Twenty-seven years ago Carter declared military force would be used to control the Persian Gulf. Today, Cheney is repeating history.
Vice President Dick Cheney visited an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf on May 11 and addressed 4,000 sailors and Marines who were ordered to stand in the 100+ degree sweltering heat to accommodate him. Cheney expressed his determination to see the U.S. complete the mission that President George W. Bush claimed had been accomplished four years ago.…
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26 - Dave Nalle
Mike, I don't think it was that people were actually arguing with your body count numbers, I think it was that they didn't understand that you were talking about the whole of our conflict with Iraq, not just the current phase of it.
Even so, I would like to see some details on how you arrived at the 33,000 dead and 200,000 wounded figure. I just can't figure out any way to count the numbers up that high unless you either count every post-combat death from every possible cause or perhaps include casualties among mercenaries. Even counting 'gulf war syndrome' you'd have a tough time reaching those figures.
Dave
27 - Dave Nalle
Never mind. I went back and reread your comment. You ARE counting every death of an Iraq War vet regardless of cause. That's totally flawed methodology. At the very least, you need to compare those deaths with the rate of death in the general population in the same age group and then determine how many of them are 'excess' deaths above the general rate of death. That would give you an aproximate, but much less bogus figure. It would also be substantially lower than the ones you're trotting out.
Dave
28 - Mike Green
One of the drawbacks of writing a book is that not everyone will read it. Still, one finds oneself in the position of having to offer evidence contained in the book over and over in order to defend oneself against criticism.
Well, such is life. Here it is again for those who are willing to check it out.
The notion that mortality data must be presented within some contextual comparison data is not credible. Raw data is sufficient if given the specifics categories necessary to interpret that data. All of you reading this blog are intelligent enough to assess data on your own without some overpaid PR hack posing as an expert analyst telling you what to think. So here is the data:
Department of Veterans Affairs
Gulf War Veterans Information System
Release Date: November 28, 2005
Page 2:
CATEGORIES
The information on this page explains the breakdown of the categories that will be featured later in the report. The categories are the following:
TOTAL: All service members Aug 2, 1990 to present
ERA: Non-deployed service members Aug. 2, 1990 to present
Deployed: Active Duty and Activated Reservists ONLY; Aug 2, 1990 to present
SUBSET CATEGORIES WITHIN THE DEPLOYED ONLY
CONFLICT: Desert Shield/Desert Storm FIRST YEAR ONLY (Aug. 2, 1990 to July 31, 1991)
Subsets of CONFLICT CATEGORY only:
Al-Jubayl: Jan. 19, 1991
Khamisiyah: March, 4, 1991 to March 10, 1991
OTHER Conflicts (not Al-Jubayl or Khamisiyah): Aug. 2, 1990 to July 31, 1991
THEATER: Other deployments starting SECOND YEAR Aug. 1, 1991 to present
Now, given the categories above, here is the mortality data for service members that served within those time frames and died prior to the publishing of this report:
Page 6:
CONFLICT: 11,620
Theater: 3,656
Deployed: 15,276
Era: 46,353
TOTAL: 61,629
A quick look shows there were more than 60,000 deaths of servicemen from 1990 to the present day, with more than 46,000 having never served in the war theater at all.
Of those that were DEPLOYED in the war theater (1,129,339) there were 696,841 in the CONFLICT and 432,498 in the THEATER.
The deaths of those who were deployed to Iraq totals 15,276, as of Nov. 28, 2005. The categories provide dates of the times in which the service members served in various areas of conflict. Some may question whether they died during that service of sometime thereafter?
The issue of how many dead military service members we have is important. Every one of their lives is valuable. But it also serves to sway public support for or against war. So in a PR sense, accurate figures are essential as well.
But in this debate I originally tossed out a death figure of 33,000+
It was challenged. I accept that.
I showed how I arrived at nearly half of my figure. Add the 3,400+ that the AP is keeping track of since 2003 and you're getting closer. There are some other figures as well, but I am not ready to do all the work for free online.
Let's deal with the disparate numbers already apparent in this current data as it compares to the Gulf War data accepted in the general public. We were told 147 service members died in the Gulf War.
