Monday, May 31, 2004
Casualties
The casualty figures are out for May. Using the same system that we used last month, there were 82 total and 78 American. This represents a considerable decline from April, but leaving April aside it is still well above the figures for any other months except November, 2003 and April and March 2003 (during the offensive). So no one should proclaim a positive trend yet.
Two notes. First, the figures given in this analysis for wounded run in the 4000 range. Yet in a responsible television broadcast discussing the wounded passing through Germany, the figure of 12,000 wounded in Iraq was given. No idea of why the discrepancy. Second, I do not understand why the dead in Iraq should be more important than those in Afghanistan. The Lehrer shows regularly shows in silence the pictures on the service men and women most recently killed in Iraq. Last night on 60 Minutes for Memorial Day, we were shown all 800 plus killed in Iraq, but again nothing on Afghanistan. This is clearly the forgotten war. (Actually I believe we have more troops there than we have ever had.) Fatalities are given at about eighty, which seems low, but this is only an impression.
The casualty figures are out for May. Using the same system that we used last month, there were 82 total and 78 American. This represents a considerable decline from April, but leaving April aside it is still well above the figures for any other months except November, 2003 and April and March 2003 (during the offensive). So no one should proclaim a positive trend yet.
Two notes. First, the figures given in this analysis for wounded run in the 4000 range. Yet in a responsible television broadcast discussing the wounded passing through Germany, the figure of 12,000 wounded in Iraq was given. No idea of why the discrepancy. Second, I do not understand why the dead in Iraq should be more important than those in Afghanistan. The Lehrer shows regularly shows in silence the pictures on the service men and women most recently killed in Iraq. Last night on 60 Minutes for Memorial Day, we were shown all 800 plus killed in Iraq, but again nothing on Afghanistan. This is clearly the forgotten war. (Actually I believe we have more troops there than we have ever had.) Fatalities are given at about eighty, which seems low, but this is only an impression.
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