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"End patriotic background music now"
its a shame that over 50,000 Americans and no telling how many thousands of Vietnamese lost their lives in that 10 or so years.
The US death toll in Iraq has surpassed the number of American soldiers killed during the first three years of the Vietnam War.
A Reuters analysis of US Defense Department statistics showed on Thursday that the Vietnam War, which the Army says officially began on Dec. 11, 1961, produced a combined 392 fatal casualties from 1962 through 1964, when American troop levels in Indochina stood at just over 17,000.
By comparison, a roadside bomb attack that killed a soldier in Baghdad on Wednesday brought to 397 the tally of American dead in Iraq, where US forces number about 130,000 troops + the same number reached in Vietnam by October 1965.
The casualty count for Iraq apparently surpassed the Vietnam figure last Sunday, when a US soldier killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack south of Baghdad became the conflict's 393rd American casualty since Operation Iraqi Freedom began on March 20.
Larger still is the number of American casualties from the broader US war on terrorism, which has produced 488 military deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Southwest Asia and other locations.
Statistics from battle zones outside Iraq show that 91 soldiers have died since Oct. 7, 2001, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, which US President George W. Bush launched against Afghanistan's former Taliban regime after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington killed 3,000 people.
The Bush administration has rejected comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam, which traumatized Americans a generation ago with a sad procession of military body bags and television footage of grim wartime cruelty.
Because US involvement in Vietnam increased gradually after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, there is little consensus on when the war in Southeast Asia began.
Some date the war to the late 1950s. Others say it began on Aug. 5, 1964, when Lyndon Johnson announced air strikes against North Vietnam in retaliation for a reported torpedo attack on a US destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin.
However, the Army's start date for the Vietnam War has been set by its Center of Military History as Dec. 11, 1961, when two helicopter companies consisting of 32 aircraft and 400 soldiers arrived in the country, an Army public affairs specialist said.
"It was the first major assemblage of US combat power in Vietnam," explained Army historian Joe Webb.
Vietnam casualties, which amounted to 25 deaths from 1956 through 1961, climbed to 53 in 1962, 123 in 1963 and 216 in 1964, Pentagon statistics show.
The misrepresentation of facts, by using false, uncorrborated ones, paints a pretty biased picture.
Originally posted by jakyll
reply to post by West Coast
The misrepresentation of facts, by using false, uncorrborated ones, paints a pretty biased picture.
But wouldn't that just make them misinformed,not anti-America?
I know there is a lot of it going around at the moment,but its directed (for the most part) at your government.
Its a very human thing to lump everyone in together rather than giving clear direction of who you're talking about.
Example;someone who dislikes Muslim funamentalists will usually show disdain for all Muslims rather than the few,but that isn't what they really mean.
Plus,freedom of speech,no matter how incorrect the facts are,does not equal animosity against a whole nation of people!
Originally posted by Daniem
there are no winners in war my friend. Iran has over 70 million people living there, over twice that of iraq.. and usa is still there fighting.
.
But I thought the amount of dead in the Iraq and Afghanistan war was over 4,000?
What makes us a "hyperpower"s the fact that in ANY major conflict we have been victorious and that still no other major nation threatens us or has the want nor the capability to,plus our economic influence(still,even with oil prices).
Originally posted by jkrog08
Also let me post this "tid bit"of information to all (British especially)on here who say the US is the only country to force weaker nations to abide to it's will for its own gain.
Here's the link:en.wikipedia.org...