New York Sun: Accidental US Military Deaths in 1993-1996 Greater Than Iraq War Deaths Since 2003

No kidding (HT Rush Limbaugh’s show):

The total military dead in the Iraq war between 2003 and this month stands at about 3,133. This is tragic, as are all deaths due to war, and we are facing a cowardly enemy unlike any other in our past that hides behind innocent citizens. Each death is blazoned in the headlines of newspapers and Internet sites. What is never compared is the number of military deaths during the Clinton administration: 1,245 in 1993; 1,109 in 1994; 1,055 in 1995; 1,008 in 1996. That’s 4,417 deaths in peacetime but, of course, who’s counting?

Here’s some of Rush’s reaction (not linked, as it’s behind his subscription firewall by now; bold is mine):

If you look at this pdf (converted to JPEG by yours truly; you may have to enlarge it in your browser or take it to your desktop; yearly total at JPEG are slightly lower than those reported by the Sun — 1213, 1075, 1040, and 974; 4-year Total is 4302; no, I can’t explain the difference, which is relatively small — Ed.), you will find that in 1980, which was the last year of the Carter administration, there were far more military deaths in 1980 than in any year of the Bush administration. The death rate was also higher, and that’s because of differences in the care given the training and standards and so forth. The point here is that we’re fighting the Iraq war with lower casualties than casualties expected from training accidents during peacetime.

I mention this just to show you how out of proportion and agenda oriented the death count in Iraq is. We’ve mentioned this before, as a matter of theory and prophecy. But here it is documented, and these numbers are available to anybody. Any journalist can go to the Department of Defense site and take a look and find these numbers. There is no interest on the part of any journalist to do so, because it would confound the agenda and the purpose of tallying up these deaths because these 3,133 deaths form the basis, do they not, of “We’ve got to get out of there! This is out of control, why, 3,133 battlefield deaths, whoa, this is horrible! We support the troops. We gotta get ‘em out of harm’s way in a pointless, unjust war,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah …..

Hard to argue. Facts are indeed stubborn things.

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UPDATE: Yes, I know that the Iraq War death toll has gone up to roughly 3,156 during the past week. The central point is unchanged.

UPDATE 2: Media Matters thinks they’ve fisked the Sun’s Alicia Colon and Limbaugh. No, they refuse to understand the central point. So let’s try again, shall we? — Fewer soldiers have died in the Iraq War than died from all accidents from 1993-1996. That statement is true, remains true, and is the only statement under discussion. Nobody’s misleading anybody — at least not here.

UPDATE 3: Dumb Looks Still Free/Jacksonian Party had a great post on this very topic last year, and went into a great deal more detail.