Less Military deaths during war time than during peace time ...

[CheezeFlixz]

More BULLSH!T.  That's not true and YOU know it.  What rich man's son would join the g*ddamned military if he could go to college and smoke dope, for starters? 

Every officer is a college grad and many enlisted have attended or graduated college. It's not all poor and underprivileged. There are folks from poor families there, but it's not the "all poor army" the left would have you believe. I know of a few well to do families that have kids that enlisted in the service.

You are suggesting the wars have NOT cost BILLIONS OF DOLLARS???  How are social programs relevant with the exorbitant spending on these dubious wars?

Never said wars didn't cost billions, said I don't buy the Trillion number without hard facts. Projections and estimations are not hard numbers. They are in fact guesses. The report I read a few days ago had way to many "if" and "or" statements  to sell me the number. Mostly based on worse case scenario it seemed. 

REPUBLICANS have no answer and would just as soon screw you as me for money.  CHEEZEE, you know better, don't you?  But maybe not.

If you've read my many other equally unpopular post about voter apathy and holding politicians liable for the direction and state of that nation you know I know better. Dem or Rep .. doesn't matter they all need to be held accountable or preferably replaced.

And if it's about finishing  the job...why diddle f#ck around? Use WW II tacticts- kill 'em and leave.

You will not get an argument out of me, we've been paying this high cost of waging a minimalist-patty-cake-war. Not my tactic ... if you start a war you are going to p**s most everyone off so why play games, fight to win not make friends. WE seem to get along with Japan and Germany pretty well these days, after we handed them a good old fashion ass whoppin' in WWII.

oil makes the world go round.

Sadly it does and it will for a while longer and until you and me and everyone else really hound the government to get off their oil-crack addiction it will be that way. But it will take everyone and right now nearly everyone is addicted to oil, even the tree-hugging-green-peace-save-the-whales-tofu-eaters have got to drive to their rallies ... which takes what?

[Allhallowsday]

Every officer is a college grad and many enlisted have attended or graduated college. It's not all poor and underprivileged. There are folks from poor families there, but it's not the "all poor army" the left would have you believe. I know of a few well to do families that have kids that enlisted in the service.

Officers?  More anecdotal commentary.  I could lend you cars full.  You and I know that the vast majority of enlistees are poor, underprivileged, looking for a way out of their circumstances, and don't know any better. 

Never said wars didn't cost billions, said I don't buy the Trillion number without hard facts. Projections and estimations are not hard numbers. They are in fact guesses. The report I read a few days ago had way to many "if" and "or" statements  to sell me the number. Mostly based on worse case scenario "it seemed." 

"It seemed..."     You think the current WARS are inexpensive? 
Halliburton might agree.  You mean these wars have NOT cost a TRILLION?  GREAT NEWS!!!     "Never said wars didn't cost billions..."  But not a TRILLION!!!  Why?  Because we don't want to do the math?  C'mon...C'mon!!!  Think about it.  It ain't cheap. 

If you've read my many other equally unpopular post about voter apathy and holding politicians liable for the direction and state of that nation you know I know better. Dem or Rep .. doesn't matter they all need to be held accountable or preferably replaced.

I have read your posts, but don't necessarily perceive them as "unpopular."  You for one have pointed out that voters in super-privileged America are apathetic, and lazy.  I can't argue they aren't.  Your hatred of DEMOCRATS is well documented, and it seems to me, partisan. 

Sadly it does and it will for a while longer and until you and me and everyone else really hound the government to get off their oil-crack addiction it will be that way. But it will take everyone and right now nearly everyone is addicted to oil, even the tree-hugging-green-peace-save-the-whales-tofu-eaters have got to drive to their rallies ... which takes what?

