Peacetime Military Deaths in Clinton Years

Here's an interesting story.
It's in the New York Sun. It's by Alicia Colon, and it's entitled, "Heroes and Cowards." Here's the interesting paragraph. “The total military dead in the Iraq war between 2003 and this month stands at about 3,133. This is tragic, as are all deaths due to war, and we are facing a cowardly enemy unlike any other in our past that hides behind innocent citizens. Each death is blazoned in the headlines of newspapers and Internet sites. What is never compared is the number of military deaths during the Clinton administration: 1,245 in 1993; 1,109 in 1994; 1,055 in 1995; 1,008 in 1996. That's 4,417 deaths in peacetime but, of course, who's counting?”

woah...

Now, you might wonder, well, she doesn't cite the source of these figures. But I found them. There's a Department of Defense pdf file on death rates that you can download. I went to download it and I got it and then subsequent attempts after that the site was either down or it was locked and loaded. The point here is, of course these 4,417 deaths between 1993 and 1996, those are deaths in peacetime, those are for the most part accidental deaths. I just wanted to get this out there and on the record: more deaths in four years of the Clinton administration due to military accidents than deaths in Iraq. If you look at this pdf, you will find that in 1980, which was the last year of the Carter administration, there were far more military deaths in 1980 than in any year of the Bush administration. The death rate was also higher, and that's because of differences in the care given the training and standards and so forth. The point here is that we're fighting the Iraq war with lower casualties than casualties expected from training accidents during peacetime.

I mention this just to show you how out of proportion and agenda oriented the death count in Iraq is.