US killed in Iraq 440, missing 5,720?

[TheReligiousLeft]

So I got a letter from a friend in Iraq recently. He said there had been one KIA in his unit but 13 MIA! If a 13/1 ratio is constant (I have no clue if it is) then are we missing 5,720 troops along with the 440 (I don't know the lastest figures) killed?
Am I way off or does this sound about right?

[Blitz]

1. You're way off

eom.

[Minstrel Boy]

2. missing?

Had they been missing from your friend's unit for a long while?

Nearly 6,000 "missing" sounds impossibly high, but the war seemed impossibly stupid long before it happened, so all bets are off.

[TheReligiousLeft]

4. He didn't say, but it sounded like MIA was about the same as KIA

So I was figuring MIA might be a way to pad deaths. They aren't dead, we just can't find thier bodies... or something like that. Anyway, this thought just sort of came to me so I was wondering if you guys thought maybe I was on to something.

[liberalnurse]

5. Hell, I didn't know anyone was missing.....

What are they doing.....AWOL, captured, blown to bits???????

[TheReligiousLeft]

7. I don't know, I was hoping you guys could

maybe elaborate about that. By the tone of the letter it sounded like captured, but I could be reading a lot into it.

[Drifter]

3. Clearly a bad ...

conclusion based on your sample size.

I doubt a ratio of 13/1 exists outside of your friends unit. Applying that to the total number of killed does not give reliable information. In fact I would question that information (13 missing, 1 killed in a single unit).

I would be surprised if there are 13 missing total.

Cheers
Drifter

[TheReligiousLeft]

6. Yeah, I thought it was a little strange, but that's what he wrote to me

That there had been one KIA and 13 MIA.

[stickdog]

23. "I would be surprised if there are 13 missing total."

Why?

[Walt Starr]

8. Some journalist needs to bring up the issue of MIA's

Next Pentagon briefing, it would be nice if a journalist would ask just how many MIAs there are in Iraq.

Wait a minute, before that can happen, there must first be an actual journalist at a Pentagon briefing.

Never mind...

[TheReligiousLeft]

9. Does DU have any links to journalists who

would dig up the MIA count and publish it? If the Iraqi's have kidnapped 6,000 soldiers that would be big news, or at least I think it would.

[rocktivity]

10. Well, after that nonsense with the helicopters, anything is possible

Remember when the helicopters crashed how they said about half a dozen had died and the rest were "injured"? That was a trick to keep the casualty count down, too. As Symbolman and American Stranger put it so beautifully on their radio show, "That helicopter looked like it had been stepped on."


rocknation

[uncle ray]

21. not only that...

you hear nothing of the ones that were shipped back as wounded, that have since died, could be many hundreds there.

[Creamed Corn]

11. Are you sure it's not a "W"?

As in "wounded"?

[TheReligiousLeft]

13. That makes a lot more sense

[TheReligiousLeft]

15. THANK YOU, I MADE A REALLY BIG MISTAKE

[TNOE]

12. Wasn't that why the Reuters Camraman

was shot? He had uncovered mass graves of dead soldiers' bodies?

[htuttle]

16. That's what his brother said

Here's a link -- however, can't find any that most are going to call 'non-biased':

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/article.php?story=2003081918513248

"Mazen told me by phone few days before his death that he discovered a mass grave dug by U.S. troops to conceal the bodies of their fellow comrades killed in Iraqi resistance attacks," Nazmi said.

"He also told me that he found U.S. troops covered in plastic bags in remote desert areas and he filmed them for a TV program. We are pretty sure that the American forces had killed Mazen knowingly to prevent him from airing his findings."

There have been stories like this in the Middle Eastern press since the invasion of Afghanistan. Wouldn't surprise me, I guess, except I would be surprised that they'd be able to keep it a secret for so long.

:shrug:

[Bucky]

17. Wow. We're here online at a historic moment

TNOE writes:
Wasn't that why the Reuters Camraman was shot? He had uncovered mass graves of dead soldiers' bodies?

Well, here it is, folks. The exact moment when yet another delusional, cockamamie, reality-free conspiracy theory is born. Please note that the full roster of names of actual combat fatalities have been published in WaPo, NY Times, and other papers of record. If there were any dozens--much less mass graves' worth--of dead soldiers whose names weren't being listed, don't you think their families would have spoken up by now?

[TNOE]

19. How would the family members know

if their son, daughter, wife, husband was one of 3 shot or just 1 of 50 shot and killed? It is not out of the realm of possibility - unless of course you believed the Jessica Lynch rescue hype and 9/11 was terrorists and Bush actually served in the National Guard. All conspiracy's.

[uncle ray]

22. if you got the call

that said your son was killed in a training exercise on some base in some country, would you question it? could be deaths attributed to other locales etc.

[TheReligiousLeft]

14. My mistake, here is the actual letter

"Well so far we've had dozens of WIA and one KIA
in our task force."
I was way off. Sorry about this. I think I just created a conspiricy theory out of nothing.

[TNOE]

18. Doesn't negate the fact though

that we're still not being told the truth and I for one believe there are many more killed and severely wounded than is being reported. I doubt we're being that far off. Awful lot of new deployments being called up, tells me they're running pretty short.

[KansDem]

20. "I just created a conspiricy theory out of nothing"

Welcome to the Republican Party! ;)

[TheReligiousLeft]

24. Wow... You're right.

I now have a strong urge to get my own talk show and tell people that "they" are going to steal our guns!