Looks like I missed a milestone while I was away but Tony Snow covered it for me. I notice that no one here bothered to mention it. :roll:
I waited a while before posting this but no one here seemed to notice the 2500th U.S. casualty. I guess if you just keep your eyes closed tight enough, cover your ears hard enough, and sing "LALALALALA" loud enough you can ignore anything. If the youth of America was being drafted for duty in Iraq, like they were for Vietnam, instead of sending the same poor slobs back to Iraq for three and four tours I GUARANTY that you wouldn't be ignoring these milestones then.
I'm accused by some here of "celebrating" U.S. deaths in Iraq whenever I point out these milestones -- these TOTALLY UNNECESSARY MILESTONES -- so I guess Tony is now the one who is "celebrating" U.S. deaths in Iraq by highlighting the latest milestone.
Whatever. bush's unprovoked attack is still raging, Americans are still dying, and you people are still ignoring it.
What a disgrace.
US military deaths in Iraq reach 2,500
Thu Jun 15, 2006 1:31pm ET
By Will Dunham
I waited a while before posting this but no one here seemed to notice the 2500th U.S. casualty. I guess if you just keep your eyes closed tight enough, cover your ears hard enough, and sing "LALALALALA" loud enough you can ignore anything. If the youth of America was being drafted for duty in Iraq, like they were for Vietnam, instead of sending the same poor slobs back to Iraq for three and four tours I GUARANTY that you wouldn't be ignoring these milestones then.
I'm accused by some here of "celebrating" U.S. deaths in Iraq whenever I point out these milestones -- these TOTALLY UNNECESSARY MILESTONES -- so I guess Tony is now the one who is "celebrating" U.S. deaths in Iraq by highlighting the latest milestone.
Whatever. bush's unprovoked attack is still raging, Americans are still dying, and you people are still ignoring it.
What a disgrace.
US military deaths in Iraq reach 2,500
Thu Jun 15, 2006 1:31pm ET
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq has reached 2,500, the Pentagon said on Thursday, more than three years into a conflict that finds U.S. and allied forces locked in a struggle with a resilient insurgency.
The milestone came two days after President George W. Bush, hoping to bolster faltering U.S. public support for the war, made a surprise trip to Iraq. In Congress, some Democrats reiterated calls for a timetable to pull out the 127,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
"Any president who goes through a time of war feels very deeply the responsibility for sending men and women into harm's way, he feels very deeply the pain that the families feel, and this president is no different," said White House spokesman Tony Snow.
"One of the things the president has said is that these people will not die in vain."
Of the 2,500 deaths, the Pentagon said, 1,972 have come in combat and 528 in noncombat circumstances such as vehicle accidents or suicides. In addition, the Pentagon said 18,490 troops have been wounded in the war, which began in March 2003 with a U.S.-led invasion to topple President Saddam Hussein.
On an average day in the war, about two U.S. troops are killed. The average monthly death toll is 64.
Rep. Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat, noted the "sad news that we have reached a sad milestone," and the House of Representatives observed a moment of silence.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed with some estimates of the toll around 40,000. Sectarian violence surged after February's bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, with hundreds of people killed every month in Baghdad alone.
In addition to U.S. deaths, 113 British troops have been killed, along with an equal number of other foreign troops.
Bush's central justification for the war was to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons were found.
ADAPTIVE, RESILIENT INSURGENCY
Defense analysts noted that U.S. deaths in Iraq, while significant, are far fewer than in the other protracted U.S. wars since World War Two -- the Vietnam War where 58,000 U.S. troops died, or the Korean War where 54,000 died.
Roadside bombs, known by the military as improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are the biggest cause of U.S. casualties. Ham said despite good progress in detecting roadside bombs and insurgents responsible for making and planting them, the number of these attacks has increased over the past several months.
The steadily mounting U.S. toll reflects an insurgency that has not buckled despite facing a military superpower.
"They've been very adaptive and resilient," said Ted Carpenter of the Cato Institute think tank. "That's one of the chief problems that an intervening force faces in any counterinsurgency war. You're fighting on the adversary's home turf and essentially all the enemy has to do is to out-wait the intervening power."
Military medical experts say the U.S. toll would be even higher if not for advances in medical care and body armor that often saves the lives of badly wounded troops who would have died in previous wars.
They point to: advances in body armor, with torso armor protecting the chest and abdomen, heart and lungs and helmets protecting the brain; improved in-country surgical capabilities allowing patients to be stabilized and quickly flown out of Iraq; and better prepared battlefield medics.