But the Gulf War did not end. The U.S. military did not leave Iraq. Just most of the ground troops. We maintained control of 2/3 of Iraqi skies continaully.
The deaths offered us by the mortality data in the CONFLICT category states that 11,620 brave souls were lost. One might argue they died afterward ... perhaps in 1998 or 2001 or anytime well after they left the service or during their time in service but after they left the war theater.
That's a valid argument.
The categories offer dates for a reason. Within the DEPLOYMENT category the THEATER subset states it starts the SECOND year to the present. So, clearly it doesn't contain deaths of those who died in the conflict during the FIRST year Aug 90 to July 91.
Nevertheless, the debate over when service members died is irrelevant to me. The fact is they served and subsequent to that service they did die ... within 15 years, if not on the field of battle.
When America looks around and finds over 15,000 young men and women who were alive and healthy in 1990 now dead and gone, why doesn't that raise any eyebrows?
It raises lots of eyebrows among veterans. The entire veterans hospital system has been broken for decades, but officials and leaders act as though it was a shock when the media finally revealed it. And just as quick as it appeared in the news, it disappeared in the wake of a few official adjustments and switching of leadership posts.
So where does one get real data to combat public propaganda?
The Gulf War Veterans Information System compiles information from a wide variety of military and civilian sources. It lists exactly how it creates it reports and the time frequency in which it receives reports from DOD, VBA and other sources. It covers the waterfront of organizations that collect and send data of military casualities.
Why would Americans not be alarmed that in the 15 years following deployment to the Persian Gulf, more than 15,000 service members have died? Aren't we speaking of 20-something-year-olds in the prime of their lives?
Weren't we told the war was over despite the fact that it continued?
Weren't we told that only 147 died, while the death toll continued to rise even as the media and Pentagon failed to revise those numbers?
When we say we will never forget the sacrifice of our service members, didn't we do exactly that after 1990?
Today, I find myself having to defend mortality numbers that I gathered directly from the VA's own Gulf War Veterans Information System. Yet, does the Pentagon stand in defense of its public relations propaganda that the media continues to promote to this very day?
I see individuals attempt to explain away new information rather than investigate on their own. Yet, when the Pentagon offers death numbers, there is quiet acceptance ... despite the fact that even a cursory look into the reality behind the facade reveals the lie.
The war in Iraq is a 16+ year conflict ... the longest war in American history. The numbers of civilians are so numerous that an accurate count is impossible. And the Pentagon isn't willing to produce an accurate assessment. After all, it isn't in the business of placating to public whim. It is in the business of achieving the mission set forth by the White House, even if that means deception of the American public.
The military serves at the pleasure of the president. And the only power that can thwart abuse of the military by the president, is Congress. unfortunately, Congress is filled with cowards who would rather placate the public whim than protect our military from abuse by malicious leaders, and expose the truth to the public.
29 - Dave Nalle
Mike, sorry to say I've never heard of your book. You can't expect everyone to have read it in advance of your raising of this topic. You also can't expect people to have easy access to your data. But thanks for providing it.
Interesting data, but the fundamental problem I raised remains true. You do not establish a causal relationship between the deaths you catalog and the event of the Iraq War. You don't even attempt to do so and you dismiss this basic and essential issue as if it were irrelevant. It's not.
Causality is everything here. I can say that hundreds of thousands of Americans died since 9/11 and so their deaths are related to the events of that day in New York. But all that does is establish a temporal relationship, not a causal one. There's no evidence of causation, so my claim is idiotic. I can even get more specific and attempt to blame every death in New York since 9/11 on the WTC attack, but again, without some evidence of causation it's just speculation.
The way around this is to look at the norms for similar populations over a similar period of time and see if the group you're looking at deviates from those norms. It does not appear that you've done this or even acknowledged the necessity of doing so.
It is not the mortality numbers which are in question here, but whether those numbers relate in any meaningful way to the cause you attribute them to.
When America looks around and finds over 15,000 young men and women who were alive and healthy in 1990 now dead and gone, why doesn't that raise any eyebrows?
I'm only giving an educated guess here, but given the time which has passed and the number of people deployed and their ages, I suspect no one has raised their eyebrows because that number isn't all that far outside of the norms for the general population.
Right now you really haven't convinced me to buy your book.
