Harry Hope wrote:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/4382

Jan 2 2007

The Butcher's Bill: 3,000 dead, and counting, in Iraq

Golly, your Muslime terrorist heroes should stop killing them, huh?

by Randolph T Holhut


DUMMERSTON, Vt. -

The butcher's bill - the human and financial costs of the war in Iraq
- continues to grow.

On Sunday, the last day of 2006, the Pentagon announced the death of
Spc. Dustin R. Donica, 22, of Spring, Texas.

He was the 3,000th U.S. service member to die in Iraq.

Donica, serving with the 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry
Regiment, 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division,
was killed by small arms fire in Baghdad on Dec. 28.

His death was the 111th in December, the deadliest month for U.S.
forces in 2006.

At least 820 U.S. service members died in Iraq in the past 12 months,
according to the Associated Press' tally.

Remember White House spokesman Tony Snow's words last spring when the
death toll for American service members in Iraq had reached 2,500?

"It's a number," Snow said.

And I'm sure 3,000 is just another number to the folks in the White
House.

Yes, President Bush mouthed the required words of condolence, but he
didn't mean it.

If he did, he would be begging the nation for forgiveness and
announcing plans for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

No that's quite all right, we won't be handing over Iraq to the
culturally backwards animals. Try not to cry.

Three thousand is not just a number.

True, it's a milestone you celebrate.

It represents 3,000 families who lost a loved one in Iraq;

3,000 families who will feel that loss for decades to come.

About 60 percent of those killed in Iraq never saw their 25th
birthday.

Nearly half of all the deaths came as a result of the sadly ubiquitous
IEDs, improvised explosive devices, detonated nearly every day on the
Iraqi roads traveled by U.S. soldiers.

Nearly 1,700 of those killed were enlisted men.

Nearly 2,000 served in the Army.

Sixty-two of those killed were women, two-thirds of them by hostile
fire.

That's the most female deaths by far in any war in this nation's
history.

You want some more numbers, Mr President?

How about these, courtesy of the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index:


· About 23,000 U.S. service members have been wounded in this war -
half of them hurt so badly that they are unable to return to duty.


· More than 6,000 members of the Iraqi military have been killed since
the start of the U.S. occupation.


· Nearly 400 non-Iraqi civilian contractors have been killed, have
been killed since the start of the occupation.


· Sixty-eight media workers died in Iraq in 2006, bringing the total
number killed since the U.S. invasion began in March 2003 to 170.
Their deaths make the Iraq War the deadliest in history for
journalists.


· As many as 600,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the war began,
according to a mortality study prepared in October by medical teams in
Iraq and epidemiologists from Johns Hopkins University. More than
650,000 Iraqis have fled the country as refugees.


· The approximate monetary cost of the U.S. invasion and occupation of
Iraq so far is $365 billion, and the Pentagon is getting ready to ask
for an additional $100 billion for Iraq operations.


· There are still about 140,000 U.S. military personnel in Iraq and,
if the reports out of the White House are true, we'll see more, not
less, troops in Iraq in the coming months.


An honest discussion of the war would involve talking about all these
numbers and what they really mean.

It would involve talking about Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, Haditha and other
acts that have sullied our nation's name.

It would acknowledge the total lack of security for the average Iraqi,
who unlike the Americans, can't travel in armed convoys wearing body
armor.

It would acknowledge what isn't happening in Afghanistan, where the
Taliban have regrouped and victory seems even more elusive.

______________________________________________________

Just numbers

Harry