Listen to Iraq

[Killfile]

The monetary cost of the war aside, there has been a human toll as well. Iraqi deaths are, at present, not counted by the US defense department - though estimates range in the tens of thousands.

US deaths now exceed 2200 - which is a pretty difficult number to get your head around. To help you take a look at this flash movie, which shows casualties as dots on a map.

Make sure you turn on your speakers, as the audio component is important.

To those that would trumpet an impending US victory, listen closely to this map - the conflict does not seem to be abating.

To those that would point to the breadth of our "coalition of the willing" try the map with every country checked and again with just the US - try to pick out the difference.

I'm not going to cite sources here telling you what to think - I think that more can be understood by experiencing some of this for yourself.

[vtwahoo]

Iraqi deaths are, at present, not counted by the US defense department - though estimates range in the tens of thousands.

Iraq Body Count, a non-profit which keeps tabs on the number civilian deaths in Iraq since our military "does't do body counts" (Generaly Tommy Frank), reports the official number at between 28069 and 31657.

[Sortep]

damn... if we're going to mass murder for twisted economics... i'd at least like to profit.. but since i'm not... we need to get this damn war resolved... one way or the other...

[panasonic]

man, for a war for $, this sure sucks ass

[TheDarkness]

if most kills on this map are from active attempts at killing soldiers with a suicide attack then it shows that mostly the target is the USA alone. Other countries are far less important it seems

[Killfile]

According to the site and it's various sources, the deaths correspond to troops KIA in Iraq. They do not represent people who were injured in Iraq, medvaced out, and who later died from their wounds.

Hope that helps.

[panasonic]

thats a hell of a lot of blips for a war that is being won/ already won. the problem with this war are that the soldier cant fire first since the ppl attacking them are in civilian clothing

[newbified]

I had no idea that Latvia had troops stationed in Iraq. My grandmother in law is originally from Latvia and even works at the Latvian Credit Union in Toronto.

I think it's sad that so many have to die, for a cause that so many still are grasping to understand.

[vtwahoo]

To those that would point to the breadth of our "coalition of the willing" try the map with every country checked and again with just the US - try to pick out the difference.

My God. I'd love to say that this is worse than I thought...but it's not.

I'm royally depressed.

If this is us "winning" the war I'd hate to see us "loosing."

[ucrzymofo87]

Whoa, I'm gone for the weekend, and the Nazi-bomb started being dropped and the Godwin law envoked...funny.

Anyways, regardless of most of the posters' beliefs that we are "loosing" the war. Some facts should be taken into account. The Iraqi economy is growing and prospering at higher levels than under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship source.

Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, even thinks the possibility of a terrorist victory there is slim to none source. As of August 2005, 3,100 schools in Iraq have been renovated and referbished. The Iraqi Police Service has trained and equipped 55,000 police officers. Also, the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004. This article lists many other facts of good news coming out of Iraq. Here is one of Arthur Chrenkoff has many articles about positive news coming out of Iraq in the Wall Street Journal here. Among other positive stories, the article says, "The survey of 1,967 Iraqis was conducted Feb. 27-March 5, after Iraq held its first free elections in half a century in January. According to the poll, 62% say the country is headed in the right direction and 23% say it is headed in the wrong direction."

And as far as Iraq costing an arm and a leg, compare the cost of Iraq to the cost of other conflicts as a percent of GDP; remarkably low. The least expensive war in American history:


source

[TheDarkness]

nothing personal but pro-american sources aren't that reliable in this case and a survey with les then 2000 people involved in a country that has more then 24 million inhabitants doesn't say that much either.
Also has it occured to you that we live in one of the most wealthy ages of the last 500 years? Offcourse if looked at the GDP then this war doesn't cost as much but it still is higher then you want us to believe.... Read following article if you want to know more details
http://www.opencrs.com/rpts/RL33110_20051007.pdf

[ucrzymofo87]

In a national sample, 1500 is the standard number of people to formulate an accurate view of the population. In the case of the Iraq poll, it can be interpreted as accurate. source

[Killfile]

While you're right that the sample size doesn't have to be terribly large, larger samples are almost uniformly better.

That said, I would question the methods used in the Iraq poll. For starters, was this a phone poll? If so - wouldn't poling the people that have working phone service skew the results? If not - is a door to door polling technique really going to be that accurate in a country that may not be entirely clear on the "we won't shoot you for disagreeing with us" aspect of polling procedure? I'm not saying the poll has these problems, but issues like this would make me hesitant to look favorably upon a poll conducted in Iraq.

As to the cost of the conflict in GDP - there are some serious problems there. First, I note that there are a LOT of US conflicts omitted from your numbers. Is operation Iraqi Freedom less expensive than US intervention in Kosovo or Somalia? How about Grenada or Nicaragua? Your numbers include the First Iraq War (very recent) and then the largest conflicts in American History. I'm sure Iraq is less expensive than the Norman Conquest of the British Isles, but it's not in the same historic ballpark as that either.

It also seems worth pointing out that the Iraqi conflict isn't over yet, while those other wars are over.

And one last point -- *tick* *tick* *tick tick tick* *tick tick* -- Iraq sounds pretty "expensive" to me.

[TheDarkness]

And one last point -- *tick* *tick* *tick tick tick* *tick tick* -- Iraq sounds pretty "expensive" to me.

well even 1 tick would be very expensive depending on the viewpoint. The family of the KIA will take to this far harder then the government so it is arguable that 1 live lost is 1 life lost too many but i still consider that to be a true statement

[Killfile]

Another series of thoughts ---

Are the costs of these wars expressed in percent GDP at the time of the war in question or percent of 2005 GDP? Are the numbers an average for the yearly cost of the war, or the sum total cost of the war against a single year's GDP? Maybe against the total GDP across the years of the war?

Are we talking about Real or Nominal GDP here? Buying power matters after all - and inflation could seriously skew the WWII values.

GDP is declining in its accuracy with respect to the American economy as increased value-addedness in our economic sectors throw higher GDP values but depend on primary economic activities outside of US teritories. Thus US GDP appears artificially high in comparison to GDP during the second world war.

I tried digging up Robert Whaples' original study, but don't have access to the original data at this point. Since the graphical interpretation is all we have to go on until someone can get to that data, and since, as Mark Twain once said "There are three kinds of lies - lies, damn lies, and statistics," I think we can safely dismiss the relevancy of the proceeding graph until such time as the numbers can be more closely examined.

[vtwahoo]

First, the above graph shows that the FIRST Gulf War was the least expensive. Way to be able to read a graph.

You can tell that the figures in the above chart are not standardized because they are not reported in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). They therefore meaning nothing.

Moreover, they are completely bogus for one simple reason: GDP is the measure of value of all good produced in a country in a given year in terms of end use values. Even if EVERYTHING made in the country for a given year was dedicated to the war effort the total sum could be no higher than 100%.

The chart and the figures are complete bullshit. And by complete, I mean at least 150%.

[Sortep]

what about the extra 50%? is that just to cover the presidents bullshit as well being as he's overdrafted his bullshit account?