I'm trained in historical demography and have a pretty good idea how to do the actual data analysis - I've done it on in-combat casualty rates for the current conflict in Iraq as compared to the mortality rate among the civilian population of the same age over the same period of time. That didn't win me a lot of friends.
Just ballparking, over the course of 17 years you're looking at about 13,000 deaths per 100,000 population in the US using the age adjusted death rate. Multiply that by 5 since there were 500,000 soldiers deployed in Gulf War I and you've got 65,000 deaths over that period for that number of people under NORMAL conditions. A really rough start, because it includes way too many old people, so the real total adjusted for the age of the vets (average of 42 years old in 2007) would be lower, but not enough lower to make 15,000 deaths in 17 years seem all that anomalous.
It's late and I'm not going to do any more with it now, but when I have time I'll crunch the numbers and see what comes up. It might be interesting.
And BTW, this quote from your author's comments on Amazon doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence that you're anything but a pure nutter:
If you want people to take your book seriously it's a good idea to avoid this kind of a glimpse into your world.
Dave
30 - Lumpy
Looks to me like his book is probably self published and written in crayon.
31 - Mike Green
I sharpened my crayons and my mind prior to writing my book. But alas, to some it's far better to sit behind a screen and offer derogatory remarks rather than provide a constructive and informative writing project of their own. Perhaps we can all learn from such well-informed and wise individuals who likely see us as tiny insignificant beings, as they peer over their nose to see which of us is squeaking loud enough to warrant their callous attention.
32 - Mike Green
It appears to me that I may have a different philosophical approach to understanding the importance and relevance of the deaths of 15,000+ troops that served in Iraq prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I have read the DOD's analysis of the mortality data. I have read Kang's comparisons of war deaths versus non-war deaths, and military deaths versus civilian deaths in our population within the same time frames.
Perhaps it is naive of me, and I do not purport to be a statistician of any kind, but I find it difficult to reconcile the fact that a young man's death in a war zone where he ought never to have been sent, can somehow be trivialized by comapring it to another young man's death in our general populace during the same time frame.
The final conclusion tends to be that there were no significantly higher mortality rates for servicemembers serving in war theaters during the Gulf War than there were in the general populace of the United States.
I have a difficult time understanding what that data proves, if anything.
My perspective is from the philosophical viewpoint that believes the lives of brave volunteers in our military are all equally precious and ought to be preserved. The military isn't an entity to be used for any purpose that serves the whims of the leadership in the executive branch.
It is a necessary force given an overall objective stemming from the constitution. That is, to protect this nation from foreign AND domestic enemies.
When the lives of military men and women are sacrificed upon altar of political allegiance and public apathy, it puzzles me how anyone can casually dismiss the horror that such actions present.
Not only did 15,000+ service members die serving in Iraq from 1990 through Nov. 2005, but that number is more than 10 times the number presented by any trusted authority when speaking of the Gulf War.
In other words, they lie.
Without comparing the deaths of those troops to anything or anyone, is it possible simply to state that the United States lost 15,000+ service members who served their country in a war that was initiated and augmented based upon pretext and ongoing lies?
Is it possible to mourn the loss of those individuals without tossing them aside into a statistical matrix to dilute the importance of the ultimate sacrifice they paid?
Yet, when our media and government leaders proclaim that only a handful of folks actually did die as a result of service in Iraq during the Gulf War, the importance and relevance of that service is diminished immensely. In other words, they are forgotten.
That's pretty harsh to say to a guy who served in Iraq and saw the carnage. That's a terrible thing to say to families who lost members that served this nation.
In the end, their deaths meant nothing. They were but blips on a screen and amounted to only the measure of graphite it took to pencil their names into a book that closed up, hiding the memories of these individuals forever from public view ... and political liability.
The point I make by bringing up the falsehood of pretense that is inherent in the "counting" being done in the Iraq War, is that the counting is politically motivated and seeks to establish a particular sentiment in the propaganda war.
