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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: Bilow who wrote (123128)	2/3/2004 7:02:38 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) of 281500

Hi Carl. Are those three days typical? Also how many of those killed are civilians and how many are hard-line baathists or fanatical terrorists? If these last three days are representative, and I believe that they are, our guys are killing around, 7 Iraqis per day, or about 51 per week, 2700 per year. We only have about 140,000 soldiers in Iraq, which is about 1/2140 of our population. So if our country's death rate due to violence was equal to the rate at which our soldiers kill Iraqis, our country's death rate would be about 2140x2700 per year or 5.8 million per year. That whole calculation doesn't make any sense. "Death rate" isn't the number killed per soldier but rather the number killed compared to the whole population. If you want to project the death rate to the US you would take the 2700 per year and multiply it by the amount that the US is more populous then Iraq. Of the top of my head it might be about 12. So that 2700 deaths is the same death rate as if the US had about 2700x12 or 32400. Still a relatively meaningless calculation but not as distorted and pointless as yours. Your calculation of 5.8 million deaths per year is based on the average American killing as many other Americans as the average soldier in an area of combat is killing. DC has about 3500 police officers in 2001 they killed 17 people. The US population is about 80,000 times bigger then the DC police force. 17 times 80000 is 1.36 million a year. That's close to 1/4th of your calculation and its in an area where there is no armed insurrection. Also its the actual number for an actual year of the city closes to me rather then a projection from 3 days of data. Killing is not a good thing to have to be a part of. The sacrifices of our soldiers are more than to just their own KIA and WIA. They must also sacrifice by being in a position where they are forced to kill other men. That much is true but your odd series of calculations is a pretty bad way to show it. Your simple paragraph expresses the idea much better then all the rest of the post that preceded it. Tim

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