How many we lose per month in Iraq

[Bucky]

Between the war and the explosion of hte violence in November, we lost about 40 troops a month. Since November, we've lost about 40 troops a month. This is from all causes, not just hostile action. But of course running your tank or humvee off the road--or even stress-related suicide--is as certain a threat in war time as enemy fire or homemade bombs. The violence is not getting better. And all these deaths were preventable.

[brainwashed_youth]

1. that's 40 troops too many

damn GeeDubya

[Bucky]

2. Plus my facts are wrong (too optimistic)

Mortality rates in December and January (46 per month) are higher than they were in September and October (40 per month) and much higher than during the summer time (down in the 30s). You can see on the charts that the latest bars are running a bit higher. Hopefully that's just statistical happenstance. But I fear that it may be that the insurgents are gearing up for a bigger push in the spring. That big hit on Kurdish political leaders this weekend is the work of al-Qaeda--God help us if they're in the mix now.

[Djinn]

3. also

the figures often thrown around on the "liberal" media only ever show US deaths - if you add all the UK, Italian, Danish etc deaths it's higher. Iraqi deaths should also be counted - appaerntly we are doing this FOR them and they're not the enemy so surely we should take their deaths into account also - if not the civilians then ATLEAST count those Iraqi's working for and paid by the US army. Actually they could also count the army contractors who are US citizens - they're not counted either.

There was a really good article on Counterpunch a while back about this http://www.counterpunch.org/rooij01312004.html that should be read by as many people as possible.