It is a wholly different scenario to report that the War in Iraq began in 1990, escalated into a full-scale invasion in 1991, and continued as a military strategy to control the airspace over Iraq while maintaining tens of thousands of patrol missions and bombing runs annually. That same war also incorporated protection for numerous covert ops that sought to replace Saddam Hussein without need of another full-scale ground invasion. Those efforts, while taking the lives of thousands of individuals, including untold numbers of civilians, failed. That created the need for another full-scale invasion in order to achieve the immoral and illegal objective of establishing control over Iraq. Unfortunately, the political climate for a second invasion was not present in this nation until the events of 9/11. Based upon that, the "war on terror" was born. And the War on terror gave a blank military check to the executive branch. It cashed in with another ground invasion of Iraq that was made easy due to ongoing military attacks from the air for 13 years.
Today, the same war persists. But statisticians and other number crunchers count their numbers only from the start of Operation iraqi Freedom.
The start of a war begins with a declaration fo war by congress. That declaration wasn't operation Iraqi Freedom. That was merely yet another operation amid a host of military operations that had been initiated since 1990 in a war that never ended.
If the American people knew the truth about this war, its casualties, and the motives behind it, there would be a far different interpretation of the role of the U.S. in the Middle East. And the conclusion would not be that we've suffered relatively few casualties "all things considered." It would be that over the past 16 years our military service members have sustained more than 33,000+ deaths due directly to service in Iraq and Afghanistan, and more than 200,000 wounded.
The conclusion would be that 16 years of war for reasons most Americans cannot articulate is atrocious and horrific. Most Americans would be outraged and demand an immediate withdrawal of our troops. That sentiment is prevalent despite the fact that most of America has bought the lie that we've been in Iraq only a few years based upon fears of potential aggression from Iraq.
In spite of all the propaganda and lies, Americans still want out of Iraq. Imagine how much greater that outcry would be if they knew the real toll and the real motives and the whole truth!
i do not seek to compare the death of a soldier who serves his country in a place where his leaders ought to never have sent him. I desire to bring his death to the knowledge of those Americans who supported the leader, who, in turn, abused the life of that soldier.
That cannot be done by casual comparisons of mortality numbers. Americans can, however, be thoroughly impacted by raw real data. And the media is aware of that. And because of such awareness, it maintains a count of Operation Iraqi Freedom casualties, both wounded and deaths.
Unfortunately, it has all but completely forgotten the others who served long before Operation Iraqi Freedom was ever thought of. And the impact of the loss of those lives will never be made because a Pentagon analysis has determined that only 147 died ... and the subsequent 15,000+ deaths (due to injuries sustained in service) are comparable to mortality rates in the general populace and therefore need never be revealed to the public.
I respectfully disagree.
33 - Lumpy
Sorry Green. We're not talking different philosophies here. It's more a case of reality vs. Your paranoid fantasy. Trying to assign every death of a gulf war vet to the war decades after the fact is just ridiculous.
34 - RJ
Not only did 15,000+ service members die serving in Iraq from 1990 through Nov. 2005, but that number is more than 10 times the number presented by any trusted authority when speaking of the Gulf War.
In other words, they lie.
Riiight. "They" lie, but you, alone, know and speak and write the truth. Despite the fact that you can't back up any of your claims.
But, hey, GOD told you to tell this tale, so that should certainly be credible enough...
35 - MCH
Mike,
Thanks for your service to our country. Your 12 years in the military is exactly 12 more than the current detractors.
36 - Dave Nalle
And brilliant proof that military service does not inherently make you sane or qualify you to hold any kind of position of leadership, either intellectual or political - if your own behavior weren't enough proof of that already, MCH.
Dave
37 - MCH
"And brilliant proof that military service does not inherently make you sane or qualify you to hold any kind of position of leadership, either intellectual or political - if your own behavior weren't enough proof of that already, MCH."
- Dave Nalle
I've never pretended to be qualified to hold any kind of position of leadership, intellectually or politically, Nalle. I do know a phony when I see one, though.
38 - RJ
"I do know a phony when I see one, though."
Can you spot a pool shark?
39 - STM
Clinton spent millions firing cruise missiles into Afghanistan to teach them talebans a lesson, and managed to hit a tent and a camel's butt. No wonder they thought they could do whatever they wanted without fear of retribution.
Big mistake on their part ...
40 - Clavos
"I do know a phony when I see one, though."
-emmy
At least he finally learned how to spell "phony."