May 2008: US deaths in NYC double those in Iraq

how dare you inject "facts" and "logic" into this argument sir...

now write "Bush lied ppl died" 1000 times on the blackboard.

That's a bogus use of statistics, because you need to consider the death rate, the likelihood of being killed as a citizen of NYC vs. a soldier in Iraq. That means you need to consider the population of NY, and the number of soldiers in Iraq. There are 8.2 million citizens of NY, with the murder number last month of 43, this means a murder rate of 43/8.2 million, which is .0000052. I'm guessing about 200,000 U.S soldiers in Iraq--if less, that would correspond to a higher death rate, a higher likelihood of being killed in the war. Using that as the estimate, the war death rate is 19/200,000, which is .000095. This corresponds to a war death rate for US soldiers that is .000095/.0000052 = 18.1 times higher than the murder rate in NYC. So, in line with common sense, your chance of having been killed in war if you were a U.S. soldier in Iraq last month is higher than your chance of having been murdered if you were a NYC resident last month, 18.1 times higher. I mean, come on, did you really think that your probability of being murdered in NYC is higher than your probability of being killed as a combat soldier active in a war in Iraq? Did you really *believe* that when you wrote that? This of course should sound far-fetched, to say the least, meaning you should really look into and examine the facts before posting such an implausible sounding proposition.

Ron wants to surrender to the Base as soon as possible because he has been told by his betters that he must hate everything republicans do without question. And so he falls right into line. He has no concept of history. He doesn't even know why we still have four hundred thousand troops in Europe. And the death rate there is greater than the death rate in Iraq. But lets not talk about that. Ron wants Iran to destroy Israel and the US. He is against preventing Iran from giving nukes to bin Laden or his cronies. Ron wants to lose a US city because he clearly doesn't give a shit about anyone but Ron. Who cares if the US goes bankrupt over a global warming that isn't happening. So what if we lose Baltimore? Who cares? We lose 50,000 people in car accidents every year. So what? We have to abandon our allies in Iraq to the Iranian insurgents because Ron says so. He wants to surrender to Islam. He wants you to be ruled in a fascist state of his very own making. Fascist democrats for Obama! Ron is soooo self absorbed that he could care less about the Iraqis who are being killed by radical Islam. Let them kill the Jews! Ron wants to know why we shouldn't allow the indigenous people of Judea to be wiped off the map by the Muslim interlopers who never ever lived there until the jooos moved in and then suddenly the radical Islamicists attacked because their cause and Hitler's cause have always been one and the same. But smart old Ron thinks we should let the Islamic fanatics take over the whole world. He is ready to bend over right now and he is willing to force you to bow down and surrender too, just like him; a child who will not defend himself or his friends. He would rather allow them to be killed by rioting Islam, the religion of perpetual outrage. Ron is a dickhead who certainly knows better than you do so you should submit to Islam right away so Ron will be happy.

Thanks, Ron for clarifying that fact. Funny, Infidelesto, that you didn't mention how many IRAQIS died in Iraq, as well as US Soldiers for the month of May (the monthly average this year is running about 930). People with no regard for human life make me sick.

To "Steve": No, I have not made arguments for any of those positions you state, and you have no basis to attribute to me such opinions. Actually I might surprise you with my "conservative" stance on many of them. But let's not divert from the issue at hand. You have not pointed out in one single way how I am wrong, in the information I present. See, whether one is for or against the Iraq war, one ought to be able to take in facts for what they are, and dismiss erroneous information as false. I pointed out how the information in the original post was erroneous, how in fact it does not indicate higher probability of being murdered in NYC than killed in Iraq, but instead indicates an 18 times greater probability of being killed in Iraq (that month), and I gave all the facts and logic to rigorously demonstrate this. You can still be for the Iraq war, even with these facts in mind, but you should not twist objective facts to the way you would like to see it, but accept the facts. In other words, don't shoot the messenger; don't blame me for simply showing erroneous information to be erroneous.

Hey Acks,

Do you mean the Iraqi's that died by the hands of terrorist insurgents or those insurgents (bad guys) who died because theyw ere taking up arms against a coalition force who's trying to establish peace in Iraq.

Those "Iraqis" as you put are Islamic terrorist insurgents who are killing Iraqis and Americans. It's called KILLING THE BAD GUYS. Oh wait, I forgot liberals feel too indiscriminate to know the difference...

Anti-war morons love to lump "Iraqis" all together like they're all innocent victims.

Left wing nutjobs love to smear our troops and describe "Iraqis" as a bunch of innocent people while American soldiers are walking around and slaughtering innocents at will.

Liberal idiots go around siding with "human life" instead of attacking those who are chopping heads off American contractors, blowing up wedding parties, funerals, police recruitment centers and supermarkets.

Left-wing sheeple who "claim" to have respect for human life have nothing but contempt for those who try and preserve it.

Americans are in Iraq helping the good Iraqi's rebuild and establish themselves while rooting out those evil people that you so love to defend. Left-wing tools love to side with the enemy. They are incapable of discriminating between good and evil. It's very very sad and bordering a complete mental disorder.

More silly support for a view not likely to change anyway. Why bother making up such disjointed non sequiturs?

While Ron loves to correct "erroneous information", in this case, he hasn't done it. Infidelesto never compared death rates, he merely gave two measurements, NEITHER ONE OF WHICH WAS FALSE. And by its own title, the comparison was limited to US fatalities. Injecting Iraqi fatalities is pointless- if you compare the death rates of Iraqis in Iraq vs Iraqis in the US, the only conclusion you will draw is that all of Mesopotamia should be evacuated at once, and the entire population relocated to the US.

