Us Iraq Casualties Counting Method

[BillB]

Stellar, I would direct you to Ssnake's post of Tuesday 11 Jan. He puts my view more eloquently than I could have done.

 

With specific reference to this bit:

 

Well i happen to think your rather naive for believing that your sources are not in some way biased by your position but what i find more insulting is your immature dismissal of the journalist over military authorities in war time. You admit journalist lie, or fudge the issue as you claim my sources are, and you admit that military authorities can hide alot from view for the sake of " national security" yet you may be forgetting that casualties is a huge deal for the American administration and that they may considering lying about it critical for national security? I think you will agree on that and your main problem is that you just do not see how they could be doing it? Well if the media is that useless how will we find out what the government is doing? While this is a pure reason argument it outlines and describes what happens as result of your reasoning.  Unless the official US media outlets are just better and more accurate or you trust  people like Rupert Murdoch with your news. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/business/10cnd-deal.html. Stellar

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I've read through this half a dozen times and I still cannot make head nor tail of what you are going on about. AFAIK I have never mentioned any sources, biased or otherwise, I have admitted absolutely nothing about journalists althougn I agree with your comment, and I am totally baffled by the "pure reason" bit. This also seems to totally contradict my understanding of what you said that prompted my post - either you were insufficiently clear or I have totally misunderstood everything you have said.... Finally, I fail to see how anyone who has previously cited the UK Guardian as a credible source as you did can complain about the UK press, even the Murdoch end of it. And please, don't bother to try and enlighten me, I cannot take another migraine.

 

Finally, with ref to the suggestion I made that you try stepping outside your own cultural parameters and mores in order to understand other cultures. The advice was well meant, altho you seem to have construed it as an attack. Your loss, as it is a basic necessity without which none of your analysis will be valid. I would, however point out that your trotting out of Abu Ghraib (sp?) as an example of the pitfalls of so doing was in error, and evidence suggests that much of the problem lay with doing the precise opposite. See:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml.../ixnewstop.html

 

Iraqi prisoners 'treated no worse than cheerleaders'

By Alec Russell in Washington

(Filed: 11/01/2005)

 

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005.

 

all the best

 

BillB

[FormerBlue]

I have concerns here that these soldiers are not being honoured. Of all the US forces deaths (approximately 1352 as of the other day, but there appears to be no official total), only one is attributed to a non-US citizen. Now either this category makes up a tiny, tiny percentage of soldiers or they are very good at not being killed.

 

Now, the DoD is obsessed with metrics and this is one area where there is a practical void. While it's harsh (but we are all grown up aren't we) to say they are lying, they aren't telling the truth either, simply because they aren't saying anything about total numbers in public.

 

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Are you really that lame at research? Or are you just arrogant enough to expect others to do it for you?

 

"Those of Sam, I'm not good at researching on US data, what am I missing?"

 

Well Victor, the reason you aren't seeing a lot of non-citizen casualities in the US military is because of an POTUS Executive Order signed on July 4th, 2002. That executive order made all non-US citizens, serving in the US military after September 11th 2001, immediately eligible for citizenship with no waiting period.

 

On the date that order was signed, there were roughly 31,000 non-citizens serving. The normal waiting period is 5 years (and has been from at least 1911 that I am aware of).

 

Time to process the paperwork is about 10 months. Non-citizens that do not apply, and ones the paperwork isn't complete on, if killed in service, are being made citizens automatically by the INS. Marine Cpl. Jose Angel Garibay and Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez were both "non-citizens" when they died but will be found listed as citizens on the death rolls.

 

Jose Angel Garibay was born in Jalisco, Mexico. He wasn't a citizen when he died, but again, was automatically made one. He's listed as being from Costa Mesa California and was counted in the California totals.

 

Gutierrez, as mentioned below, was from Guatemala but will be found in the rolls with Los Angeles as his city of residence. Again, counted in the California totals.

 

Oh, the one "non-citizen" you list from Guatemala? Your source sucks. He's also a citizen. They all are. Gutierrez was made a citizen on April 2, 2003. Frankly, I don't care if your source is the Pentagon:

Marines Granted Posthumous Citizenship

The two, Marine Cpl. Jose Angel Garibay and Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, were killed in combat in Iraq.

 

From Associated Press

1:09 PM PST, April 2, 2003

 

They died for America as immigrant foreign nationals, but they will be buried as citizens.

