Does the left boost figures in Iraq casualties?

The other day, someone posted to the Lancaster Online messageboard that "1800" soldiers have been killed in the Iraq war. The implication was clear, these soldiers died due to a hostile enemy in Iraq.

What wasn't told was the full story at icasualities.org. According to that site:

Hostile US Fatalities Since May 1, 2003: 1318

Before that, there were 109 hostile U.S. fatalities. That's 1,427.

The rest of the "1800" figure comes from "nonhostile" fatalities. These deaths are in non-combat situations or zones and are something as simple as a vehicle crash, accident, or illness.

This doesn't diminish these soldiers' service. But it does shed some interesting light on those implying that "1800" soldiers died in Iraq because we allegedly provoked a war (which Democrats supported, by the way).

These figures have been inflated by roughly 25%, implying incorrectly that all these soldiers fell to a hostile enemy. But that isn't so. It means that they are using these unfortunate incidents to politicize things.

Interestingly, Gil avoids this directly, although he does use the highest casualty count week in Iraq in a while (last week, 12 soldiers were killed in hostile action as opposed to "more than 24" this week).

And it would be interesting to know when Gil's column was finalized. Was he including the nonhostile fatalities in his figures? It doesn't necessarily appear that he was, but it's a possibility.

He certainly is trying to feed on our sympathies and following the strategy set forth by DKos. And while we all do feel sorrow for any lives lost, it's important for us to understand that our soldiers are preventing future terrorist attacks against us from the No. 2 Al Qaeda who is known to be in Iraq. (Of course, some probably still think there is no link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, even with the No. 2 guy running around the country terrorizing it.)

Gil asks "For what?" How sad, really, that he would diminish the sacrifices of those soldiers by asking such a question, implying that they died for nothing.

I suppose Gil has forgotten 9/11/01 already.

No matter what Bush does, some people just cannot be happy. Just look at how Michael Moore treated Bush for sitting calmly in a classroom with school kids on that terrible day.

If Bush did nothing, we'd be hearing gripes about how Bush does nothing. When he takes action, then we hear gripes about that.

Instead of complaining, how about coming up with a solution?