Just got this bullshit Freeper e-mail again

[Oeditpus Rex]

Sorry to see this is still making the rounds.



If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the
Iraq theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of
2,112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.

The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000 for the
same period.

That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in
the U.S. Capitol which has some of the strictest gun control laws in
the nation, than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington

[Richard Steele]

1. Some people think "numbers" are just scary voodoo magik. nm

[Kerrytravelers]

2. Oh, how brilliant.

:eyes:


So, the fact that not as many soldier's deaths have been reported completely justifies invading a country and killing hundreds of thousands of their citizens.

Even if not one soldier had died, I still say we don't need to be there. The fact that soldiers have died only makes this lie that much worse.

[Rosemary2205]

3. Typical Karl Rove math

notice the Iraqi (citizens) deaths were left out...........

Wonder what the death rate in DC for POLICE is?

Our military is working as cops in Iraq. You'd have to use the stats as police death rates or use DC civilian deaths against Iraqi civilian deaths to even begin to make a "valid" point. They could contrast DC to Baghdad or the whole US to the whole of Iraq........

Either way the whole thing stinks of Rovian Math.


Edit to add quotes on valid point because the only point of that email is to prove the sender is an idiot who doesn't understand we blew the shit out of Iraq for no reason.

[Make7]

4. It's good to know that only US and/or coalition soldiers count. ( nt )

[malaise]

5. Tell the sender to give up his

K Street job and sign up for Iraq.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. It's bullshit, of course.

It compares *troop deaths* in Baghdad to *total* firearms deaths in Washington, D.C. The appropriate comparison would be between troop deaths in Baghdad to police deaths in D.C., or total deaths in Baghdad to those in D.C. It's a totally bogus analysis.

[Bitwit1234]

7. I SAW THIS SO OFTEN

YOU LOST WE WON JUST GET OVER IT...

SO what I do is when any one of the republicans start is post this.......

[Cerridwen]

8. The data is cooked.

1. The Homicide rate for DC is 80.9 per 100,000 (per year).

2. Firearm death rates (including accidents and suicides) in D.C. are 26.6/ 100k (kaisernetwork.org) and 29.5/100k (helpnetwork.org) for year 2002 which is the latest year I can find.


lets be incredibly generous and say that there was a massive increase since 2002, and put it at 35/100k....

3. I dont know where that guy learned to do math, but if there have been 2112 deaths in 22 months, that equals out to be 1152 a year, multiply that by (100,000/160,000) to get the figure of per 100k/yr and we come up with 725.76 per 100k per year


so...

- 725.76/100,000 per year in Iraq
- 35/100,000 per year in a generous estimate for DC

I found this out and about on the internet(s)

Someone wanna check the math...my caffeine hasn't yet kicked in.

[gfnrob]

20. Math looks good. I verified your stats on The Google.

[ladywnch]

9. and what is the washington death rate from IEDs? MORON! n/t

[nuxvomica]

10. Turns out Iraq deaths are at least 20-to-1 compared to DC deaths

According to a Google Answers thread:

In Iraq for the same time period (2004), there were 848 US fatalities
(http://icasualties.org/oif/). The "pull out of DC" email troop
strength numbers of 160,000 are probably high. If we use the US ground
troop numbers over the same period (2004), we get an average of
133,917 (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_orbat_es.htm).
This makes the US troop murder rate (for lack of a better term) 633
per 100,000.

That's almost 20 times higher the rate of DC, and almost 10 times New
Orleans' number two rate (second to Camden, NJ's number one rate of
60.8 per 100,000 (just to interject another issue to the
conversation).
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=594867

[Mabus]

17. "US troop murder rate (for lack of a better term) 633 per 100,000."

I found the same site and posted it. I didn't see your post. :blush: I found it and spend too much time reading it before posting my reply.

Good discussion.

Another exchange on that site:

factor: that is the difference between a soldier fighting a war,
versus the everyday schmuck living in D.C. How can you even begin to
compare the two?! Shouldn't a a guy working at a D.C. 7-11 feel 1000
times safer than a soldier in battle?

Why not compare the death rate of soldiers in Afghanistan & Iraq from
2001 to 2005, versus the death rate of civilians in two skyscrapers on
ONE particular day in 2001!

Or you could compare apples to apples, such as the death rate of:
US Soldiers over a two hour span in Pearl Harbor
US Soldiers on the tiny island of Guadalcanal - 1/20 the size of Cuba
US Soldiers on the even tinier island of Okinawa (1/4 the size of Guadalcanal
US Soldiers in one day at OMAHA beach

[mailman82]

11. Tony Snowjob.

I quote "It's just a number!" What a weak bastard he is!

[nytemare]

12. We didn't invade DC under false pretenses, either.

Bush did, but we didn't.

[Ravy]

13. 2112/160,000 is not equal to 60/100,000.

The guy writing the email needs a new calculator, and some common sense.

[badgerpup]

14. I guess I'm just stupid, but I fail to see how this makes it right.

Could somebody tell me what I'm missing?
:wtf:

Because the last I heard, DEAD is DEAD, no matter how you got that way.

[lies and propaganda]

15. someone tried coming at me in my freaking football group with this.

His numbers also said we only had a little over 1500 dead kids, but hey whats a little truth?

[Mabus]

16. Send him this

Starting with the murder (not firearm death) rate per 100,000
population for 2004, if you use the city per capita murder rate
(http://www.morganquitno.com/cit04r.pdf, higher than the greater metro
region, http://www.morganquitno.com/met04r.pdf) you get 35.8
murders/100K population (That's 198 murders--DC population 553,523
(http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/11000.html).

In Iraq for the same time period (2004), there were 848 US fatalities
(http://icasualties.org/oif/). The "pull out of DC" email troop
strength numbers of 160,000 are probably high. If we use the US ground
troop numbers over the same period (2004), we get an average of
133,917 (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_orbat_es.htm).
This makes the US troop murder rate (for lack of a better term) 633
per 100,000.

That's almost 20 times higher the rate of DC, and almost 10 times New
Orleans' number two rate (second to Camden, NJ's number one rate of
60.8 per 100,000 (just to interject another issue to the
conversation).

While these numbers are for 2004, and not "the last 22 months" they
likely indicate that the "pull out of DC" emailer, in addition to
being a little insensitive to the sacrifices being made in Iraq, also
has a little trouble with decimal points.

If these are the criteria, we should probably not pull out of Camden,
New Orleans, or DC; or, for that matter, Iraq, unless the sender's
appreciation of the sacrifice being made there is representative of
the US or general Iraqi population, which I hope that it is not.

Taken from http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=594867 where they discuss this e-mail and there's lots of other good information.

[Kierkegaard]

18. So, if we pull our military out of Iraq, that's how many fewer deaths?

Neither statistic is acceptable. We have the power to do something about at least one of them.

[Crunchy Frog]

19. Reply: "Fine. Why don't you go and enlist then?"

"That way, you can serve your country, and be safe."

Wonder how many will put their money where their mouths are?

[Wilber_Stool]

21. They are making the wrong comparison.

Military personal should be compared to cops, not civilians. Imagine a city that loses 1,000 cop per year.

Oops. Missed poast #3. Never mind.