 

The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services signed papers today granting posthumous citizenship to Marine Cpl. Jose Angel Garibay and Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, who were killed in combat in Iraq.

 

The families of the two men were not present and the media was not allowed to attend the citizenship signing by the bureau's acting director, Eduardo Aguire.

 

"Once they have been signed, depending on what the families and the Marines want, we will present the certificates to the families," said bureau spokesman Ron Rogers.

Jose Garibay:

http://www.militarycity.com/valor/256504.html

 

Do you people really think they can hide deaths? These people have family. Every service person from my State, that has died in service, has had an obituary published in the State's largest newspaper. It's pretty easy to count them. The numbers, and names, are pretty easy to check. You do the work segregating out the casualities from outside Iraq but you can find them all here:

http://www.militarycity.com/valor/honor.html

 

Somehow I still don't think it's going to get through the tinfoil.

[UN-Interested Observer]

You dont have to be James bond to remotely steer a truck filled with explosives you know......

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About that, I think I disagree with the premise. In India, for example, they have back-hoes and bulldozers, but it is simply cheaper to hire a horde of men with shovels. MpK vs MpL, the labour is a better investment than capital, as I understand it.

 

Again, I have to mention that I don't think any of the slander going around this thread is remotely necessary. Often I read a well-formulated post, and then it loses all credibility by engaging in scurrilous accusations. I think you would all do much better to leave the 'name calling' out of your prose.

[FormerBlue]

"If you wish the sympathy of the broad masses, you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things."

 

-Adolph Hitler

Cute. An Adolf quote. Can you do Stalin too?

 

I could add so many more but it's clear that you have made up your mind that your source is most usefull and that Congressman like Gene Taylor never complained that the Pentagon deliberately undercounted combat casualties that

Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, never complained that he was unable to find out how many US soldiers had been wounded in Iraq because the administration refused to release the information or that the official reply to Sen. Chuck Hagel's question to  Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the total number of American battlefield casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq ( or what the official Pentagon definition of wounded in action is) after six weeks was that "the Department of Defense does not have the requested information."

Hmmm. Gene Taylor (D-Miss).

Bob Graham (D-At Home). (Update your fact sheet here. Bobby ain't in Congress no more. Get it? He was Presidental Hopeful Bob Graham.)

 

On to Chuck Hagel. I'm late to the thread, and haven't read whatever "sources" you provide, but I see how you have un-referenced allegations here. A little search always does the body good. Google for Gene Taylor, Chuck Hagel, and Graham and we get:

http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/edit/inde...iew&itemid=1107

 

So I'd guess your "source" was the environmentalists? Or something downstream from them. Now I'm unfamiliar with Daniel Zwerdling, and feel pretty good about that by the way, but I'd not take the 'Evos gegen das Krieg' as any kind of source. So. Onward and upward. Google:

Hagel Rumsfeld +"Purple Heart"

and we get no MSM hits with anything like you, and our Evo friends, said. We get pages listing awards to members in Government (Hagel served in VN, and unlike Kerry, only received 2).

 

Me thinks your sources aren't, shall we say, on the up and up? Hmmm?

 

Just how many are left uncounted? 60 Minutes asked the Pentagon for an interview.

Excuse me a minute here. Did, and I've read it again and it appears true, you just use 60 Minutes as a source? You really need to get out more.

 

You won't find anything wrong with the Pentagon line if your not going to do anything to investigate it yourself.

 

Stellar

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Your research is less than Stellar. I provided a site in a post below. Lists those fallen by name. Includes obits for each. Pictures too. Pretty detailed. Find a US service person killed in Iraq not in that list and then get back to us ok? And I do mean somebody from, oh, let's say December 2004 and earlier. They might be tracking the families on recent casualities yet. In your words, "investigate it yourself." Then get back to us.

 

I'll even start you off:

http://hagel.senate.gov/index.cfm?Fuseacti...umsfeld&x=0&y=0

[Corinthian]

Stupid query: if a soldier is WIA and counted among as a casualty, when he gets better and sent back to the field, will the number of casualties be reduced by one?

 

Yep, I didn't read this entire thread.

[Paul G]

Stupid query: if a soldier is WIA and counted among as a casualty, when he gets better and sent back to the field, will the number of casualties be reduced by one?

