30,000 American Deaths

[Quetzal]

Lawrence Kaplan of the New Republic states that the American public will tolerate about 30,000 American deaths.

What do these numbers tell us about Iraq? For one thing, that the public may be less fearful of casualties than America's political and military elites assume -- and, indeed, less fearful than the elites themselves. In 1999 a massive opinion poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates for the Triangle Institute for Security Studies asked various groups what level of casualties they would be willing to tolerate in the event of war with Iraq. The survey found that military leaders consistently show less tolerance for casualties than civilian leaders, who in turn show less tolerance for casualties than the public at large. (In Iraq, the survey showed the public would tolerate, as a mean figure, 29,853 American fatalities; civilian elites would tolerate 19,045; and their military counterparts would tolerate 6,016.) The data have obvious implications abroad, where Osama bin Laden boasted that the collapse of American resolve in Somalia "convinced us that the Americans are a paper tiger," and at home, where 78 percent of officers and a nearly identical percentage of their civilian counterparts agree with this statement: "The American public will rarely tolerate large numbers of U.S. casualties in military operations."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46699-2004Apr2.html

[fujiyama]

1. I hate Kaplan

Stupid neo con motherfucker. He's one of the reasons the New Republic is such a shitty magazine now. I remember him stating openly that he would vote for Bush if Lieberman didn't recieve the nomination.

[Quetzal]

3. The New Republican is full of neo-con whores

Andrew Sullivan, Kaplan, and others at the magazine have turned it into crap.

[RapidCreek]

8. I'd certainly tolerate his death

if it were the last one in Iraq. Let's send his ass to partake in the fun and games.

RC

[MichaelHarris]

2. Send um my response

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x44378

[Occulus]

4. One thing strikes me:

"In Iraq, the survey showed the public would tolerate, as a mean figure, 29,853 American fatalities;"

Any time such a "crystal ball number" is enunciated so exactly (in this case, not 29,000, nor 29,800, but exactly 29,853, I know for a fact those numbers are skewed, distorted, and generally played with. One simply cannot extrapolate such an exact whole number and expect to be taken seriously.

I may have taken him seriously if he had said 29K, or 29.8K. But exactly 29,853 deaths??

I'm expected to swallow that???

[Skip Intro]

5. It would be on thing if we were defending ourselves from an agressor

but we are not - Iraq was no threat to us, and that much is now clear as day, with even the "imminent threat, wmd, mushroom cloud" warmongers now talking of liberation (itself a joke, as those we are supposed to be liberating are rebelling against our occupation).

If we were fighting for our survival or threat to our society, our way of life, troop losses would be sadly accepted. That not being the case, this report is bull.

And this survey was done in 1999, which really makes it irrelevent given what we were told by the bush regime, and how the run-up to the war, and the execution of the invasion/occupation, including shunning our allies and the UN, was conducted by the bloodthirsty bastards.

The question to ask any pro-invasion person now is, "why are our guys dying over there again?" The answer is for bush's lies, and that's not worth one life, American or Iraqi.

[Valkyrie55]

6. After watching the American reaction to the 4 civilians killed

in Fallujah I think we can safely assume that the public will not accept 30,000 deaths. I'm not even sure we would accept 30,000 dead and wounded combined. It's one thing to toss out a number in response to a poll. It's quite another to start seeing dead and maimed soldiers returning home. If these numbers are true then it means that since we are only at 651 dead right now then people would be willing to accept 46 times more dead. I don't think so!!

[wickerwoman]

7. We'll choke at the money before we choke at the casualties.

Iraq will never reach Vietnam level casualties and it probably will take about 30,000 dead and a draft before the majority of Americans support "cutting and running".

Start citing the amount of money being flushed down the toilet in Iraq and everyone, Dems and Repubs, start paying attention.