dead (I am really amazed at the sort of survival rates we're getting - our medics have gotten extremely good in the past couple decades. Of course, the downside is that the rates of severe problems to the survivors, such as major head trauma and amputations, has doubled).

fewer casualties than any war we've ever fought

Geez, how many wars did you manage to forget? The following have had less KIA (and again, our excellent medical care has shifted many "deaths" to "wounded") than the current Iraq war: the Barbary wars, the Northwest Indian War and various other Indian wars, the Mexican-American war, the US-French quasi-war, the Spanish-American war, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution, the occupation of Haiti, the Polar Bear Expidition, the El Salvador civil war, the Beiruit deployment, the bombing of Libya, the invasion of Grenada, the invasion of Panama, the Persian Gulf War, Somalia operations, Operation Uphold Democracy (Haiti), Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Phillipines, and Operation Secure Tomorrow (Haiti). Soon, we'll pass the War of 1812 and the Phillipine-American war; heck, if we stay another 2 years, we'll pass the Revolutionary War's KIA.

Or perhaps you're only counting congressionally-declared wars? Then you can't count anything since Korea, including Vietnam. And things like the Barbary War *was* congressionally declared (ah, our first experience with occupying arab lands...).

they've lost enough people emplacing IEDs that they're starting to favor suicide bombers

Um, I'd say not ((2).

convoy is likely to pass

Convoys are likely to pass wherever the US feels the need to send troops. The US sends troops to places where they think guerillas are operating. I.e., guerillas fortify places where they operate from; when the US invades, they attack. This has happened all through the history of guerilla movements. The US *has* to invade strongholds, or guerillas will launch hit-and-run attacks from there. When they invade, however, guerillas either leave or blend into the local population. That's what makes guerilla wars so hard to win; foreign powers almost never win guerilla wars, because it doesn't take many guerillas or supportive areas to outmaneuver occupying troops.

I'd put most of my money on #2. It's pretty clear that we are casting a pretty wide net looking for (Islamic) terrorists in the US, because we seem to be snagging a non-trivial number who are (probably) not real threats. That has got to be plenty disruptive. The 9/11 terrorists lived here and it did not change their minds, and the WTC bombers were not dissuaded either. In the blinding light of 20-20 hindsight, it's clear that Saddam Hussein had neither WMDs nor ties to Al-Qaeda, the rest of the world has not been free of terrorism, and the Taliban is not yet been run out of Afghanistan.

So I pick door #2. I also hope it is not door #1, because if you look at the rate of coalition casualties (http://icasualties.org/oif/), we don't seem to be making an appreciable dent in the supply of potential terrorists. If that's the only way to stop terrorism, then it's 2 soldiers/day and a billion dollars per week, with no end in sight.

Do you really think that the major problem for the USA in the 9/11 was the death of many people? I don't think so, it's not logic:

* 9/11

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/vict ims/main.html
USA civilian deaths: 2'898
USA military deaths: 125

Total: 3'023

* Afghanistan war

USA military deaths: 184 http://icasualties.org/oef/
Afghanian civilian deaths: 3'000 http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm

Total: 3'184

* Iraq war

USA military deaths: 1'651 http://icasualties.org/oif/
Coalition military deaths: 180
Coalition contractors: 238
Iraq old military deaths: 9'200 http://www.comw.org/pda/0310rm8exsum.html
Iraq civilian deaths: 21'795 http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/
Iraq police deaths: 2'115 http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

Total: 35'179

* Conclusion

Total USA deaths in 9/11: 3'023
Total USA deaths in war: 1'835 (60% of 9/11)
USA military injured: 12'384 (409% of 9/11)
Other deaths: 30'321 (1003% of 9/11)

Probably for the CIA and the highests USA political institutions, the main problem of the 9/11 cannot be the death of many people, but it should be searched in economic and image loss, political instability and other things, but not for the deaths, at all.

If you keep in mind these things, the interest of the CIA and others defence agencies in massive network attacks is simply logic.

Do you really think that the major problem for the USA in the 9/11 was the death of many people? I don't think so, it's not logic:

* 9/11

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/vict ims/main.html
USA civilian deaths: 2'898
USA military deaths: 125

Total: 3'023

* Afghanistan war

USA military deaths: 184 http://icasualties.org/oef/
Afghanian civilian deaths: 3'000 http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm

Total: 3'184

* Iraq war

USA military deaths: 1'651 http://icasualties.org/oif/
Coalition military deaths: 180
Coalition contractors: 238
Iraq old military deaths: 9'200 http://www.comw.org/pda/0310rm8exsum.html
Iraq civilian deaths: 21'795 http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/
Iraq police deaths: 2'115 http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

Total: 35'179

* Conclusion

Total USA deaths in 9/11: 3'023
Total USA deaths in war: 1'835 (60% of 9/11)
USA military injured: 12'384 (409% of 9/11)
Other deaths: 30'321 (1003% of 9/11)

Probably for the CIA and the highests USA political institutions, the main problem of the 9/11 cannot be the death of many people, but it should be searched in economic and image loss, political instability and other things, but not for the deaths, at all.

