Those Glorious Carter Years
We all know about his morbid economy figures and his loss of Iran to the mad mullahs. Erick at Redstate has some very interesting statistics about military deaths. (Hattip:WWS)
Did you know that more members of the military were killed in Jimmy Carter's last year in the White House than in any of the years we've been fighting in Iraq? Think about that. In the peaceful year of 1980, 2,392 servicemen died while on duty defending our country. In 2003, the start of the Iraq War, only 1,228 servicemen and women died. In 2004, the number was 1,874, it went up to 1,942 in 2005, and it dropped to 1,858 in 2006.
In fact, only during the Clinton years of 1996 into the Bush years of 2001 and 2002, during a period of time when the Clinton policy of refusing to defend our national interest was in place, do we see the number of military deaths fall below 1000 annually.
During the 1980's, when we aggressively defended the peace against the Soviets, the number of military deaths routinely topped 2000, with a high in 1983, the year of the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, topping out at 2,465.
But let's go back to the key point, more members of the military died in 1980, while Jimmy Carter was in the White House abdicating our responsibilities around the world, than in any one of the years we've been in Iraq.
5 comments:
Interesting...I've seen similar arguments before!
Dont you love to see it written out in black and white?!?! Since carter allowed and signed off of the fraudulent elections in Venezuela, I find it hard to not feel outright disgust when I see him.
Kind of odd. None of the military deaths in Carter's last year were due to hostile action. See page 11
at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf
..this subject keeps popping up in the blogosphere, but the important thing is that 'accidental' deaths have dropped significantly through the years. However, the stats are good to impress the impressible.
I would say that the point is "dead is dead" wheather it is caused by accidental or hostile action, and that the people who continue to holler about all the casualties our troops have taken in Iraq should realize that no war can ever be fought without casualties and we have routinely suffered more deaths, even during a time of peace, than we have during the entire time we've been in Iraq. Neither am I minimizing the deaths we have suffered. Our troops, at least those that aren't "phony soldiers", are heroes! :)
Yea Don and BB, they have advanced from being the Keystone Kops of the Carter years to being the most advanced fighting force in history.
Hey, Jungle Mom, you've been busy I see. I had forgotten about that Carter fact, thanks for bringing it back up that he supported Chavez.
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