"Iraq is not another Vietnam!" - Gruesome math shows Iraq to be FAR worse.They're trying make a case for
attacking Iran. And one of the reasons they think they can get away with it is by pushing the
meme that "Iraq is nowhere near as bad as Vietnam! In Vietnam, we lost over 58,000 soldiers. In Iraq, we've lost less than 3,500!
(now up to 3,800.) By diminishing the scale of the Iraq war, expansion into Iran is likewise diminished. In April of 2004,
President Bush was asked, "How do you answer the Vietnam comparison?" His response: "I think the analogy is false." (He did not go on to explain WHY he thought the analogy was false, only that such comparisons demoralize our troops, and then bemoaned how hard his job is.)
Now, I know any Vietnam/Iraq comparison is a touchy and deeply personal subject for many, and my intention is not to diminish, dismiss or exacerbate anyone's pain. But others are doing just that, trying to downplay the casualties in Iraq as compared to the casualties of Vietnam. My intent is only to compare the two conflicts on a level playing field in order to illustrate why their reasoning is not only false, but 180' from what they are suggesting.My stock response to those who try and cite the faux statistic of "fewer deaths than Vietnam" has always been: (pardon the gruesome math) "
2/3rds of casualties suffered in Iraq today would of been fatal 40 years ago due to lesser medical technology. Adding 2/3rds of the 27,700+ Iraq
wounded to the list of fatalities would push the number of U.S. fatalities to date
an additional 18,300 deaths." So, if combat injuries in Iraq today were as lethal as they were in 1965, the number of troops KIA ("killed in action") to date in Iraq would surpass
22,000!This compelled me to look at
the actual statistics for Vietnam as a basis for comparison and what I found was stunning:
During the first four years of the conflict with Vietnam (1961 to 1965), the number of US troops KIA was
UNDER 1,900 (1,864 to be exact)... and that is with 1960's medical technology. Had they of had access to present-day medicine, the total number of fatalities during the first FOUR YEARS of the Vietnam war might have been closer to just
620 fatalities! Compare that to the 3,800 fatalities we've incurred so far in Iraq.
(...)
If these figures are correct... and they are... Iraq is DEMONSTRABLY worse than Vietnam was at this point, and
on course to become FAR worse.So in summary, if Iraq were being fought with 1965 medical technology, the number of
fatalities over these first four years might be as high as 22,000 (vs 1,900 in Vietnam), but even if you distrust the "2/3rds increase in survivability" figure, a more direct 1:1 comparison can be made between the "9,201 casualties in the first four years of Nam" vs the "31,550 casualties suffered in the first four years of Bush's 'War on Terror'."
The next time some Right-wing wingnut tries to dismiss the severity of the Iraq war by comparing the number of deaths today to number of deaths in Vietnam 40 years ago, tell them... well, I'll leave that up to you.