You can't seem to get away from your partisan politics.  I consider myself a 'TREE HUGGER" but I am fortunate not to have to drive to work (I work from home) but understand that that is a privilege.  It's not about our individual realities, though I suspect many Americans view it as such.  It's about our responsibility in this world.  So many deny Global warming, or fruitless wars, or elitist tax evasion.  The "government" is not 'oil addicted..."  AMERICANS ARE.   And BUSH, and the REPUBLICANS goal, is to maintain the status quo, to the point of denial of their grandchildren's inheritance. 

[CheezeFlixz]

Halliburton

Is the only company that does the job they do, it true. The Halliburton argument is a straw-man argument. They as of 2006 they only realized a 1.4% profit margin .... half of that of Wal-Mart who is rolling back the prices from China is making. (Where is that protest?)
If you know business a 1.4% margin is pretty skimpy. These records are open since it is government contracts.

Your hatred of DEMOCRATS is well documented, and it seems to me, partisan. 

I do not hate Democrats, (I'd say most of my friends I middle of the road Dem's) I don't hate anyone. (ok there are a couple of people) I do find some of the far left as out of touch with reality as many on the extreme far right. Some of their views on both sides are IMHO just not grounded and to idealogical for practical application.
You have to work within the bounds of reality and some don't see that.

You can't seem to get away from your partisan politics.

I beg to deffer I disagree with both parties on many issues ... don't get me started on illegal immigration, broader security and NAFTA. (which I've voiced here many times) And continuing to give China most favored nation status is politics but insane. Failure to deal effectively with Mexico and Valenzuela has don't us not favors. Hugo is playing games and the former el Presidentia Fox encouraged illegal immigration to the US.
I also believe the environment needs to be protected, but not at the cost of progress and common sense. When man first cleared the land and plowed a field 1000's of year ago the environment had to take a back seat to progress. You can't let the land you live on go unmanaged or get the fires you saw out west. You have to be a responsible steward of the land. The Caribou can run around a few oil wells when we have a projected 45 years worth of oil in ANWR. (est 10.4 billion barrels) But the loony far left doesn't want to drill there. I don't know about them, but my trucks don't run on peace, love and happiness. I'm a realist, not a kool aid drinker.

You must also know some times I play devils advocate to keep it real, would be a rather boring topic if we all just agreed with each other, wouldn't it?

You and I know that the vast majority of enlistees are poor, underprivileged, looking for a way out of their circumstances, and don't know any better.

Good if we're going to pay them that might as well work ... OH did I just say that? Seriously, look it up the majority are High School grads, many with some college, sure some or poor, some aren't I'd say that on percentages it's proportional. I'd have to look up the numbers to be sure.

and here it is ...

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2005/d20051213mythfact.pdf

[Allhallowsday]

Halliburton

Is the only company that does the job they do, it true. The Halliburton argument is a straw-man argument. They as of 2006 they only realized a 1.4% profit margin .... half of that of Wal-Mart who is rolling back the prices from China is making. (Where is that protest?)
If you know business a 1.4% margin is pretty skimpy. These records are open since it is government contracts.

Straw-man? Now who's being ignorant or is it naive?  A mere 1.4%, you silly boy.  You need to look closer at this matter.  Assuming you are correct, 1.4% of a billion dollars is a lot of money, don't be foolish, but think ENRON.  You overwhelm me with your bizarre arguements or should I say "bazaar?"  Who has time for this CRAP?  You've done this before.  You go on and on and overwhelm your competition.  You are so very long-winded.  Can't you be precise?  NO.  You have devolved into a REPUBLICAN creature and know no better.  I don't have time for this CRAP, it's tiring.   With all due respect my friend, but you are so very tiring. 

I beg to deffer I disagree with both parties on many issues ... don't get me started on illegal immigration, broader security and NAFTA.

Sounds REPUBLICAN again.  As in PARTISAN.  Face it, you are a dyed-in-the-wool REPUBLICAN. 

And continuing to give China most favored nation status is politics but insane. Failure to deal effectively with Mexico and Valenzuela has don't us not favors.

"Valenzuela?"  "Has don't us not favors?"  I don't understand you. 

