Why are people hung up on the death count in Iraq?

Question

It is truely shameful when another soldier gets killed, I hate that as much as the next person. However, it seems to me that people are trying to use the number of KIA as a leverage tool for a political stance or to prove the war is "unjust"
I say to you people that want to compare numbers to do your homework first instead of spouting off what you hear on the news!

Answer 1

Because the average American citizen cannot fathom or handle the realities of war. Those of us in the military are trained for it. War is ugly, people die, both military and civilian. Its a fact of life and people need to accept it as such. I've said goodbye to more sets of boots and dogtags than I care to think about, but it doesn't make me want to give up and go home. I carry on for them to see this war through so that their death will not be for nothing. The politicians using the number of dead troops as a political statement for their own gain should be shamed and should never have been elected. When people realize that we are going to lose lives and accept it, then maybe we can go forward and get this over with and come home all that much sooner.

Answer 2

The number of deaths in Iraq is an important number. It doesn't prove that the war was unjust, but it shows the consequence of the Presidents actions. The fact that the war was unjust comes from the fact that Saddam Hussein and Iraq did not do anything to harm the United States or any other Country around the time we were deciding to invade. We claimed they had Weapons of Mass Destruction and ties to Terrorism, two accusations that were not true. So if Iraq hadn't attacked another Country, and if they didn't have any illegal weapons or ties to the 9/11 attacks, than what is the justification to go to war? There was none. The deaths in Iraq just show how President Bush's mistake has cost the United States and the Iraqi's.

Answer 3

I agree every death is a terrible tragedy and I mourn for the loved ones left behind but people are taking the media at face value just like in Vietnam and go no further with it. The media is against the war and so it's filled it's pages with all kinds of antiwar propaganda. With the age of the computer these people, especially those so against the war, need to dig in and check out different resources, not just the ones they want to know. The death count isn't just a simple so many killed today, there are different factors involved in this number.

Answer 4

The only people that are hung up on the death count in Iraq are the liberals who are trying to make the war effort look bad. They use it as a political punch to throw in the faces of people here on the homefront, because they know that we all care about our soldiers and what happens to them. They try to hide the fact that in war, soldiers die. It is very sad when any of our soldiers fall, but that is what happens in war.

Answer 5

IN THE VIETNAM ERA, BODY COUNT WAS AN IMPORTANT FACTOR FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO SHOW THE DISPARITY AND KILL RATIO BETWEEN THE COMPETING FORCES AS A MEASURE OF SUCCESS OR FAILURE. THEY WERE ROUNDLY CRITICIZED FOR THE PRACTICE BY THE NEWS MEDIA. NOW, OF COURSE, THE NEWS MEDIA, WHEN IT SUITS THEM, USE THE SAME PRACTICE TO SHOW THE HORRENDOUS NUMBERS TO PROVE THAT WE ARE NOT WINNING. KILL RATIOS ARE ABOUT THE SAME OR SLIGHTLY HIGHER BETWEEN COMBATANTS BUT THEY DONT USE THOSE....THEY USE THE CIVILIAN DEATH TOLL TO SHOW THE FAILURES OF THE COALITION FORCES TO STOP THE SECTARIAN VIOLENCE. EVERYONE USES THE NUMBERS FOR THEIR OWN PURPOSES TO REFLECT THEIR OWN BIAS. THE BROADCAST NEWS MEDIA, AS MOST ANY OBJECTIVE OBSERVER WILL ACKNOWLEDGE, HAS, BY ITS VERY NATURE, BEEN LEFT LEANING FOR THE LAST FORTY YEARS OR SO MAINLY BECAUSE OF VIETNAM. SOME CABLE AND RADIO SOURCES HAVE COUNTERED THAT TREND TO SOME DEGREE BUT APPARENTLY NOT ENOUGH TO CONVINCE THE MAJORS TO CLEAN UP THEIR ACT AND NOT MAKE STARS AND MARTYRS OUT OF THESE LUNATICS WHO, MOST AGREE, ARE THE ENEMY.

Answer 6

Politics has become more hardened in the U.S. Every side skews the numbers of any platform to support their side. $300 billion was spent on Iraq and every single lobbist would have loved to have gotten their hands on that money and are trying to get their hands on that money. Some lobbyists are saying some frivolous thing will defeat the terrorists and some lobbyists are trying to say the war is unjust and the money would be better spent on them.

Here, I will spin some numbers, using the online CIA fact book, to show there is no major fighting in Iraq and in fact the allied forces have stumbled on some hippie movement .

In 2006, the death count in Iraq was 5.37 per 1,000. In the U.S. it was 8.26 per 1,000 and in France it was 9.14 per 1,000. The birth rate was 31.98 per 1,000 in Iraq, in the U.S. it was 14.14 per 1,000 and in France it was 11.99 per 1,000. It seems that Arabic is the true language of peace and love based on those numbers.

If you want a real hostile place, try Germany. There the death rate is 10.6 per 1,000 and the birth rate is 8.25 per 1,000. They are experiencing a negative population growth, something that I would expect Iraq to be having if it really was as dangerous as the news makes it out to be.

Afganistan is much more dangerous, but much more sexually active. Their death rate is 20.34 per 1,000 and their birth rate is 46.6 per 1,000. Afganistan even has a positive immigration rate of .42 immigrants per 1,000 Afghan. Meanwhile Iran has a birth rate of 17 per 1,000, a death rate of 5.55 per 1,000 and a negative migration of -.48 immigrants per 1,000.

If the news is reporting all the refugees leaving Iraq because of the fighting (Iraq has a 0 per 1,000 immigrant rate), why isn't the news reporting the "refugees" of Saudi Arabia which has an immigration rate of -4.94 per 1,000? That's higher than Mexico's immigration rate of -4.32 per 1,000.

Answer 7

Liberals are so sick and twisted, they feed off every death in Iraq and use it as fodder for their own political gain.

Answer 8

Its because Bush wants to feel pround for killing as much U.S soldiersas he can.

Answer 9

How would you feel if the dead were from your family?