It is not necessary to compare rates- it is necessary only to compare the absolutes against the benefits we achieve. We lost 43 New Yorkers in May- does our continued presence in New York justify this loss? If not, then withdrawing from New York is a logical option. We can judge Iraq on the same metric, but any comparison or rates is unnessecary. The point made is that no one would think that a withdrawal from New York is on the table for discussion, even if the loss was twice as high, because of the perceived benefit of maintaining the city.

Unfortunately, the benefit of Iraq is often unperceived. Critics (like Acks) are quick to brink up the Iraqi war dead but fail to consider how high the toll would be if we evacuate.

Faced with that, they then fall back on "but it was all your fault anyway, these deaths wouldn't even by happening without the US invasion". This is absurd, as it invokes shaky presumptions of alternate futures. The Saddam regime was inherrently unstable, sociopathically violent, and supported itself by enriching a small minority while essentially coopting them in the brutal repression of the majority. There are reasons for the intense hatreds today, the Shi'ia death squads driving Sunni from their homes, and they don't all go back to the Battle of Badr.

Saddam had no system in place for maintaining his regime beyond his own life- his sons were close to the borderline of psychotic, but close to the border only when you understand they were already on the other side of it. Uday and Qusay running Iraq? It would make the US occupation look positively gentle by any comparison.

Saddam's regime was finite, like all things. In the US, we are used to an orderly, institutionalized transfer of power- the outgoing president leaves, and does nothing worse than steal the silverware. Iraq would not have been like that. In all probability, the inevitable end of the Saddam regime would have been apocalyptic. It is likely that the "best of all worlds" scenario is actually close to what happened: after the fall of Saddam, 175,000 western troops happen to be on hand to play mediator and sort things out, and try to get the nation to adopt some form of Democracy. Without us, any post-Saddam Iraq would have horrendous, possibly leading to a much wider war as Iran and the Arabs jump in to support their respective sides.

Yes, we did something rash and unreasonable, with poor planning. Sometimes, that's a good thing.

Ben

The funniest thing about all of this is that the MAJORITY of Americans don't think we should've gone to "war" with Iraq. Yet those in the minority feel like justifying the "war" by pointing out that they know exactly how things would have happened if we had not invaded and that there really aren't that many people dying. Based on your infinite knowledge of the future, should we not be invading North Korea, the rest of the Middle East, and 20% of Africa in order to rid the world of terrorists??? Funding? We have an infinte supply of money, so let's go for it!

Ron is right; the statistic is misleading. That's the problem with extreme conservatives and extreme liberals. You all have to distort the truth to make it sound okay. In this case with the extreme conservatives, you can try to justify the invasion that way if you want. If it makes you feel smart and clever, that's fine. Please continue deluding yourselves. Those of us in the middle will continue thinking rather than allow ourselves to be spoon-fed.

Jeff,

The majority of Americans still have no clue about what islam really is. The majority of Americans are spoiled brats who have an entitlement mentality thanks to extreme liberals infesting Universities. Have you been to the middle east? I have worked here almost 5 years, and have seen some scary stuff that never sees the light of day in the media back home, due to liberal PCtards not wanting to show the true face of the enemy.

Nowhere in this article is there any mention of invading Korea, or the rest of the middle east. Africa is doing a fine job on its own. Where in the article is the truth distorted? Why do you resort to such wild speculation?

Ben,

very good point, no one on the left ever mentions the Hussein Brother's brutality. I guess they intend to give them therapy and hugs to stop them from using the rape rooms, and killing soccer players on the losing teams. We need to get back to that, killing terrorists and showing the broken corpses on Arab TV, as we did with Uday and Qusay.

Oh and for the record Jeff, I used to BE one of those spoiled brats, before my eyes were opened.

Then don't you think it's odd that there was GENOCIDE happening in the Sudan on a far more massive scale, yet what we are doing to "help" Iraq is far more hands-on? And where in my post did you see me speculating about anything? The original post is misleading. That's not speculation, it's a fact. More kangaroos died in Australia last month than in the United States. That's the same argument, and it is misleading, especially to ignorant people who believe everything they hear and read. Don't mistake my bitter sarcasm as speculation. You totally missed the point of what I wrote.

I haven't been to the Middle East, but I imagine that the numbers of non-terrorist Muslims dwarf those of terrorist Muslims. The bad guys hide amongst the good guys. It is not an easy situation to face and it makes victory that much more difficult. But then again, you have these people who think we need to turn the entire Middle East to glass. There is major ignorance on all fronts, and the scapegote of liberal media and liberal infestations at colleges and universities is outdated. I respectfully disagree with you, and that's all.

To Ben: The comparison itself is false, i.e., meaningless, as one cannot conclude anything from absolute killed-by-violence numbers when the respective populations the deaths are coming from differ in number. The implication of the original post is that one is less likely to die by violence as a soldier in Iraq than as a resident of NYC. I showed how this is not the case, that one is approximately 18 times more likely to die by violence as a soldier in Iraq.

Just to clarify what I said. I meant one is approximately 18 times more likely to *have* died as a soldier in Iraq last month than as a resident of NYC (as these calculations are based on the numbers of deaths last month)

------- I haven’t been to the Middle East, but I imagine that the numbers of non-terrorist Muslims dwarf those of terrorist Muslims. The bad guys hide amongst the good guys. -------- Exactly as the number of marines are outnumbered here by those those that they defend. I have been to the middle east. I can assure You that if you stood on a street corner in beiruit and held a sign calling for the death of bin laden that you would not be alive by morning. Much as you should not be alive after holding a sign inciting a moronic muslem mob to kill our President. But then we are not muslem......yet.