I also believe the environment needs to be protected, but not at the cost of progress and common sense. When man first cleared the land and plowed a field 1000's of year ago the environment had to take a back seat to progress. You can't let the land you live on go unmanaged or get the fires you saw out west. You have to be a responsible steward of the land. The Caribou can run around a few oil wells when we have a projected 45 years worth of oil in ANWR. (est 10.4 billion barrels) But the loony far left doesn't want to drill there. I don't know about them, but my trucks don't run on peace, love and happiness. I'm a realist, not a kool aid drinker.

You are so scary and deluded.  Thousands of years ago... uh, yeh.  The "loony far left don't want to drill there" wow.  You are a rare special specimen. 

You must also know some times I play devils advocate to keep it real, would be a rather boring topic if we all just agreed with each other, wouldn't it?

I think it would be GREAT if we all agreed about things like not poisoning the environment or preserving wildlife or maybe thinking about the future of our species.  Why should we?  Who cares about what we leave our children or grandchildren?  CHEEZEE, you seem to me, to be a SUCKER for the right. 

[CheezeFlixz]

Now who's being ignorant or is it naive?
you silly boy
You are so very long-winded.
Can't you be precise?  NO.
With all due respect my friend, but you are so very tiring.
You are so scary and deluded.
You are a rare special specimen.
CHEEZEE, you seem to me, to be a SUCKER.   
 

Ad hominem attacks are the foundation of no viable argument.

[Allhallowsday]

Ad hominem attacks are the foundation of no viable argument.

Fair enough, but I'm worn out and have only so much time and energy.  Ad hominem?  I don't agree.  But I will admit, that I just don't have the energy, my friend, to foster your arguements, as politics is something I avoid.  However, your apparent attack on me this past week required my response.  Pace. 

[frank]

As this was a quite heated discussion so far, I don't want to throw in additional political thoughts, but some remarks on the statistics. As we say: "Don't trust any statistics you didn't fake yourself"

First of all: I just read the news article, not the whole report. The numbers they quote don't really tell you anything, because the "whole N" is missing, that is the number of all soldiers in duty (or the total number of soldiers not killed). Thus, you have no information on the proportion of generally deceased soldiers. Say, as an extreme, there have been 2,380 members on duty in 1981 and 1,942 in 2005, the loss would have been in both years 100 %, ergo the same. This can be done for all "reasons" for casualities, for example if in 1981 the army was more than twice as large as in 2005, casualities due to accidents would be the same proportionally. My examples are quite unlikely, but differences in troop strength will have considerable consequences on calculations of proportions. Also, it is not really professional to throw out such numbers (and the numbers for 1981 don't sum up to the cited 2,380 either). To wrap it up: You cannot compare two systems by the number of casualities, if you don't know the actual sizes of the two systems. Ergo no information on the "safetyness" in the army.

But let's forget about that for awhile and take a closer look at the numbers: A fact from the article is, that IF you died in the army in 1981, it is most likely that you died of an accident (64%), and IF you died in the army in 2005 you most likely died in combat (38%). That is, however, not surprising to me, as there was in war in 2005 and no war in 1981. So the basic, and unbiased, information is: if you go to war, lots of people die.

The rest is pretty much uncertainties and speculation. I think medical and technological advances in the last two decades should have decreased causalities of accidents and injuries in all areas, not just in the army. Also, I would like to know where the accidents in 1981 happened. If I die in a car wreck on the highway, I don’t care if I wear a uniform or not. The line between accidents of soldiers in their home country between accidents while on duty and while in “civil life” is probably a thin one. Car wrecks might be more pronounced at home (as a pedestrian in the US, I often felt like being transferred into some “frogger”-game and life on the German autobahn is sometimes rough). Homicide, most likely crimes of “passion”, is more likely in a familiar surrounding, and so on. But, as I said, all this is speculation.

