1 Our troops are safer

Were on a historic realinement in the ME

Punchline --- the traitor leftys want to LEAVE!!!

WHY???? Do they want the standard of living to fall when we lose are oil? They cant stand to say Bush is a hero? MAYBE THEY LIKE TO LOSE

Think about it leftys

2 It could be a case that, being deployed, soldiers and Marines aren't back home getting killed via DUIs (their own and others) and other stupid stuff that normally happens around bored members of the military.

What I haven't really seen is anything that has broken it down by "cause of death" - how aren't soldiers dying currently is something I think I would find interesting.

3 SGT Jeff- Murdoc actually breaks down the numbers from the Defense Dept.

http://www.murdoconline.net/pics/Death_Rates.pdf

The point of the post is not to say that there are less fatalities today- (adding in all fatalities puts Bush slightly higher than Clinton- lower than Reagan)- but that this war has been fought brilliantly when you compare fatalities to other US wars and with what has been accomplished.

4 The numbers are for different things: it's total military deaths for the Clinton era and battlefield deaths for Bush.

These aren't comparable sets. (someone else on Gateway Pundit's site finds the comparable numbers and prorates out the Bush figures, and gets something like 11k deaths to Clinton's 7.5k.)

5 The DOD has active duty deaths (combat and otherwise) through 2006 available here (pdf). The 2006 numbers are preliminary and subject to change. This is only fatalities of course, and non-fatal casualty numbers are much higher, so to call these years "safer," even if the fatality numbers supported it, would not be accurate. Less deadly maybe, but not safer. In any case, here are the numbers;

1993 - 1213
1994 - 1075
1995 - 1040
1996 - 974
1997 - 817
1998 - 827
1999 - 796
2000 - 758
Total - 7500

2001 - 891
2002 - 999
2003 - 1228
2004 - 1874
2005 - 1942
2006 - 1858
Total - 8792

That's an average of 937.5 per year during the Clinton years, and 1465.33 per year during the Bush years through '06.

6 I hate to drop an "amnesty bill" in the punch bowl here -- The Lord knows I'm no Clinton fan -- but we didn't just stop suffering non-combat fatalities when we invaded Afghanistan. As much as I hate to call attention to it I think the linked Gateway Pundit post is comparing apples to oranges. I added an excerpt and link to my 2007.05.24 Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan/"The media sucks" Roundup

7 Petraeus also suffered a broken leg on a parachute jump.

8 Have to agree with Mr. Hoft...This war has been fought brilliantly and extraordinarily well. When the numbers of KIA are measured against each war in the same 5 year time span-no President has ever seen such low numbers-ever. Just think back to one week in Viet Nam, think it was during the TET Offensive and over 7,500 US soldiers died. That is almost double the number we have lost in 5 years in the ME under the G.W. Bush leadership.

Obviously the President isn't the training officer but pretty clearly his appointments have been in the interest of the troops not the politicians judging by the splendid and easily compared results to just one previous war. Were you to look at the numbers from the Civil War, WWI, WWII and Korea-it is truly mind-boggling and borders on the near miraculous.

IMHO, no president has been faced with as many catastrophes as this President: 9-11, near total wipe out of our economy (you can't talk to a banker or economist that isn't appreciative of the hoops the administration went through to see the economy recover), Hurricane Katrina, et. al. History, if it is remotely fair, will record Pres Bush right up there with Lincoln if not higher.

So with heartfelt appreciation, God Bless our troops, God Bless America and God Bless George W. Bush!

9 You have to take into account the large number of severely wounded troops. That said, in peacetime the military engages in a lot of high risk training that produces a lot of fatalities. I was a Navy Pilot in the 80's and we lost a whole lot of people during exercises and training.

10 Wow, Conneticut (sic) Yankee...Tony Snow in his utmost hagiographic mode couldn't have put it any better himself. There aren't many diehard Bush cultists like you left hanging around. Bravo, sir.

11 Such sarcasm....to bad only 29% of the public feels that Congress is doing a good job.

12 And those who think they are are more cultist than anything else I've seen.....

13 Reminds me of an interview I saw during the first Gulf War. It was with an officer in an RAF Tornado squadron. The media with in a sh*t state over the fact that the Brit's had lost 4 Tornados early in the war(largely the result of very dangerous low-level runway busting missions). The RAF officer pointed out to the reporter that in relation to operation hours and sorties flown, their loss in the war were actually lower than during peace time exercizes in Britian and Europe.

14 From TBR News' "The Dishonored Dead" (2005):

"There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense has deliberately not reported a significant number of the dead in Iraq. The actual death toll is in excess of 10,000. Given the officially acknowledged number of over 15,000 seriously wounded (and a published total of 25,000 wounded overall,), this elevated death toll is far more realistic than the current 2,000+ now being officially published.

