so says the AP. Thank you GW Bush and his fellow Republicans.

This is something I don't get.

Did 700+ die in accidents?

And more than half of the democratic caucus...

Sure. Chopper crashes, friendly fire, etc. Also, suicides as well.

Most of them don't lose any sleep over it. But hey, they feel so patriotic, they say "thank you for your service", that should do it.

Don't forget tens of thousands of limbs and hundreds of billions of dollars.

3 trill homie

mjkidd: "Don't forget tens of thousands of limbs and hundreds of billions of dollars."

And lots of military equipment that has been worn out and not replaced.

predicted ratio of stories on this versus the drop in casualties because of the surge?

Saddam was a bad man.

how bad?

4000 dead American soldiers bad ldo.

I'm guessing you're talking about civilian casualties as the surge has likely increased US soldier casualties just as a result of more soldiers being over there.

According to http://www.iraqbodycount.org/ it looks like there are still more deaths going on than there were in 2004 and 2005. I'm surprised by how little is mentioned on the amount of U.S. soldier casualties and I don't remember hearing anything about Iraq civilian deaths.

Does anyone know how the post-invasion Iraq compares with the pre-invasion? I would have to imagine there was much more stability when Sadaam was in control and there weren't nearly as many deaths. However, one of the pro-war arguments I hear is that Iraq is better off now than when Sadaam was in control. What is the rationale behind this statement? How long will it be until it is as safe to walk the streets of Iraq as it was prior to the US invasion?

4,000 lives is insignifigant compared with the loss of military and diplomatic power.

The number of casualties is cumulative and by definition cannot drop.

"We hear talk of attacks against Americans "ebbing," ceasefires holding, and of the situation in Iraq being "not that fragile," but this is all a bunch of happy-talk nonsense. Between March 10 and March 23, 25 American soldiers were killed in Iraq. The last two-week period in which U.S. forces sustained similar losses was between September 14 and September 27, when 26 were killed--a period that capped off the bloodiest summer of the war."

I think he's talking about this:

For the nits on here, he meant RATE, obviously.

And that quote is cherry-picked and designed to mislead readers.

ANY quote is cherry-picked. And how exactly is it misleading? Are the numbers wrong?

So we go from a high rate to a little bit lower rate?

Forgive me for not doing backflips.

"Look ma, LESS dead people!"

The numbers are probably right.

But what does "capped off" mean, exactly? Does that mean that the week last summer was the bloodiest 2-week period of the summer, which might also be the bloodiest 2-week period of the war, since it was the bloodiest summer of the war? Does that mean that this March held the second bloodiest 2-week period of the war? Or does it just mean that this 2-week period was almost as bloody as it was last summer?

Somehow I don't think any of that is possible, since my graph shows that several times there were well over 100 casualties per month, which means there must have been several two week periods throughout the war with at least 50 deaths. And this happened numerous times since the war's start. Including last summer. So that shows that "capped off" simply means "happened at the end of".

So the fact that we have had ONE two-week period in the last 6 months that had a moderate casualty rate (but still less than half the rate of other parts of the war) means that the situation is just as bad as ever?

You've got to be kidding me.

Pretty good picture on CNN's homepage. I'd like to see the blown up version for saving purposes. Couldn't find it on their site though, anyone? Checked AP too...

Pretty much agree. However, the idea that things are going great just because we only have 30 people dying a month instead of 100 seems a little crazy in its own right, too.

No one is saying that it's not a big deal, his argument was to say that the war is doing a lot better and to say it is as bad as before is incorrect.

It's gone from being a clusterfuq to being a disaster. Whoop-dee-doo.

http://goodnewsiraq.com/index2.htm


Lets make this an equal playing field.

The media always wants to promote the negative to get their views across.

My job as an informed voter is too make sure you 2p2 peeps get access to the positives happening in Iraq, the war on terror and across the world.

F the Media(especially CNN...***** douches)

If Iraq was a clusterfuq and now is a disaster, I can't imagine what Vietnam was!!

[QUOTE=Preston Johnson;3304198]F the MediaQUOTE]It's all the media's fault. Who knew?