Lastly: to offset death for death is a nasty thing to do and touches some fundamental ethics. The question, if the death of a innocent person should be accepted if two (5, 10, 100, 1,000,…) innocent lives are thereby spared, is one I would prefer not to be forced to answer. Basically, in a war people will die that otherwise would not have died that way. No need of satistics for that. Would it serve a "greater good"? A lot of thought must be put into the justification of the price. I will leave it like this, as this was intended to be a post on numbers, not on politics.

[CheezeFlixz]

As this was a quite heated discussion so far, I don't want to throw in additional political thoughts, but some remarks on the statistics. As we say: "Don't trust any statistics you didn't fake yourself"

First of all: I just read the news article, not the whole report. The numbers they quote don't really tell you anything, because the "whole N" is missing, that is the number of all soldiers in duty (or the total number of soldiers not killed). Thus, you have no information on the proportion of generally deceased soldiers. Say, as an extreme, there have been 2,380 members on duty in 1981 and 1,942 in 2005, the loss would have been in both years 100 %, ergo the same. This can be done for all "reasons" for casualities, for example if in 1981 the army was more than twice as large as in 2005, casualities due to accidents would be the same proportionally. My examples are quite unlikely, but differences in troop strength will have considerable consequences on calculations of proportions. Also, it is not really professional to throw out such numbers (and the numbers for 1981 don't sum up to the cited 2,380 either). To wrap it up: You cannot compare two systems by the number of casualities, if you don't know the actual sizes of the two systems. Ergo no information on the "safetyness" in the army.

But let's forget about that for awhile and take a closer look at the numbers: A fact from the article is, that IF you died in the army in 1981, it is most likely that you died of an accident (64%), and IF you died in the army in 2005 you most likely died in combat (38%). That is, however, not surprising to me, as there was in war in 2005 and no war in 1981. So the basic, and unbiased, information is: if you go to war, lots of people die.

The rest is pretty much uncertainties and speculation. I think medical and technological advances in the last two decades should have decreased causalities of accidents and injuries in all areas, not just in the army. Also, I would like to know where the accidents in 1981 happened. If I die in a car wreck on the highway, I don’t care if I wear a uniform or not. The line between accidents of soldiers in their home country between accidents while on duty and while in “civil life” is probably a thin one. Car wrecks might be more pronounced at home (as a pedestrian in the US, I often felt like being transferred into some “frogger”-game and life on the German autobahn is sometimes rough). Homicide, most likely crimes of “passion”, is more likely in a familiar surrounding, and so on. But, as I said, all this is speculation.

Lastly: to offset death for death is a nasty thing to do and touches some fundamental ethics. The question, if the death of a innocent person should be accepted if two (5, 10, 100, 1,000,…) innocent lives are thereby spared, is one I would prefer not to be forced to answer. Basically, in a war people will die that otherwise would not have died that way. No need of satistics for that. Would it serve a "greater good"? A lot of thought must be put into the justification of the price. I will leave it like this, as this was intended to be a post on numbers, not on politics.

You get it Franks, bravo!

Number are nothing more than numbers and subject the the political wind and personal agendas. People start tossing out numbers, I take it with a gain of salt ... even the ones I post from reports. Far to many variables to make it simple.

[nshumate]

Now who's being ignorant or is it naive?
you silly boy
You are so very long-winded.
Can't you be precise?  NO.
With all due respect my friend, but you are so very tiring.
You are so scary and deluded.
You are a rare special specimen.
CHEEZEE, you seem to me, to be a SUCKER.   
 

Ad hominem attacks are the foundation of no viable argument.

I I have disagreements with both sides in this debate, but points (and karma) to Cheeze for coolly putting up with a distastefully personal set of attacks.

First rules of civil debate, AllHallowsDay: Assume that your colleague is (a) intelligent and (b) arguing in good faith.  Otherwise, you sound like... well, what you've been sounding like.

[CheezeFlixz]

I I have disagreements with both sides in this debate, but points (and karma) to Cheeze for coolly putting up with a distastefully personal set of attacks.

