Hi Neocon; Re: "So that is how we got the support of Spain, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and so on, they all speak English! Interesting theory."
Zero casualties among Spanish, Italian, Polish, Czech, or Bulgarian soldiers in Iraq. Some support. Here's the figures (Czech are my guess, the other figures are from various news reports that may or may not be accurate, but they have the right order of magnitude). For your assistance, I've ordered the figures by percentage of population under arms in Iraq:
Country Popn in Iraq % Dead
------- ------- ---------- ---- ----
Romania 22.3M 150 .001 0
Lithuania 3.6M 85 .002 0
Slovakia 5.4M 85 .002 0
Spain 40.2M 1,300 .003 0
Ukraine 48.1M 1,640 .003 0
Hungary 10.0M 300 .003 0
Czech 10.2M 500? .005 0
Poland 38.6M 2,000 .005 0
Italy 57.9M 3,000 .005 0
Bulgaria 7.5M 500 .007 0
Latvia 2.3M 150 .007 0
UK 60.1M 16,000 .027 43
US 290.3M 143,000 .049 264
------- ------- ---------- ---- ---
Total: 596.5M 168,200 .028 307
Note that it is the English speakers that are doing the fighting and dying in Iraq. The other guys are just there, at best, to pick up a little practical experience in anti insurgent combat, and at worst to show their country's flag in return for reimbursement from the US.
There are always going to be other countries that sign up for this sort of crusade. For example, the Germans got the Italians, Rumanians and Finns to fight on the German side of that war but none of them spoke German. But if you look at the combat losses, it was German speakers who did the brunt of the fighting, including Germans from lands outside of Germany proper. Those were the people who tended to believe Hitler's bullshit, and they were the ones who fought for him.
-- Carl
P.S. Links:
wsws.org
edition.cnn.com
china.org.cn |
