The Truth Behind the Numbers

It's not often that I blatently steal another blog's thunder, but every now and then a blog posts something so important that I need to ensure every reader of my blog has seen it too. This is one of those cases.

You've undoubtedly heard numbers touting the high level of civilian casualities the US "occupation" force has inflicted on Iraq? I use parens, because as my last blog entry pointed out, the sovereign elected government has requested that US Forces remain in country.

Those numbers are fake. There's just no way around it. The Iraq Body Count Project proclaimed recently that 24,865 civilians have been killed in Iraq. The project very carefully documented each death, rather than pulling numbers out of a hat. However, the characterization of these deaths as "civilian" is misleading. Eighty-one percent of the "victims" of US occupation are male, and over ninety percent are adults. Stray bullets and stray bombs hit men and women, adults and children alike. In a country with nearly fifty percent women and nearly forty-five percent children, these statistics reveal a telling truth -- not all "civilians" are random people.

In a war where only one side wears uniforms, but "victims" are primarily young adult males, one is forced to venture forth some theories. I'll leave the explanation of these numbers as an exercise for the reader, but you can hear some good ones here, which happens to be the site (Logic Times) I'm hoping everyone visits and reads.

Want something more to think about? Even if these civilian casualties are the fault of US Forces, it doesn't matter. Why not? Because fewer Iraqis are dying today than died under Saddam's rule. The numbers don't lie, do they?

Labels: iraq

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