Statistics
A comment at this site gives food for thought:
Whatever your politics, however you lean, however you feel about the current
administration, this report should open some eyes.
Military losses, 1980 through 2006
(http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf)
As tragic as the loss of any member of the US Armed Forces is, consider the
following statistics:
The annual fatalities of military members while actively serving in the
armed forces from 1980 through 2006:
1980 .......... 2,392 (Carter Year)
1981 .. ........ 2,380 (Reagan Year)
1984 .......... 1,999 (Reagan Year)
1988 .......... 1,819 (Reagan Year)
1989 .......... 1,636 (George H W Year)
1990 .......... 1,508 (George H W Year)
1991 .......... 1,787 (George H W Year)
1992 ......... 1,293 (George H W Year)
1993 ......... 1,213 ( Clinton Year)
1994 ......... 1,075 ( Clinton Year)
1995 ..... .... 2,465 ( Clinton Year)
1996 ........ . 2,318 ( Clinton Year)
1997 ............ 817 ( Clinton Year)
1998 ......... 2,252 ( Clinton Year)
1999 ....... 1,984 ( Clinton Year)
2000 .........1,983 ( Clinton Year)
2001 ........... 890(George W Year)
2002 ......... 1,007 (George W Year)
2003 ......... 1,410 (George W Year)
2004 ......... 1,887 (George W Year)
2005 ............ 919 (George W Year)
2006............ 920 (George W Year)
2007............ 899 (George W Year)
Clinton years (1993-2000): 14,000 deaths
George W years (2001-2006): 7,932 deaths
If you are surprised when you look at these figures, so was I. These figures
mean that the loss from the two latest conflicts in the Middle East are LESS
than the loss of military personnel during Bill Clinton's presidency; when
America wasn't even involved in a war!
Makes you want to holler, doesn't it?
Posts
4 comments:
I just thought I would holler....
Thank you for your fascinating and insightful posts. However, on the subject of military deaths, the statistics you posted for the years 1995 on are substantially at odds with those in the report to congress available on-line at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf.
The report of June 29, 2007 shows 7,500 military deaths during the 1993 to 2000 years in operation Restore Hope and Uphold Democracy. (This is a bit more than half the number you cited of 14,000.)
Your numbers in the years 2001 to 2007 undercount the number of US military deaths reported to congress of 8,792 just through 2006.
Statistics available from the Navy prior to 2005 are substantially the same as those from FAS and are available at http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/american%20war%20casualty.htm
It appears that you collected your data from http://www.forumgarden.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35354 which may have been biased. The Hostile action deaths are more telling with 1 in 1992-1999 and 2,596 from 2000 to 2006.
Thanks for the heads-up. I will check the sites you mentioned.
:-)
Very good, glad to know you.
Very best regards,
Steve
Of course none of these counts of military deaths include the deaths of non-military people; contractors, allies, and enemy dead, much less the civilian dead. In the 2003-2008 timeframe, I know of only one resource for tabulating those deaths, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/. Unfortunately, I know of none before 2003, counting, for example, deaths in Serbia or Desert Storm.
Of course, as a general practice, allocating war deaths to an administration of a participant country is not generally fair. An administration can be faulted for instigating a war or conducting one poorly, but wars are not often of one’s own choosing.
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