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Death Numbers

I've become interested in how the numbers of dead have been and are being used to justify any number of political arguments. Currently in talking about the Iraq war there are countless numbers of arguments using these numbers in Iraq to justify any number of positions. Most recently (early 2007) I have heard an argument wondering when American's lost their spine, since after "only" 3000 deaths of U.S. soldiers, they have lost their interest in this war, whereas in Viet Nam it was 50,000 and in WWII it was 2 million.

Interesting discussion about the numbers of dead. questions by Amy Goodman, May 11, 2005 answers by Seymour Hirsch.

Here's one collected from dailykos.com on December 24, 2005:

Hutton Gibson (Mel's Dad) on Holocaust numbers He says:

One interesting observation I've made through the years regarding Israel and Palestine and now clearly in the summer 2006 Lebanon conflict (8/8/2006, currently about 1000:100. Deaths on the other side (Lebanon and Palestine) are consistently about 10 times those of Israelis. Must go back to the biblical command to extract ten eyes for an eye.

Deaths Relative to a Popluation

Chomsky was the first person I noticed using this measure. He said something about East Timor having X deaths which is Y percent of the population which if you were to put it in terms of the US, it would be U.S. population x Y. That is his line of reasoning. So if we were to put this in terms of Iraq. Currently, one group using standard measuring methodology has claimed about 650,000 deaths are a result of the U.S. occupation (as of about Fall 2006). That is, let's say for ease of doing the math, about 1% of the entire poplation. This would be equivalent to about 2.5 million Americans. My first reaction is that each individual is precious so that makes individuals of small countries "worth more" by this measure. Although it is not meant to be taken this far, it does serve as a measure to put an event's impact on a population in perspective.