This post is crossposted at Left in the West and Montana Netroots
This came from something else I’m working on, and I thought it deserved a post of its own.
Per capita deaths of Montanans in the Iraqi war theatre: 1 per 54,706
Per capita deaths of Montanans in both the Iraqi war theatre and in Afghanistan: 1 per 51,667
Per capita deaths of Pennsylvanians in the Iraqi war theatre: 1 per 83,581
Per capita deaths of Pennsylvanians in both the Iraqi war theatre and in Afghanistan: 1 per 77,312
Per capita deaths of Californians in the Iraqi war theatre: 1 per 109,816
Per capita deaths of Californians in both the Iraqi war theatre and in Afghanistan: 1 per 101,130
Per capita deaths of Texans in the Iraqi war theatre: 1 per 84,229
Per capita deaths of Texans in both the Iraqi war theatre and in Afghanistan: 1 per 77,814
I used figures from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Annual Population Estimates 2000 to 2006, and ballparked the above states average estimated population for the period between 2000 and 2006 (I used 930,000 for Montana; 12,370,000 for Pennsylvania; 35,800,000 for California; and 23,500,000 for Texas)
I took military death information from the Department of Defense, but I did use other more up-to-date death figures for Montana. I used 16 for the number of Montanans killed in Iraq, and 1 for the number of Montanans killed in Afghanistan.
You can nosh that around any way you’d like – but a consistent approach will show one thing that I started thinking about back at the beginning of the year when I wrote the original post linked to above – that Montanans are paying a pretty high price for an illegal war in Iraq.
Note: Please note that the original audience is for the blogs listed above - thus the Montana bend to the last paragraph....it is not meant to disparage the deaths of the soldiers from Pennsylvania, Texas, California or any other state. At this point, with regards to the illegal war in Iraq, any single death is one too many. I'm merely trying to get a message through to my audience in Montana.
PEACE to all.