While I was commenting on a Washington Post article, another commenter wrote something like “… doubled Bushes death toll in Afghanistan”. I wish I could get the exact quote but three thousand comments later, I can’t even find my own comment.
I had to look up that statistic and indeed it’s true, at least according to icasualties.org. This statistic is featured prominently on anti-war sites as well as right wing blogs such as The Blaze, where possibly retarded members of that blog’s readership theorize that the increase in casualties is due to Obama’s allegiance to Islamic forces.
But focusing on the death toll in Afghanistan misses the withdrawal from Iraq. These numbers are based on the tables in icasualties’s home page:
| U.S. Death Tolls | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Afghanistan | Iraq | Total | |
| 2001 | 12 | 0 | 12 |
| 2002 | 49 | 0 | 49 |
| 2003 | 48 | 486 | 534 |
| 2004 | 52 | 849 | 901 |
| 2005 | 99 | 846 | 945 |
| 2006 | 98 | 822 | 920 |
| 2007 | 117 | 904 | 1021 |
| 2008 | 155 | 314 | 469 |
| 2009 | 317 | 149 | 466 |
| 2010 | 499 | 60 | 559 |
| 2011 | 418 | 54 | 472 |
| Total 2002-8 | 618 | 4221 | 4839 |
| Total 2009-11 | 1234 | 263 | 1497 |
| Monthly Avg 2002-8 | 88 | 603 | 691 |
| Monthly Avg 2009-11 | 411 | 88 | 499 |
Since Obama took office, the U.S. casualty rate dropped significantly due to the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, even as the toll increased in Afghanistan as Obama stepped up operations there.
To ignore the Iraq withdrawal in an effort to suggest that twice as many Americans are dying under Obama’s leadership is miserably dishonest. To speculate that it’s because Obama is a Muslim is stupid.
