A Question of Numbers

[judasmachine]

I was talking to an old collegue of mine, and he said of the death toll in Iraq, that around 40 to 45 thousand Americans die in car wrecks every year. And here I am crying about about 1700 dying in Iraq. Well to this I say that 1700 is roughly what 10% of the American population in Iraq, and 42,000 is what about >1% of the American population?

Now, my question is: How many boys and girls do we actually have over there, and what percentage of them have died vs. the 42,000 (est. 2004) dead from auto accidents out of how many Americans are there on the road every day?

Oh and in all fairness that 1700 can be cut in half as it has taken around 2 years to get to that number.

As much as he downplayed it, I still think combat is riskier than driving to work every morning.

[edit] The reason I ask here is because I've googled till my fingers bled, and found so many differant statistics I don't know which to take seriously.

 

[chambersc]

i believe we have around 175k troops.

 

[judasmachine]

Originally posted by: chambersc
i believe we have around 175k troops.

Ok so we're "losing" about 5% a year in Iraq. (I know they're being replaced with new recruits and such.)

The Federal Highway Assoc. puts the number at 42,815 deaths. I am still finding wildly varieing numbers on the number of people on American highways every year to compare the fatality rate to. I dare say we're not losing 5% of American people on the highways every year.

 

[Vertimus]

Originally posted by: judasmachine

Originally posted by: chambersc
i believe we have around 175k troops.

Ok so we're "losing" about 5% a year in Iraq. (I know they're being replaced with new recruits and such.)

The Federal Highway Assoc. puts the number at 42,815 deaths. I am still finding wildly varieing numbers on the number of people on American highways every year to compare the fatality rate to. I dare say we're not losing 5% of American people on the highways every year.

Learn how to divide.

 

[judasmachine]

Originally posted by: Vertimus

Originally posted by: judasmachine

Originally posted by: chambersc
i believe we have around 175k troops.

Ok so we're "losing" about 5% a year in Iraq. (I know they're being replaced with new recruits and such.)

The Federal Highway Assoc. puts the number at 42,815 deaths. I am still finding wildly varieing numbers on the number of people on American highways every year to compare the fatality rate to. I dare say we're not losing 5% of American people on the highways every year.

Learn how to divide.

oh crap. i never said math was my strongest subject.

 

[Vertimus]

Originally posted by: judasmachine

Originally posted by: Vertimus

Originally posted by: judasmachine

Originally posted by: chambersc
i believe we have around 175k troops.

Ok so we're "losing" about 5% a year in Iraq. (I know they're being replaced with new recruits and such.)

The Federal Highway Assoc. puts the number at 42,815 deaths. I am still finding wildly varieing numbers on the number of people on American highways every year to compare the fatality rate to. I dare say we're not losing 5% of American people on the highways every year.

Learn how to divide.

oh crap. i never said math was my strongest subject.

It's OK It probably proves your point even more though.

 

[bamacre]

People being killed in car wrecks is a necessary evil. Troops being killed in Iraq is just evil.

 

[judasmachine]

Originally posted by: bamacre
People being killed in car wrecks is a necessary evil. Troops being killed in Iraq is just evil.

that was my original point, but i totally missed a digit. and i wasn't posting for the flameworthiness of the topic. i just wanted to see the numbers.

 

[Todd33]

The only people who compare troop deaths to other stats are morons right wingers trying to justify crap in their small heads. how many people did Jesus kill? why is that relavent?

 

[ntdz]

Originally posted by: judasmachine
I was talking to an old collegue of mine, and he said of the death toll in Iraq, that around 40 to 45 thousand Americans die in car wrecks every year. And here I am crying about about 1700 dying in Iraq. Well to this I say that 1700 is roughly what 10% of the American population in Iraq, and 42,000 is what about >1% of the American population?

Now, my question is: How many boys and girls do we actually have over there, and what percentage of them have died vs. the 42,000 (est. 2004) dead from auto accidents out of how many Americans are there on the road every day?

Oh and in all fairness that 1700 can be cut in half as it has taken around 2 years to get to that number.

As much as he downplayed it, I still think combat is riskier than driving to work every morning.

[edit] The reason I ask here is because I've googled till my fingers bled, and found so many differant statistics I don't know which to take seriously.

Considering troops are constantly being rotated in and out, I'd guess that there has probably been over half a million troops actually in Iraq...

 

[MicroChrome]

Uh.... What about the death toll in california just from drive by shootings and stray bullets....etc...etc... I think if you take that number alone you will see how insignificant the war is in Iraq.

 

[martinez]

Originally posted by: MicroChrome
Uh.... What about the death toll in california just from drive by shootings and stray bullets....etc...etc... I think if you take that number alone you will see how insignificant the war is in Iraq.

Man, that really says alot about conditions in California then huh? What a ridiculous comparison.

Anyway, regardless of the number of troops killed/civilians killed you can hardly call such a radical shift in U.S policy insignificant.

 

[conjur]

U.S. Soldiers in Iraq - Deaths Per Month - 2003-2005

Iraqi Police/Guardsmen - Deaths Per Month - 2005



Tom DeLay:

"You know, if Houston, Texas, was held to the same standard as Iraq is held to, nobody'd go to Houston, because all this reporting coming out of the local press in Houston is violence, murders, robberies, deaths on the highways,"

Hmmm...we have ATers here from Houston, right? Could you all please post the many stories of car bombs, IEDs, and kidnappings that occur by the dozens each day down there? We'd really appreciate it.

 

[Engineer]

Aside from the needless loss of life on a lie of a war, does anyone want to talk dollars for the Iraq adventure?

Anyone think that it's cheaper than car deaths, etc? I doubt anyone will challenge that assumption very much as I doubt that it does ($300 Billion)

 

[Jmman]

I would say this is not really a good analogy. Anyway, I do not believe the 1700 deaths count accidental deaths either, so the car accidents, etc that are happening in Iraq are also killing soldiers as well. I could be wrong though.....

 

[piasabird]

War is a bit more dangerous than most occupations. Also in the military we would lose a few of them to training accidents every year anyway. Planes and helicopters are always crashing just due to pilot error. People in the military train very hard and a certain number of people always end up dead every year. So, even in peacetime we would expect a somewhat high rate of accidental deaths.

The Iraqi Army is probably just as large as the American fighting force in Iraq and will be larger than us by December. We do not need a larger fighting force. We need to convice Iraq's neighbors that Iraq is serious about defending itself, and that we plan to close all the borders or attack in retaliation the countries from which people are entering Iraq.

 

[piasabird]

Just add up all the missing children and rapes and murders in every large city in the US and it will probably be about 2,000 or more.

In the Chicago area in 2004 according to the FBI Crime Statistics there were 448 murders! 518 Murders in Las Angeles in 2004. New York City had 574 Murders in 2004.

Obligatory Link:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/2004/04prelim.pdf

This is a preliminary report.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: piasabird
Just add up all the missing children and rapes and murders in every large city in the US and it will probably be about 2,000 or more.

In the Chicago area in 2004 according to the FBI Crime Statistics there were 448 murders! 518 Murders in Las Angeles in 2004. New York City had 574 Murders in 2004.

Obligatory Link:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/2004/04prelim.pdf

This is a preliminary report.

And your point is?