They’d Rather Be in Philadelphia
Kieran Healy on a problematic Post essay on lethality in Iraq. Excerpt:
All of my own caveats apply to using the number I just calculated to assess the seriousness of military death rates in Iraq. As I’ve said before, the acid test is quite straightforward. Would you—can you?—take a commercial flight to Baghdad tomorrow, get a taxi from the airport to the city, stay at a local hotel, see some sights and eat out at a decent restaurant without being in fear of your life? What about Philadelphia? (I’ll grant a cheesesteak exception on the fear-for-your-life part.) This test would have been passed by cities like Derry or Belfast for almost all of the period between 1970 to the present, so it’s not even a very high bar. I doubt that Preston and Buzzell are packing their bags for Baghdad, their own calculations on comparative death rates notwithstanding.
And via, a soldier writes to correct Glenn Reynolds’ typically breezy citation of the original article. In typical Glenn fashion, he follows the correction with a further “correction” that isn’t quite germane, but gets him safely back on the PajamasMedia reservation. Glenn Reynolds is an intelligent man. When Samuel R. Delany writes “Ignorance is a condition; stupidity is a strategy,” he’s thinking of how hard intelligent people have to work to get things wrong.
Comment by Andrew Olmsted —
August 28, 2006 @ 9:56 am
Hey, let’s lay off the cheese steaks. I’ll risk downtown Philly any day to get to 42d street just past Walnut. I don’t remember the name of the place, but their cheese steaks were excellent.
Comment by Brian C.B. —
August 28, 2006 @ 10:28 am
Cheesesteaks being a possible culprit, it’s actually about 3 times safer to be in a peacetime armed forces than loose in the general population and of service age. Good food, enforced excercise, free medical, mental health, eye, and dental care, and being selected at enlistment as able-bodied and of sound mind, and cashiered for developing a disability, helps that statistic. Also, the general “safety first” plan of operations. However, serving in Iraq is seven times more fatal, statistically, than serving in the peacetime armed forces. That stat doesn’t even recognize the special elevation in danger of serving in the Marines and Army–the base risk figure includes the Navy and Air Force. So, it’s probably unchanged for the two non-land services, but more elevated for the restricted population of grunts and jarheads.
Comment by Hesiod —
August 28, 2006 @ 12:22 pm
OT: BTW, Jim…going back to the news about Pluto — apparently this will cause some problems for the Battlestar Galactica ragtag fleet if they ever manage to start heading for Earth again.
They are looking for a 9 planet solar system. So, apparently, they are screwed.
Comment by norbizness —
August 28, 2006 @ 2:17 pm
Reynolds is a whatnow?
Comment by MQ —
August 28, 2006 @ 3:14 pm
You’ll notice none of the pieces looked at the casualty or mortality rates for Iraqis living in Baghdad, which I’m sure would have told quite a different story. They don’t have protected military bases where everybody but the front line troops gets to hide out in, and they don’t travel the streets in armor.
Comment by asteele —
August 28, 2006 @ 4:25 pm
One of the main reason that active service is safer than civilian like in the same age group, is that younger enlisted don’t drive nearly as much as others in their age cohort, and this is one of the main causes of death in young people.
Comment by MattXIV —
August 28, 2006 @ 5:19 pm
The statistics that Brian C.B. provides need to be brought up more often to preempt distortions like this. Comparing fatality rates is a valid way of putting how dangerous Iraq is in perspective, but the absence of well-publicized valid comparisons allows people intent on downplaying the violence to get away with making inaccurate comparisons to get the results they want.
Comment by thoreau —
August 28, 2006 @ 7:45 pm
MQ makes a damn good point about fatality rates for Iraqis.
Also, what about non-fatal injuries?
Comment by Hesiod —
August 28, 2006 @ 8:54 pm
Here’s a concrete way to illustrate the differences. How much does a life insurance policy cost for a soldier serving in Iraq, vs one for a person iving in Philadelphia in the same cohort?
As libertarians, you should find this comparison compelling.
It puts a direct monetary value on the differences.
Trackback by Inactivist —
August 28, 2006 @ 10:05 pm
Whistling Past the War…
Glenn Reynolds is an intelligent man. When Samuel R. Delany writes “Ignorance is a condition; stupidity is a strategy,†he’s thinking of how hard intelligent people have to work to get things wrong.
…
Comment by dsquared —
August 29, 2006 @ 1:36 am
Good food, enforced excercise, free medical, mental health, eye, and dental care, and being selected at enlistment as able-bodied and of sound mind, and cashiered for developing a disability, helps that statistic.
it gets better Brian; the army death figure is quoted for “person-years spent in Iraq“. Oddly enough, when you get a heart condition, a debilitating disease, pneumonia, diabetes etc etc etc, they don’t airlift you out of Philadelphia.
Comment by KCinDC —
August 29, 2006 @ 10:39 am
Dsquared, even if you get shot or caught by an IED, they may airlift you out of Iraq and you may die elsewhere and so not be included in the statistics.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
August 29, 2006 @ 1:07 pm
As libertarians, you should find this comparison compelling. It puts a direct monetary value on the differences.
I should compile a general libertarian forum/blog comment drinking game, just to include “Two drinks when a liberal makes a lame dig at libertarians while they’re saying things he supposedly agrees with.”
Comment by Leonard —
August 29, 2006 @ 2:45 pm
Eric, I don’t think that was a cheap shot at all. In a free market, life insurance prices should actually be a very good way to compare relative risks. In this particular case, though, I expect the market is not free. Rather, the US government will have wiped out any private insurance of soldiers by offering its own insurance, with premiums completely unrelated to actual risk. I don’t know that for sure, though. Worth checking some insurance sites.
Comment by sean —
August 29, 2006 @ 2:55 pm
kcindc, the Iraqi fatality statistics (check out icasualties.org) include everyone who dies as a result of action in Iraq, even if they end up dying in a hospital in the US (which they mostly don’t, because if you make it to a US hospital, you usually live).
Comment by theCoach —
August 31, 2006 @ 11:14 am
perhaps I have missed something in all this – but wouldn’t a proper comparison include all the people in Iraq, not just American armed forces? Or conversely, shouldn’t we be comparing the number of Armed Forces members killed in Philly?