"Sicko math"

I'm noting the comment by Athenae at First Draft on what she calls the "sicko math" practiced by denizens of the "conservative" web site Free Republic in trying to somehow rationalize away the loss of 3000 US troops lost in Iraq. Example:

Philadelphia Pennsylvania lost over 400 people just this year through crime. The liberal strongholds in the U.S. are far more dangerous than Iraq when you check out the number of dead each year.

There are about 1.5 million people living in Philadelphia, about 10% that number - 150,000 - of US troops in Iraq. On a per capita basis 400 deaths in Philadelphia would equate to 40 US soldiers killed in Iraq annually. Reuters is reporting this evening about 113 US troop deaths - nearly three times that number - in just December of this year.

And of course the Freepers' callous calculations take no notice of Iraqi deaths at all. Iraqi government officials report 16,273 Iraqi deaths by violence in 2006. Coincidentally US population is about 10 times greater than Iraq's. So not even all the examples Athenae cites put together - even throwing in the flu, as one Freeper tries to do - approaches the carnage in Iraq.

Attempting to mask the disaster in Iraq by pretending to show anyone in Iraq is somehow "safer" that Americans are in the US, on any basis, is pathetically wrong. And shame on anyone who plays that ugly game.