Canadians killed at 'disproportionately' higher rate than NATO allies: report
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North Star
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Not having read the report myself, I cannot really comment on his number-crunching. Suffice it to say though Mr. Staples has never let the facts get in the way of a political argument, and I have my doubts.
That being said, has Mr. Staples changed shops? I thought he was with the Polaris Institute. Or, is this a case of various left-wing "think tanks" "sharing" analysts like hippies sharing girlfriends on a Saturday night at a WTO protest? The right wing ones are guilty of the same tactic. It's intentionally done to give the impression large institutions are against/for something, when in reality it's only about 20 isolated analysts.
Oh well. Good thing we have a government that doesn't care what Mr. Staples says, and an opposition that doesn't have enough guts to actually take a position until they select someone to think for them.
That being said, has Mr. Staples changed shops? I thought he was with the Polaris Institute. Or, is this a case of various left-wing "think tanks" "sharing" analysts like hippies sharing girlfriends on a Saturday night at a WTO protest? The right wing ones are guilty of the same tactic. It's intentionally done to give the impression large institutions are against/for something, when in reality it's only about 20 isolated analysts.
Oh well. Good thing we have a government that doesn't care what Mr. Staples says, and an opposition that doesn't have enough guts to actually take a position until they select someone to think for them.
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Figures lie and liars figure, etc. I thought I had seen some absolutely mad abuses of statistics, but I guess not.....
How does Stevie boy get away with this crap? Is it because the CF won't answer media calls when they come looking for background commentary, so the media default to people like this? Or are they trying to be "balanced"? ( ;D ) so they aren't accused of being mindless corporate media dupes of the fascist military-industrial warmonger imperialist running dog opressors?
Although the Germans are certainly a risk averse lot (or they were when I was there, anyway), let's not forget that they have suffered losses in Afghanistan as well. Be careful not to diss the losses of our allies. They're not "Rommel's Army", that's for sure, but they're on our side.
Cheers
How does Stevie boy get away with this crap? Is it because the CF won't answer media calls when they come looking for background commentary, so the media default to people like this? Or are they trying to be "balanced"? ( ;D ) so they aren't accused of being mindless corporate media dupes of the fascist military-industrial warmonger imperialist running dog opressors?
Although the Germans are certainly a risk averse lot (or they were when I was there, anyway), let's not forget that they have suffered losses in Afghanistan as well. Be careful not to diss the losses of our allies. They're not "Rommel's Army", that's for sure, but they're on our side.
Cheers
medicineman
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I kind of wonder how Stevie "Wonder" Stapler would skew our casualty rates in Croatia and Bosnia during the worst of times there. Oooops, almost forgot, casualties during peacekeeping ops don't count as we're serving a better good - willing to bet if guys started getting hurt or worse in Dharfur the media would barely make a note of it, as would the Boy Wonder.
MM
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medicineman said:
Yeah, I guess you refer to the 126 Peacekeepers this country has lost while they served under the auspices of the blue beret. And you are correct about the media coverage, how many of those 126 repatriation ceremonies were covered on TV? Or even made mention of in the papers? Most certainly none of them had the flag lowered on the Peace Tower. How soon they forget. There are an awful lot of hypocrites out there.
medicineman
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I remember OJ Simpson pre-empting one of them from my tour - oh, and a Toronto police officer was shot and killed the week before, so his funeral did as well. What really annoys me is how they start to snivel about casualties when it's convenient for them - they forget that they happened with relative frequency, but noboy cared, because it was "peacekeeping". Or nobody wanted the public to find out (a likely possibility) that peacekeeping is in fact dangerous.
MM
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Staples is probably seen as a reliable source of a quick, and edgy, soundbite. He's far more useful to the media than someone who'd say "well...there are various things that have to be considered before...". A reputable analyst would point out the various issues involved in committing troops to, say, Darfur whereas Staples would simply declare that there's absolutely no reason why we can't go. Which one scores the 30 seconds on the TV news?
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I love seeing the left use its statistics. I especially love how they make their comparisons. Do they compare casualties per combat arms personnel in operation, or total number of soldiers? We do not deploy all echelons, we rely on our allies to fulfil many of the support operations, and our deployed force is very heavy in the combat arms, and combat engineering. Were the support personnel included in our numbers, our proportional casualties would drop. There have been UN missions that we supplied none of the shooters, and our casualties were low, there were other missions where we supplied all the shooters, and thus the bulk of the casualties were ours. In the US war in Iraq, they supply not only the bulk of the combat force, but almost the entirety of the support echelons and logistics tail, which gives them a huge ratio of tail to point, and thus a low casualty rate. Were you to count the casualty rates for combat arms soldiers engaged in active counter insurgency operations, you would find that all are running pretty much the same risks.
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Damn stats. In this week's Army Times they have a two page breakdown of casualties, charts ect. What struck me was this interesting chart.
0 casualty days - 309
1 casualty - 352
2-5 casualties - 529
6-10 casualties - 81
11+ casualties - 20
Its unfortunate that the study was even done in the first place. Our media keeps track of the deaths in a morbid sort of way hoping at some point that the public will throw in the towel. We are pretty close to 3000 war dead - 332 of them in Afghanistan. Over the five year's that we have been fighting in Afghanistan 332 soldiers,sailors, airmen and marines have died. In the 3 years we have been in Iraq we have lost 2664 men and women from the armed forces. Just those numbers should tell a fair minded analyst that Iraq is far more deadly. Another stat to consider is the number of wounded over 20,113 in OIF to 931 in OEF.
Statistics have a place when trying to pinpoint areas where we have control. Like accidental deaths. There were 487 accidental deaths in both OIF and OEF. By stressing safety more we might have kept more people alive. Yet we lose over 40,000 people a year on the nation's highways. How are those deaths less tragic than military losses ?
0 casualty days - 309
1 casualty - 352
2-5 casualties - 529
6-10 casualties - 81
11+ casualties - 20
Its unfortunate that the study was even done in the first place. Our media keeps track of the deaths in a morbid sort of way hoping at some point that the public will throw in the towel. We are pretty close to 3000 war dead - 332 of them in Afghanistan. Over the five year's that we have been fighting in Afghanistan 332 soldiers,sailors, airmen and marines have died. In the 3 years we have been in Iraq we have lost 2664 men and women from the armed forces. Just those numbers should tell a fair minded analyst that Iraq is far more deadly. Another stat to consider is the number of wounded over 20,113 in OIF to 931 in OEF.
Statistics have a place when trying to pinpoint areas where we have control. Like accidental deaths. There were 487 accidental deaths in both OIF and OEF. By stressing safety more we might have kept more people alive. Yet we lose over 40,000 people a year on the nation's highways. How are those deaths less tragic than military losses ?
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