Keep Numbers in Perspective

21

That is the number of US troops that died on 19 January. A tragic loss for 21 mothers, 21 fathers, 42 grand mothers, 42 grand fathers, many unknown wives and children as well as countless friends.

 Some other numbers for you.

76

The number of people killed by guns the US EVERY DAY.  In order to reach that number of US forces, it would take 3.63 Jan 19ths.

 3534

The number of abortions performed every day. That is more than the number of US forces killed in Iraq over the past 4 years. That is 168.28 Jan 19ths.

What is my point? All these deaths are tragic, but why do so many focus ONLY on the deaths in Iraq? Why are people not trying to limit the number of abortions in this country? Why do people blame poverty on gun violence?

Why?

Someone will say that the troops are being killed needlessly. But the man shot for the $42 in his pocket died needlessly too. The child that was never allowed onto this planet may have also been a needless death.

Here is the essential difference.

The men and women in the military volunteered to serve. Many AFTER 9/11 and AFTER Iraq started.

The man with the $42 dollars didn't volunteer to get robbed.

The unborn child did not volunteer to be conceived.

 

U.S.: Iranians detained in Iraq tied to militants

WASHINGTON - Five Iranians arrested by U.S. forces in northern Iraq are connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guard group that provides weapons to Iraqi insurgents, the U.S. military said Sunday. Iran has demanded the United States free the detainees.

The five were arrested on Thursday in a U.S. raid on an Iranian government office in the Iraqi city of Arbil -- the second such operation in a month.

“Preliminary results revealed the five detainees are connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard — Qods Force (IRGC-QF), an organization known for providing funds, weapons, improvised explosive device technology and training to extremist groups attempting to destabilize the Government of Iraq and attack Coalition forces,” the U.S. military said in a statement.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16603072/

 

The Next Jihadists: Iraq's Lost Children

Jan. 22, 2007 issue - Ammar will tell you he's proud to be carrying a gun. His father was a brigadier in Saddam Hussein's Army, a man who saw combat in his country's several wars, and from an early age Ammar had accompanied him to the shooting range. "I got used to the sound of guns then," Ammar says. So he was ready, last fall, when the imam in his Baghdad neighborhood urged residents to take up arms against the invader—who in this case happened to be members of a Shiite militia trying to push into the predominantly Sunni area. Ammar joined the neighborhood watch, a ragtag bunch of men who stand guard nightly at improvised roadblocks and rooftop observation posts. In mid-October Ammar fought his first big battle against soldiers from the Mahdi Army—"the garbage collectors and robbers," as he contemptuously refers to the Shiite militia. He says he put his Kalashnikov assault rifle to good use: "I think I injured or even killed two of them. Our group killed more than six of them that night." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16610767/site/newsweek/