 

Yep, I didn't read this entire thread. 

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No but total casulties are broken down as killed, wounded RTD, Wounded NRTD.

 

(Returned To Duty w/in 72 hrs)

 

http://www.militarycity.com/valor/

[Paul G]

Stellar what don't you understand about the suicide attacks in Iraq? You realize of course that there are multiple factions in Iraq all using different tactics. The local Iraqi insurgency are not the ones doing the suicide attacks, unless you consider ambushing an escorted US convoy with small arms suicide. The car bombs, are the work of Al Quaida and it's smuggled in fanatics.

 

BTW what lies from the Pentagon are you refering to?

[Ssnake]

I have not see much if any evidence for suicide attacks in Iraq. Is this your own sources in this case or media and Pentagon one's?  What i suggested is that it really doesnt matter wether it was a mortar or a bomb as in both cases the culprits could escape. The fantasy perpetuated by CNN and other is simply that the culprits kill themselves thus solving the "problem" of having to go find them or having to explain how these super human men could breach security as people will readily believe that they cant be stopped. Strange how i never hear about the US forces foiling suicide attacks by shooting said person or truck driver before he could do so much damage.  These unstopable humans always seem to reach their targets however unlikely that should be.

So, now that we agree that it was a Saudi disguising himself as an Iraqui policeman to blow up the mess tent, you are now wandering off to say that there aren't any suicide bombers at all - did I get that right?

 

Well, fine, that does it. It doesn't make any sense at all to continue this parody of an exchange of opinions. Unlike you, I have heard about attempts of rolling car bombs that did get stopped before they hit the checkpoints, and I have seen video footage of "Technical" trucks attempting to merge with a column of tanks (which qualifies as a "suicide attack" to me).

 

You dismiss eyewitness soldiers as unreliable sources because they're bound to the pentagon party line.

You dismiss the Pentagon as a reliable source because your premise is that they must be lying.

You dismiss embedded reporters as a reliable source (unless they support your conspiracy theory) because they are being silenced by corporate suits.

You dismiss common sense, because the conspiracy is so vast and powerful and supported by so many that it twists the minds of the stupid masses.

 

Has it ever occurred to you that you are not Galilei, that just being at odds with the opinion of the majority is no guarantee of being right? An opinion is not automatically wrong just because it's commonly accepted. Your attitude is the one of an elitist know-it-all pretending that he is unbiased and open to other opinions while we are the bovine masses, to stupid to smell the shit that is being fed to us.

 

Can I prove that the aforementioned video footage was from Iraq, and not created in a Hollywood studio?

No.

Do I have to prove it?

Hell, no! You show me the Hollywood studio to prove that your ridiculous "Wag the Dog" scenario is the truth while all of us are the drooling drones that are entangled in the Matrix. I'm not going to discuss Wittgenstein with you here, or phenomenology.

Come up with hard fact. Come up with it by yourself. Do not present us yet another ridiculous URL, or better, not even that. Until then, do yourself and all of us a favor and spare us the disgrace of your "reasoning" here. I'm really fed up with this pathetic manifestation of paranoid conspiracy allegations. It could be amusing, were it over a lesser topic.

[Paul G]

Not quite, they seem to only be reporting deaths of American citizens within the US military.

 

“We don’t do body counts” - General Tommy Franks, US Central Command

“Change the channel” - Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt's advice to Iraqis who see TV images of innocent civilians killed by coalition troops.

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Marine Cpl. Jose A. Garibay

 

21, of Costa Mesa, Calif.; assigned to 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, Camp Lejeune, N.C.; killed in action near Nasiriyah, Iraq.

 

Some of life’s sweetness was on its way to Cpl. Jose Angel Garibay, had he lived to taste it.

 

His mother, Simona, had sent off a package of his favorite Mexican candy to her son. And his favorite teacher, Janis Toman, was assembling a package of granola bars and cookies when she got word Monday that Garibay, age 21 and less than three years out of high school, had been killed in Iraq.

 

In his mother’s Costa Mesa, Calif., home, candles now burn before a photograph of “Angel,” as she called him, in his Marine dress uniform. He was a baby when Simona Garibay brought him to the United States from Jalisco, Mexico. Mexican and American flags dot the lawn outside her home.

 

“Like all mothers, we love all our children, but he was my pride and joy,” his mother said in Spanish. “It was a great honor having a Marine son.”

