Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, contributor Jim Lindgren posted an innocuous (and probably meaningless) contrast between Iraqi war casualties, and those suffered at the height of the Vietnam war:
Grim Milestone Reached: US Deaths in Iraq Surpass Worst Month in Vietnam.–As the War in Iraq approaches its third anniversary on March 20, 2006, U.S. military deaths in Iraq have just passed another grim milestone. The worst month of U.S. military deaths in Vietnam was May 1968: 2,316 lives. The second worst month in Vietnam was February 1968: 2,293 lives.
Each war is unique of course, and it’s very easy to read too much into such an inherently invidious comparison. Still, anti-war types have been comparing the desert sands and mud huts to the jungle trails and massif since, well: Pretty much before it started. Sauce for the goose, eh?
Well, no, to judge by the intensity of the commenters. Once we get past the folks whose main contribution is “You’re a STUPID-HEAD!” we get into those who are very personally invested in showing just how awful an idea it is to compare and contrast:
The ratio of wounded to killed has increased rapidly, due to improvements in body armor and medical care.
That also means the numbers of maimed, disfigured, and horribly debilitated men in their late teens and early twenties is staggering. In the Vietnam era, many of these would have been dead.
It’s great they’re alive now rather than dead, but if you’re looking for a “lives devastated” comparison, it is closer than you think.
There’s more along these lines, until someone puts iCasualty.org to work to discover that:
As of March 15,
9212 wounded and returned to duty within 72 hours.
7912 wounded and did not return to duty within 72 hours.
Which is still a lot of people wounded, but nothing like the purported “tens of thousands,” and in fact later on in the thread it is reported that the number of amputees treated in army hospitals since the war began is 345.
Most of the give and take here is predictably emotional, but it is interesting to watch as the anti’s attempt to move from flame to fact by trotting out the usual canards (“poor people’s war, can’t make enlistment numbers,” etc) they pretty quickly get blown out of the water by those whose command of the facts is superior.
And then it gets pretty quiet, from their side.
OT: Check this out! Total Lego!
http://www.ezprezzo.com/crazypics/lego_aircraft_carrier.html
I love the expression “stupid-head”. I am also rather fond of “you’re not the boss of me”.
Alas, I no longer work part time at the nursery school.
I noticed that post/thread this morning, too. Very cool to see it laid out like that.
the number of amputees treated in army hospitals since the war began is 345
As I understand it, the designation “amputee” in the records includes loss of a toe or finger or ear lobe as well as what we generally think of as an amputation (arm/leg). Valour-IT has supplied nearly 400 laptops, but a significant percentage of them went to veterans with nerve damage and not amputations.
To trot out amputations as the be-all and end-all of “lives devastated” is incredibly short-sighted and also trivial. Ask a vet whether he’d like to lose his sight or his leg? What about spinal injuries, or TBI that leaves him with an altered personality or almost no short-term memory? These kinds of things can be devastating, too.
But these critics focus on disfiguring and maiming injuries, and with pity and condescension lament “lives devastated”–as if the vast majority of these injuries meant these veterans have no future because parts of their bodies are grotesquely damaged. It is so shallow to focus on merely the visual manifestation of injury, but they do that because they want to inspire people to feel pity for “such wasted lives.”
I have seen for myself the heartbreaking inuries of those who will be dependent for the rest of their lives, but they are not the majority of the wounded. Yes, the majority are suffering in their recoveries and have had to alter their dreams (which can be a horrible thing), but they are also working toward lives of fulfillment and significant contribution to our world. For examples, see the program at Vail for blind and amputee skiers, the impact Valour-IT has on its recipients, and the fact that while CPT Z has no/limited use of his left hand he has a loving family and is headed to an ROTC job training the next generation of Army officers.
Lex, sorry to rant slightly off-topic, but pity is not a loving or supportive response to someone facing challenges. It is condescending, disabling, and depressive. This kind of condescension masquerading as “caring for the troops” coming form “anti-war” types just makes me sick.
As a follow-along to FbL’s post above, read this – http://www.joeysrecovery.com – to find out about the impact of Iraq War injuries. Joey is a triple amputee – both legs above the knee and his right arm below the elbow – lost in an IED roadside explosion. Traumatic injuries is an understatement. But this website isn’t about pity, it’s about hope and recovery and inspiration. His wife married him AFTER he came back injured and has been by his side for the entire recovery process. They are 2 people to be admired.
I’m sure Joey would rather have come home in one piece, but his story shows his resolve to live a FULL life with no limits. He’s already talking about racing competitively in hand cycling.
And just for the record – I don’t know either Joey or his wife Jayme. I came across their story a couple months ago and have been following it ever since.
Thanks fot the public service to put the documented facts out there Lex.
Sometimes I wonder how these S-heads (and I don’t mean stupid..) can find the logic to even get their cars fixed..
Man, I’m sick of folks with agendas denying the facts and trying to blow smoke, well…. you kinow where.
B2
BadBob,
For the first time in our nation’s history, we attacked first and without provocation. One is too many.
Remember the words of that great liberal politician:
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
With apologies to the quoted Virginian, eighteenth century political philosophy also excused slavery. Some of us have “moved on” since then.
Attacking first we certainly did do. The strategy to do so was?Ǭ
With apologies to the quoted Virginian, eighteenth century political philosophy also excused slavery. Some of us have “moved on” since then.
Attacking first we certainly did do. The strategy to do so was hidden in plain sight of people who don’t understand what a doctrine of strategic preemption means. To say that we did so “without provocation” is wilfully obtuse.
Hippy D,
Say what? We were talking about facts here- Iraq war facts, and Lex corrected the record.
Why bring my man G.W. into this? George was obviously talking about civilized European nations- hint- England & France, not ruthless murderous dictatorships. History shows that for a while we followed his course, like paying off those Pirates on the Barbary Coast (Libya)before we finally had enough and cleaned the mess up. Maybe, just maybe, George W. was being pragmatic in his farewell speech. After all, we were a new nation, relatively poor, spread out and just working out the kinks in our new form of govmint. We didn’t have the military power we can wield now with the resultant responsibilities.
Farewell speeches can be tricky to understand or can be misused by agenda-ists later on. Take Ike’s “beware the military industrial complex” speech. I don’t think he meant shit-can the mil industrial complex but that is how some on the left have spun what he said.
If you hadn’t noticed we had been fighting the dictator, Sadam Hussein, since 1991. Driving him into a spider-hole was what I would would call “good headwork”- so would George Washington.
Get it?
B2
PS- I just love those cut n’paste retorts. Are you in American History for H.S. juniors?
Hippydippy,
That is some dense rhetoric. 10/10 for polysyllabism. 1/10 for readability.
And 0/10 on connection to the real world, hippy.
You put your argument in the gutter with your first sentence – “without provocation” means you don’t read. You seem to just copy and print. Any $1.85 coffeehouse snerk can do that.