If you keep in mind these things, the interest of the CIA and others defence agencies in massive network attacks is simply logic.

Do you really think that the major problem for the USA in the 9/11 was the death of many people? I don't think so, it's not logic:

* 9/11

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/vict ims/main.html
USA civilian deaths: 2'898
USA military deaths: 125

Total: 3'023

* Afghanistan war

USA military deaths: 184 http://icasualties.org/oef/
Afghanian civilian deaths: 3'000 http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm

Total: 3'184

* Iraq war

USA military deaths: 1'651 http://icasualties.org/oif/
Coalition military deaths: 180
Coalition contractors: 238
Iraq old military deaths: 9'200 http://www.comw.org/pda/0310rm8exsum.html
Iraq civilian deaths: 21'795 http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/
Iraq police deaths: 2'115 http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

Total: 35'179

* Conclusion

Total USA deaths in 9/11: 3'023
Total USA deaths in war: 1'835 (60% of 9/11)
USA military injured: 12'384 (409% of 9/11)
Other deaths: 30'321 (1003% of 9/11)

Probably for the CIA and the highests USA political institutions, the main problem of the 9/11 cannot be the death of many people, but it should be searched in economic and image loss, political instability and other things, but not for the deaths, at all.

If you keep in mind these things, the interest of the CIA and others defence agencies in massive network attacks is simply logic.

Yes, other countries...it's not just the US and the UK as most would have you believe: link

Bring 'em on...

CNN.COM:

1. Timber Cutters: 117 / 100k / yr
2. Fishers: 71 / 100k / yr
3. Airplane Pilot & Navigator: 70 / 100k / yr

Fielding's DangerFinder:

1. Truck Driver - 762 Deaths / year
2. Farm Worker
3. Retail Salesman / Supervisor

Forbes:

1. Truck Drivers - 112,200 injuries
2. Nursing Aides - 79,000 injuries

Military Casualties in Iraq:

• 1,402 deaths / 623 days
• 9,326 wounded / 623 days

• 821 deaths / 100k / yr
• 5,464 injured / 100k / yr

• 657 deaths / 100k / yr
• 4,371 injured / 100k / yr

So, I'd have to support your claim that joining the army is one of the more dangerous ways to pay for an education. But as others have said, if you stay out of the infantry, or serve during peacetime, the statistics are a lot better.

As for the payscale, Ask.com reports the starting pay is about $27k / yr. This doesn't compare favorably to the average U.S. salary of $36k / yr. Comparing a starting salary with an average covering a breadth of experience isn't fair. The average salary for someone with just a high school education is $15k / yr. So while I wouldn't say the military make much more than the average person , in some circumstances it can look pretty attractive.

Who said Afghanistan and Iraq were messes?

Afghanistan

That's actually an AP wire article, BTW, in case you are questioning the source.

Afghanistan is so peaceful we lost 4 soldiers there in October, and the total is up to 142 so far.

And everything is just peachy in Iraq too?

You also repeat the myth that the CIA provided aid and training to Osama bin Laden and his cohorts. But this is not true, both the CIA and Osama himself agree.

I guess MSNBC and The BBC are just lying then.

The Iraqi authorities actively discourage the release of the Iraqi wounded tally http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq1003/. The US authorities "don't do bodycounts".

The bodycounts are tallied by 3rd parties on sites like http://icasualties.org/oif/ or http://www.iraqbodycount.net/. A rough extrapolation from US casualties to wounded based on the nature of the casualties (predominately due to coalition or faction bombs) the wounded figure could be 5-10 times the number of casualties i.e. 65/75 to 130/150 thousand.

I love answering rhetorical questions.

Where is exactly your source that you can state with such confidence that the 10,000 deaths are innocent people?

Well, the coalition has lost 1043.. Unless you consider the coalition to be "guilty". Oh, there's also the Iraqi's estimates here Nobody, not even the Brookings Institute thinks it's below 10,000.

What are you implying, that soldiers don't shoot at terrorists but they shoot at civilians? That there are no terrorists?

Nope, the BBC article specifies "ordinary civilians". I don't know what their definition or if it's even consistent between reporting agencies (my guess is it's not). However, we can say that a large number of innocent Iraqis have died at the hands of the coalition.

That tooth fairies are shooting at American soldiers and blowing themselves up in car bombs?

This is just hyperbole. Cut it out.

Are you also implying that Saddam's political and terror-inspired atrocities against civilians are interchangeable with a republican guard battalion finding itself at the business end of a daisy cutter during battle?

The BBC says civilians. So there is no overlap between the Republican Guard, who are by definition not civilians during major hostilities, that were blown up by daisy cutters and people killed after the official end of major hostilities.

Seriously, who moderates this pro-terrorist propagandist tripe as insightful?

I do. I have mod point right now. However, I have a weakness for trying to help people understand, so I'm trying to explain instead of just moderating this post.