First rules of civil debate, AllHallowsDay: Assume that your colleague is (a) intelligent and (b) arguing in good faith.  Otherwise, you sound like... well, what you've been sounding like.

Thanks for the props, and AllHallowsDay is OK, I have no problem with him or his moment of irritation. Sometime we all get a little frustrated with opposing views and lash out.

[dean]

Define rich? Is it upper middle class? Yes. Is it low income? Yes. Is it farm boys? Yes. It's not exclusive it's an all inclusive, all walks of life are joining.

More BULLSH!T.  That's not true and YOU know it.  What rich man's son would join the g*ddamned military if he could go to college and smoke dope, for starters? 
 

Anyone can join the army, it's not like being rich automatically makes you ineligible for going... Being rich probably means you'll have less motivation to go join the army, sure, but I know people from all walks of life, poor, rich, left wing, right wing, who do all sorts of things I suppose you could class as different for their socio-economic class.

Sure the rich kids probably have less reason to join the army, but there sure as hell isn't anything stopping them if they want to.  Take a cross section of society from the ultra rich elite to the destitute and poor.  Then take the same ratios of wealth vs population and put that to the army and I'd be willing to bet that there's a similar ratio.  Besides, how many rich kids maybe even joined up to spite their parents? 

It makes sense that poorer kids may see the army as a good way to get an education/job where in normal life it would be harder to do it.  A member of my family joined the Army since his marks were low in high school, and he loved the idea of joining the army.  It's not only a way for him to do what he loves [and I admit he's a bit of a nutter at times when it comes to army stuff anyways] but also a good way to get a higher education since here in this country at least, they want their troops to be educated and you can actually study tertiary degrees and get paid to do it through the army.

He is by no means poor, nor rich, just a kid who wanted to join the army, like anyone else could be.

What rich man's son automatically goes to college to smoke dope?  Just because you're rich doesn't automatically make you a slacker jack-ass either.

Sorry, Allhallowsday, I by no means disagree with everything you said, I suppose I didn't like your tone nor your argument for that particular point.  I'm all for a good rant, but I suppose it just reminded me a bit too much of the crazy loons on imdb or youtube who just seem to bang and make loud noises rather than arguing a point properly [thankfully your response was a bit more measured than those loons at least...]

Whilst I don't see eye to eye with Cheeze on all his issues either, at least his arguments have logic to them [even if we could argue it out a bit more  ] and we all seem to appreciate an intelligent argument here, which is something I certainly enjoy reading.

But looking above I suppose people have already dealt with this in a much better manner which I must have skipped over in during my reply.  I'll admit that my thinking on this may be flawed, as well as the execution, since I'm quite tired, still feeling the effects of a 'session' out last night, and am frantically packing for a holiday...

Anyhow continue having at it chaps.

[Allhallowsday]

Well, CHEEZEE and I have buried the hatchet (in each other's foreheads?)  As CHEEZ might say, that's a joke, son. 

I will say CHEEZEE that I seem to be "unpopular" today, as you had described your own postings here.  I do think much of what I wrote remains misunderstood "...for starters..." and was intended to be delivered tongue-in-cheek.  You can't get a laugh if you don't push the envelope.  However, there is a reason we have the old saying "Never discuss religion or politics."  (There is also "Merlot and email don't mix.") 

As CHEEZE has written to me privately, I, too, won't be changing my point of view (until convinced I am wrong). 

Nonetheless, I am rebuked.  My sincere apologies to anyone offended by my remarks.

[dean]

    

[RCMerchant]

 Gee...it's all over? Gosh! I never even got worked up into a mindless babble !    (  )

[indianasmith]

Karma to Cheeze AND AllHallows for settling things like gentlemen!!  Great topic; I'm trying to catch up after being off the forum for several days or I would add my own thoughts, but for the moment I will restrict myself to this:


What Cheeze said.