Put the War in Prospective. (1 Viewer)

[MSR]

I thought it might be interesting to ask ourselves the question of how bad things are really going in Iraq. I have attached a file that shows the death rates for homicides in major US cities. Take a look at New York and Chicago.

The argument that Iraq is a mess doesn't really hold water. Yes there have been disappointments.. but "hello" this is a war. It should also be noted that the Iraq War (almost 2 years old) can not be realistically applied to the Vietnam war (16 years from first to last American death)... not yet. Here are some interesting stats on Vietnam (Note: US Iraq war deaths stand at 1050 as of this writing):

Vietnam

Deaths : 58,148 (3623 a year avg.)
Deadliest week: 543 (Feb 10 - 17 , 1968)

Iraq is no Vietnam.

 

[Schweddy]

To add another perspective, lets look at the Korean war and the coalition by country. It's no Korean war either.

Source: National Review Online

Korean War (peak troop numbers, by country, excluding Republic of Korea forces):

United States: 348,000
Great Britain: 14,198
Canada: 6,146
Turkey: 5,455
Australia: 2,282
Philippines: 1,496
New Zealand: 1,389
Thailand: 1,294
Ethiopia: 1,271
Greece: 1,263
France: 1,119
Colombia: 1,068
Belgium/Luxembourg: 944
South Africa: 826
Netherlands: 819

Total: 16 nations; 387,570 combat troops


Iraq War (troop numbers, by country, as of July 2004, excluding Iraqi forces):

United States: 126,500
Great Britain: 8,300
Italy: 3,120
Poland: 2,400
Ukraine: 1,650
Netherlands: 1,400
Australia: 850
Romania: 800
Japan: 600
South Korea: 600
Denmark: 520
Bulgaria: 485
Thailand: 450
El Salvador: 380
Hungary: 300
Singapore: 200
Norway: 155
Azerbaijan: 150
Georgia: 150
Mongolia: 140
Latvia: 120
Portugal: 110
Czech Republic: 110
Lithuania: 105
Slovakia: 105
Albania: 70
New Zealand: 60
Tonga: 45
Estonia: 40
Kazakhstan: 30
Macedonia: 30
Moldova: 10

Total: 32 nations; 149,985 combat troops

In terms of overall troop level, the Iraq war is a much smaller war than the Korean War. Yet the number of nations in the Iraq war coalition currently doubles the Korean War coalition. Moreover, the United States was by far the largest contributor of military personnel in the Korean War, even though that was a U.N.-led coalition. And Poland, the Ukraine, and the Netherlands each contribute more military personnel to the Iraq War coalition than France contributed to the Korean War.

The Korean War was fought with minimal support from France, no support from the then-Federal Republic of Germany, and against the Russian-backed Communist regime in North Korea.

The fact is that President Bush has built a real and impressive coalition in Iraq.