Are Slashdot moderators gone so far off the deep end?

Nope, some of us just aren't as rock-solid about our own beliefs that we can't even investigate someone else's claims.

I really do hope that you reply. I have to say I'm somewhat confused as to how you could get so self-righteous without being right.

On top of the 1000 dead US soldiers 3840 were not able to return to duty within 72 hours.

And the trend is not good. The death toll has gone up by 18% since the hand-over of power to the token Iraki government

I'd be very interested to learn how long this rate can be sustained without a draft especially if another conflict draws more troops (i.e. an atack on Iran as predicted by many political analyist for a 2nd Bush term).

I am a foreigner living in the US and I could naturalize but even the remote chance of a draft in this country makes this a very unattractive option to me.

I would hardly call Claudia Rosette "freelance" considering that she works for the Hudson Institute, which shilled for the Neo-Wrongs and generally played boosters for the tremendously successful Iraq war. A neo-con think tank like Hudson is an utter failure if it can't plant stories in at least the WSJ and the NRO (indeed that's where it was initially run). In her latest article at the Hudson Institute's website Rosette admits that only Ahmed Chalabi has the documents with the supposed evidence and 4 months later he still won't show them to anybody. Of course it's hard for him find time to get those documents to Rosette what with all palling around with and debriefing the Iran intelligence services in Tehran. Rosette tries to tiptoe away from having been Chalabi'd by making reference to other mysterious "confidential documents the UN is socking away" and to the neo-con picked Duelfer's testimony, without any specific knowledge of the supposed UN documents or where Duelfer got his own info. C'mon man, hasn't this country been fooled enough times by Chalabi's claims?

I have no love for the UN, but I don't think we need a naive conspiracy theory to see why France and Russia didn't want to knock out Saddam:
a) it wasn't in their economic or military interests
b) it was a bad war to get into. Iraq has been the straw that breaks the camel's back for years now, and to try to get right in the middle of it with no real regional or international support was asking for a quagmire, and France and Russia knew it
c) France is big baby in international affairs (mainly it's trying to hang out to some semblance of being a relevant player)

The answer is not to come out with some more Chalabi-promulgated nonsense to try to show that they're in on some global fraud, and it certainly isn't to insert ourselves into the middle of a regional hornet's nest.

Let's put this number in perspective for a second. According to death stats for 2001, on average 6,620 people died every day in 2001. 1,918 of those from heart disease - every day! How about the European heatwave of 2003? 35,000? 11,000+ in France alone? Not to mention we've lost 880 US soldiers in Iraq.

I've seen reports of Iraqi civilian casualties over the 11,000 mark. A people that we haven't even proved had anything to do with the attacks. Who's the terrorist now?

Yes, it's terrible that 3,000 people were murdered on a single day which also took down the WTC towers. The reason it hits you hard was because it was in one place in which you could watch it unfold on TV. Taken in perspective though, I don't think it's worth losing the freedoms and liberties that those who came before us fought and died for. To quote another famous figure in US history, FDR, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

"I have an issue with the film.
How does he happen to have so much good interview footage with a woman from his hometown whose son happened to die in Iraq... before he died.
Did Moore interview a ton of people and just got ahem.. lucky, or were the earlier interviews staged after the fact?"

Is that an issue with the film, or a question to the film-maker?

Google search turns up 853 US soliders killed in Iraq [but don't forget the 9436 ones we don't count ]. US news channels report 180,000 US troops in Iraq. So the problem is that Moore got "lucky" with picking an interview, given a 0.47% probablity of any given US soldier being dead by the end?

Maybe he got "luckier" by picking someone in the front-line? Maybe he did enough interviews (211?) that one was bound to end up dead. Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe it was unintentional.

You do realize that the total number of American soldiers killed since the invasion began is still less than 1,000, right? The invasion started in March, 2003, and it's now nearly July, 2004, which means the rate of American soldiers dying in Iraq is roughly comparable to the murder rate of Chicago, Illinois.
Um, you might wanna check on what that pesky word "rate" means. This may be just crazy liberal talk, but I interpret rate to be number of murders per unit of population.
last year there were 599 declared homicides in Chicago. The population of Chicago is 2,886,251 Well, that is a 2002 estimate, but it is close enough for the purpose of this exercise. That means that there were a bout 2.075 murders per 10,000 people in the city.
From March 2003 to March 2004 there were 601 US casulties in the Iraq War. Needless to say, the # of soldiers in Iraq is much less than the number of people in Chicago, but just to drill home how dumb your point is, lets do some calculations, shall we?
The total size of US forces in Iraq is roughly 138,000. So 601/138,000, or about 43.55 people per 10,000 killed......
Maybe it's just my poor math skills(obviously a result of our public schools, which I attended for both college and high school), but it seems to me that 43.55 is a lot bigger than 2.075....
Next time, do some real research before opening your mouth, you just might be surprised to see that you were being lied to. I found all these number off the internet in about 5 minutes