Wed May 26, 2004
Body Counting
Outside the Beltway responds to an article in the New York Daily News that makes note of death #800 in Iraq with a post that compares the statistics of war dead from historical perspective.
Certainly, 800 deaths is substantial. It's four times what I had predicted beforehand (I was low for the regime change phase but didn't anticipate the scope of the insurgency/terrorist aftermath). Each one of these deaths is a personal tragedy, leaving behind a lot of mourners.From there he has a table that shows the tallies of war dead from the American Revoluton to this war. A couple things of note:
But let's have a little perspective, shall we? [ed., links omitted]
1. The Battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolution resulted in 400 deaths.
2. The Battle of Antietam in the Civil War resulted in about 5000 deaths on both sides.
3. More than 54,000 died in the Korean War, the Forgotten War. I don't think the families of those 54K have forgotten the loss of their loved one.
He then points out battles where Americans were the recipients of more than 800 deaths:
1. Pearl Harbor - 2,403
2. Iwo Jima - nearly 7,000
3. Bataan Death March - between 7,000 and 10,000
4. 9/11/01 - 3,047 not including the 19 terrorists.
As James says,
As the data show, 800 deaths pales in comparison with almost every war we've ever fought.
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