re: Numbers don't lie

Dear Ms. "Nice,"

On The View the other day, in a sad attempt to be a "moderator" between vicious Joyce Behar (who wouldn't know a fact if it hit her in the face) and survivor Elisabeth Hasselbeck, you stated:

"In October, we lost the most American troops ever ... 101 Americans were killed in a civil war in another country that had nothing to do with 9-11 and had no weapons on mass destruction."

I had no idea you were so up on US military combat casualty figures, Rosie. Because you stated it with so much passion and certainty, you had to have done some homework, right? Well, point in fact, what you said was unabashedly WRONG.

According to the Department of Defense, casualty figures for Iraq are amoungst the lowest of any war in our history. In fact, the US military casualties in Iraq are lower than one branch of service endured in World War II, much less the entire force.

In fact, Army Air Corps casualties for any one day in the Daylight Bombing campaign over Germany could easily number 10 times what happened in October in Iraq. We lost nearly 100,000 air crew from that campaign alone in an attempt cripple Germany's war machine.

In the Civil War, the combined casualties for one day of Gettysberg numbered in the thousands. And more died outside of combat from the Spanish American War than have in the entire Iraq conflict.

There are more soldiers listed as MIA from the entire Vietnam conflict and 1/4th of those MIA from the Korean action, than have died in Iraq.

In fact, from the just ONE DAY in World War II, D-Day, the conservative estimate of US and Allied Casualty figures were 8,443. FOUR TIMES as many as have died in 5 years in Iraq. More died in the Airborne offensive that day than on Omaha beach.

And finally, the American military looses more personnel every year to accidents in time of peace than have been lost in the entire Iraqi conflict.

So, when you spout off such epithets as "we lost the most American troops ever," you really should have your facts straight. Because while you may sound empassioned, you look awefully silly.

UPDATE: I think this video says it perfectly: