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09/26/2003 Archived Entry: "body count"

BODY COUNT OBSSESSION

It seems that every article I read about a soldier being killed in Iraq has to have the body count total. An AP story this morning had the requisite total -- "The 86th servicememer to be killed in Iraq since May 1, the day President Bush declared the end of hostilities". This obssession with body count is reminiscent of Viet Nam, when every nightly news program reported the number of enemy killed each day, accompanied with the number of Americans killed. Back then, the Pentagon put out the numbers to show how well we were doing.

To put some perspective on the numbers (without trivializing the loss of our servicemembers), I looked up the homicide numbers published on the Department of Justice website. Here's what I found:
2001, Washington DC, 232 murders -- an average of 98 in a 5 month period
2000, Los Angeles, CA, 550 murders -- an average of 229 in a 5 month period
2000, Chicago, IL, 631 murders -- an average of 262 in a 5 month period
2000, New YorK City, 673 murders -- an average of 280 in a 5 month period.
Assuming the same homicide rate over the last 5 months, more people have been murdered in each of these cities than soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the President declared an "end to hostilities" in Iraq .

Military people understand the potential for death when they serve in hostile environments. It goes with the job. Murder victims are, for the most part, innocent victims who have no expectation of death.

I don't hear the same level of outrage or concern for murder victims coming from the press or the critics of the President's Iraq policy. Could it be because a significant number of high murder rate cities have Democrat or liberal Mayors? Or maybe it's just that the President's opponents are just playing political games.

cb

Replies: 3 comments

Nice job! You should turn this into an article old boy.

Posted by Steven Martinovich @ 09/27/2003 06:32 PM EST

Working on it. Still cleaning up from Hurricane Isabel.

Posted by cb @ 09/29/2003 11:21 AM EST

Funny: I googled 'New York homicide count 2003' this morning to try to get an idea of the same comparison you did. You beat me by 4 days. Great minds think alike, but not necessarily at the same pace. :-)

Posted by Hogarth @ 09/30/2003 09:17 AM EST