"In addition to the evident falsification of the death rolls, at least 5,500 American military personnel have deserted, most in Ireland but more have escaped to Canada and other European countries, none of whom are inclined to cooperate with vengeful American authorities. This means that of the 158,000 U.S. military shipped to Iraq, 26,000 deserted, were killed or seriously wounded. The DoD lists currently being very quietly circulated indicate over 10,000 dead, over 25,000 seriously wounded and a large number of suicides, forced hospitalization for ongoing drug usage and sales, murder of Iraqi civilians and fellow soldiers, rapes, courts martial and so on.

"The government gets away with these huge lies because they claim, falsely, that only soldiers actually killed *on the ground* in Iraq are reported. The dying and critically wounded are listed as en route to military hospitals outside of the country and *not* reported on the daily postings. Anyone who dies just as the transport takes off from the Baghdad airport is not listed and neither are those who die in the US military hospitals. Their families are certainly notified that their son, husband, brother or lover was dead and the bodies, or what is left of them (refrigeration is very bad in Iraq what with constant power outages) are shipped home, to Dover AFB. This, we note, was the overall policy until very recently. Since it became well known that many had died at Landstuhl, in Germany, the DoD began to list a very few soldiers who had died at other non-theater locations. These numbers are only for show and are pathetically small in relationship to the actual figures."


From TBR News, 2007:

"Note: Viewers of TBR News who would like a copy of the original Department of Defense Supplemental Casualty lists from 2003 to mid-2005, showing facsimiles of the actual casualties, as opposed to the heavily redacted official listings, may write to [name available at link below] at [e-mail available at link below] for a full copy of the original documents. This list is free of charge. As of May 12, 2007, [name available at link below] has sent out 25, 321 lists."

...

"This original listing showed that as of mid-2005, the death count in both Iraq and Afghanistan topped 10,000 with 20,000 seriously wounded. By 2007, the death toll has risen to over 15,000 (and rising daily) with officially reported serious woundings (requiring out-of-theater hospitalization) at 50,508 as per a report published in the New York Times of January 30, 2007.

"Also not discussed are the over 10,000 desertions (from March, 2003 to date)."

http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a2689.htm

15 J, you might want to get into the habit of verifying the veracity and credibility of your sources.

Joy Behar and Rosie O'Donnell have more credibility than this man, whatever his real name is.

16 This keeps getting better... or at least more amusing.

One of the many aliases of the guy who writes "TBR News" is "Gregory Douglas" is a Holocaust denier, and may have been the first guy to "air the theory" that the Bush Administration and Israel orchestrated the 9/11 attacks.

He is also purported to be a document and art forger and enthalled with the Nazis when he's not authoring articles on Karl Rove's gay orgies.

17 are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite? even BUSH is right twice a day....

18 Least folks, I am dealing with facts that anyone can find at the DOD sites, Search, Wikipedia sites or even, when still uncertain making a few phone calls and talking to whoever would know the issue up close and personal. As a former TV anchor/reporter closely related to the US military, am absolutely appalled at the mis-reporting and genuine ignorance of the enemy exhibited by today's journalists, even from time to time on Fox. Though for the most part retired, and am still writing and TRIPLE verify 'facts' (independent verification) before publishing. That is something apparently neither monitored nor done by today's major media outlets for the most part run by Viet Nam era fogies whose only success in life was to discredit whatever administration was in office.

The spin is constantly negative as it should be in one sense-the press is yet another check on government next to the three branches. But lying, deliberately looking for ways and means of discrediting this administration utilizing half truths or outright lies as in J's piece, is not just outrageous but beyond the pale.

My degrees are in political science so do not feel any obligation to MSM (mainstream media) or a political party except to learn the truth. A little bit of homework, deliberately looking for both positive and negatives can only leave one in genuine awe of the Bush administration. For the most part- and those of you with close military connections can verify this pretty easily-look at the number of attempts to horrifically attack the US, have been thwarted from each branch of the service working on anti-terrorism task forces throughout the country, nevermind those plans uncovered by the FBI and Homeland Security teams. It is boggling but perhaps not reported simply because the administration doesn't want the enemy to know just how much the agencies do know about them. The only place I fault the Bush administration is, perhaps, not letting the public know how extraordinarily dangerous this enemy, Al Qaeda really is.

PS-Would love to have Snow's job but don't think they hire over-60 types!

19 "But lying, deliberately looking for ways and means of discrediting this administration utilizing half truths or outright lies as in J's piece...."

for all of your guff, you've shown us none of that to be true, CY, but you have, quite accidentally, spouted out some truth in your spiel: "A little bit of homework...can only leave one in genuine awe of the Bush administration." ahhhh... "a little" homework, yes; just pray don't do too much of it.

20
J, your article was speculation at best and offered absolutely nothing. This is a tad more realistic for starters-3 independent sources:

http://www.defendamerica.mil/fallen.html

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

http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/2007.04.html