If D-Day Had Been Reported On Today

[turbocarrera]

France supported the US in the war of independance. They supported the north in the civil war. They died alongside Americans in WW1, losing 1.4 million men - the highest Allied total save the Soviets. In WW2, they stood beside Britain in declaring war on Germany, though they were overrun by the blitzkreig of a vastley superior army directed by the most evil man the world has known. And they have been mocked relentlessly for it..

[turbocarrera]

araine, the thread started by comparing the actions of today's press vs the press in WW2.. totally invalid comparison.. so i compared Bush's actions to FDR's.. maybe i shouldnt have.. but neither should the press of today be compared to the press of WW2..

[araine901]

Turbo, Lynn: If you belive that the losses for D-Day and Iraq are comparible than that is your right and opinion. It is my opinion that the cartoon and comparison are hyperbolic. I agree that the press comparing WWII to Iraq is retarded. But I also feel that the comparison to Vietnam is retarded as well.

We can still be firends and enjoy p-cars and spirted debate. LOL

[911pcars]

Allow me to make an admittedly rough comparison - just for kicks.

DDay casualties (1 day)
US ~5,000 -10,000
Civilian ~20,000

Ratio = 2 - 4:1

Iraq casualties (1 year)
US ~ 800
Civilian 10,000- 14,000

Ratio: 12.5 - 17.5:1

I really don't see the relationship between the headcounts, but I think we can see that proportionally, besides our guys, the Iraqi civilians are bearing a greater brunt of our occupation. 25 more just yesterday.

Sherwood

[araine901]

Sherwood, I think you are combining military and civilian counts in Iraq there. BTW do terrorist count in your civilian count? Ie suicide bombers who have blown up Iraqis?

So what your saying is the 10-14K military and civilian losses is equitable to the 2.9 million "civilian" avg. per year during WWII?

[911pcars]

Araine,
You may be right. Doing some add'l (lightweight) research, I came up with this:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_casualties.htm

Their home page chart shows only ~1,000 civilian, non-combat casualties. However, clicking on their "casualty notes":

"On 20 October 2003 the Project on Defense Alternatives estimated that between 10,800 and 15,100 Iraqis were killed in the war. Of these, between 3,200 and 4,300 were noncombatants -- that is: civilians who did not take up arms.

On 12 November 2003 the British Medact [an affiliate of the nonprofit International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War] estimated total Iraqi casualties from the war could range from 21,700 to 55,000. This study placed Iraqi military casualties at somewhere between 13,500 and 45,000. As of the same date, the IraqBodyCount.net estimated total Iraqi deaths as a range of between 7,840 and 9,668, derived from thousands of media reports from Iraq.

On 10 February 2004 the head of Iraq's police force, Lieutenant General Ahmed Kazem Ibrahim said a total of 604 policemen had been killed in attacks or during operations since a new police force was established by the US-led coalition the fall of president Saddam Hussein. In late January 2004, interim interior minister Nuri Basra gave a death toll of some 300 for the force."

This site lists casualties and injuries in both Afghanistan and Iraq as well as US and allied forces:

http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html

"So what your saying is the 10-14K military and civilian losses is equitable to the 2.9 million "civilian" avg. per year during WWII?"

No. That wasn't my intent. Just wanted to show the loss of innocent lives due to collateral damage of any war. So I think about 10,000 non-combatents might be a fairly close number. Comparing a yearly loss versus a one day battle was not fair and balanced. Also want to point out that actual lives somehow become minimized when comparing larger and smaller numbers of dead and wounded.

Sherwood

[A Quiet Boom]

This is a nice discussion and all but haven't you guys missed the point of the original post? The point being made was the difference in today's journalism vs. journalism of 60 years ago at a time when support for that war was widespread. The "greatest generation" came all came together to fight our common enemies. Post Vietnam american journalism rarely seems to find the good in a situtation. My grandfather fought in WWII and a close friend fought in Korea, both of them will tell you that civilian causualities where great and many times it was due to there efforts. War is hell people, and civilians do get killed. Just because we've gotten better at reducing civilian casualities doesn't mean we can fight a war without them. Besides that how many american civilian casualities have been caused by the war on terror? The main difference between us and our enemies is that we try very hard to avoid civilian deaths while our enemies actively target civilians. The point being made by the first post is that if we all got onboard with this war we stand a far better chance of winning than if we argue amongst ourselves. The arguing just leads to poor morale and that is not good for our troops. I'm not saying don't oppose the war, that is your right and those troops are fighting to protect it, what I am saying is that while we have troops in conflict it's in their best interest to keep or differences to ourselves. Besides a little upbeat reporting on the valor of our troops as well as the effort in general wouldn't hurt every now and then. Seems like all we ever hear on the evening news is the bad news, where are the stories about our accomplishments?

[911pcars]

There hasn't been a clear cut bad guy-good guy scenario since WWII, so it's sometimes difficult to separate the valid causes from those muddled with politics, power plays and ineptnitude (sp). To many Americans, the current situation is not that clear cut, to say the least. Under such circumstances, the decision to send pawns to die for a bogus cause is unpatriotic at the least, wouldn't you agree?

If you felt unconvinced of our involvement in such a scenario, would you remain quiet in deference to the military? I think discussing things of this importance is good for a democracy, at least in a democracy I expect. If the overall norm in America reached the point of not discussing anything controversial about the military, then it's a very short trip to considering such dissidents "traitors" or at least unAmerican, unpatriotic or communistic (you fill in your favorite pejorative).

I asked a friend if it'd bother him to have his phone and internet connection tapped by the government. He said he wouldn't mind since he isn't doing anything illegal. I think a fair number of patriotic Americans might agree with that line of reasoning. What do you think?

Sherwood