"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 17:28:34 -0400, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:

You cite the 58,000 names on the Wall. The NVN lost (depending upon
your source) between one and three million. Since you like to only
use one source pick whichever one you want. That sort of loss ratio
doesn't imply a great victory.

Ed,, from http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html

"The Hanoi government revealed on April 4 [1995] that the true civilian
casualties of
the Vietnam War were 2,000,000 in the north, and 2,000,000 in the south.
Military
casualties were 1.1 million killed and 600,000 wounded in 21 years of war.
These
figures were deliberately falsified during the war by the North Vietnamese
Communists
to avoid demoralizing the population. "

A chart on the same page shows 1.1 million NVA/VC dead versus about
276,000 US/ARVN
and allied itroops in combat. So, we've got 3.1 million North Vietnamese
killed
during the war, vs. 2.24 million south Vietnamese. The majority of SVN
civilian
deaths would have been due to allied firepower, especially US. So
assuming
reasonably accurate numbers, the US and its allies killed somewhere
between 2 and 4
million civilians, plus the 1.1 million combatants. Were you claiming the
deaths of
civilians, those of both our allies and our enemies, represented a great
triumph of
american arms, Ed? Killing civilians in a war is easy, as was repeatedly
demonstrated in the 20th Century (and every other one, for that matter).

"Especially US", eh? OK, let's look at that and assume you mean that the US
only accounted for 50% of those 2 to 4 million civilian casualties you want
to chalk up. If we take a nice round figure of major US war participation as
being six years (not unrealistic, given truces, bombing halts, and the
like), you get 2190 days. Using that 50% figure, you would have to be
racking up between almost five hundred and one thousand civilian deaths per
*day*, depending upon whether you use the low or high ranges for your
"data". Color me skeptical, but that sounds way too high-- one-point-five My
Lai massacres every day at a *minimum*. Did you just grab these figures from
the air, or is your analysis that points to "especially US" responsibility
just completely out of whack?

Brooks

snip