 

At Newport Harbor High School, Garibay played football but didn’t achieve the glory of a starter’s position. His job was to face off against the starting line in scrimmages. In other words, he took the hits to improve the team.

 

He liked the rituals of the football team: short haircuts, jacket and tie on game day, team dinners, assistant coach Mike Bargas said. “He enjoyed being a part of the program. It was just a natural progression for him to go into the military. He knew his role. He didn’t complain … He didn’t have a mean bone in his body.”

 

Garibay wrote his mother from overseas about the hardships of rain and sandstorms. And he asked for CDs of the Mexican ranchera folk music he loved and missed. “But (he wrote) that he was fine, and not to worry about him,” his mother added. “He had a niece and asked me to watch her carefully and take good care of her. And (wrote) that God would take care of him.”

 

To his teacher, he wrote of a much-appreciated meal served as a special treat: steak, potatoes, ice cream and Pepsi. “You may not realize how much that meant to us,” he wrote in a letter to Toman she received Monday.

 

He planned to become a citizen of the country whose uniform he wore. And he hoped to wear another uniform after his military service was finished: that of a police officer.

 

“He had a definite plan in life,” Bargas said. “The military was there for him, and he was there for them too.”

[Paul G]

QUOTE(Stellar @ Thu 13 Jan 2005 0433)

I have not see much if any evidence for suicide attacks in Iraq. Is this your own sources in this case or media and Pentagon one's?  What i suggested is that it really doesnt matter wether it was a mortar or a bomb as in both cases the culprits could escape. The fantasy perpetuated by CNN and other is simply that the culprits kill themselves thus solving the "problem" of having to go find them or having to explain how these super human men could breach security as people will readily believe that they cant be stopped. Strange how i never hear about the US forces foiling suicide attacks by shooting said person or truck driver before he could do so much damage.  These unstopable humans always seem to reach their targets however unlikely that should be.

 

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&...=13&m=10&y=2003

 

Baghdad Suicide Attack Foiled

Naseer Al-Nahr, Asharq Al-Awsat

 

BAGHDAD, 13 October 2003 — Suicide attackers in two cars detonated bombs on a busy commercial avenue yesterday after being stopped from reaching a hotel full of Americans, killing six Iraqi bystanders and wounding dozens of others. A member of Iraq’s interim Governing Council was among the injured.

 

US military spokesman Lt. Col. George Krivo said two saloon cars crashed at high speed through the security barrier at the heavily fortified Baghdad Hotel and exploded. He said both American and Iraqi security guards opened fire on the vehicles and averted a far greater tragedy by stopping the cars reaching the hotel entrance.

 

“The cars swerved around and attempted to avoid the checkpoint and then there was a detonation and an explosion,” he told reporters.

[JOE BRENNAN]

Well, fine, that does it. It doesn't make any sense at all to continue this parody of an exchange of opinions.

 

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At a certain point you have to consider the risk the guy is purely yanking your chain for his entertainment. Alternatively he really believes each new tangent he launches off on. Probably a mixture, either way the point of continuing is....?. A taste of the ugly world of trash internet boards, makes you want to overlook the more minor flame wars and blowhards of day to day TN

 

To your list of points we might add that media reporting suicide attacks includes foreign ones, often seemingly quite hostile to the US. And the video and audio releases of the insurgents and Al Q don't seem to make a major theme of this US tendency to invent imaginary suicide attacks (a sort of conspiracy that includes them both perhaps?). So yes there isn't much evidence of suicide attacks in Iraq at the level of "pure reason" that rejects all forms of evidence presented

 

Joe

[logster]

Just to add a little info into the car bombs. The AP just released a report saying that there have been 181 car bombs since June 28; 68 of them were suicide attacks. "There have also been at least three suicide bombings in Iraq since March that didn't involve vehicles one at a U.S. Army mess tent in Mosul on Dec. 21 that killed 22 people and a double suicide bombing in Baghdad's Green Zone in October that left 10 dead."

 

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/012/world/...mbs_echo:.shtml

 

I wonder if anyone has tallied the number of suicide attacks thrwarted and IED's discovered before detonation.

[Guest AdamMachell]

Guys, enough is enough.

 

Stellar has shown himself to be a quite the troll. Let's stop feeding him.