When you compare the statistics of Vietnam casualties to the U.S. population you see an interesting picture.   The losses represent 12-13% of the population, which in the mid 60's averaged about 38 million Vietnamese.   Had the U.S. sustained casualties of 13 percent of its population, 28 million Americans would have died.   Incidentally, the population in Vietnam has doubled and now stands at more than 70 million and the count is rising.

I know using the "body count" is a ghoulish method of measuring the victory and horror of war

       Personally, I am well aware of "body count" as a ghoulish method of measuring both victory against the enemy, and the horror of war.   As a Marine Combat Correspondent  in Vietnam, I would count bodies on battlefields, estimating the number and report them.
         Civilian casualties were not normally included, and I often counted them for my own data.   Many of those faces of the dead are locked in my mind, and the tragedy of the loss cannot be measured.
         In Iraq, with 24 million, versus, Vietnam with 38 million (1968 average), we are looking at 4 million casualties versus 6,000 -7,000 in Iraq to date.  Again, this comparison is not to justify the deaths of any civilian, for that would be promoting Terrorism, but is intended to indicate a huge effort in Iraq to limit the historic deaths of civilians.
         Contrasting the deaths in Iraq as a result of the war and occupation, one must also ask the probing question:  "How many Iraqi citizens died each year in Saddam's prisons?   Or were executed by his Special Guard?"  I would like to see the IBC contrast that number on a Terror Clock next to the one it keeps showing the daily, weekly, monthly tab on deaths resulting from allied forces.  At least the reader of such data would be given a fair and just method to decide on whether America's "surgical Vigilance" was more benevolent than simply malevolent.
         But let's not just stop with Vietnam.

A war memorial commemorating the complete loss of a valiant unit of British soldiers

        In the Korean War, more than 33,600 Americans died plus another 16,000 U.N. troops.   415,000 South Korean military, 520,000 North Koreans and some 900,000 Chinese died in combat.   Estimated casualties of the Korean population range upwards of 3 million.   In 1954 there were about 9 million people living in North Korea.  Today, there are an estimated 26 million.
         South Korea's population at the time was 21 million.   Today, it is 47 million.   Casualties for both North and South Korea of civilians was about ten percent of the total.
         Again, comparing Korea to Iraq, the 7,000 Iraqi civilian deaths reported by IBC's "high side" estimate, measured against a population of 24 million, represents a ratio of .00029 civilian deaths.    The Korean war was nearly 500 times that amount, or one out of ten.
         World War II was equally horrible when it came to civilian deaths.  During this battle, an estimated 60 million civilians and military personnel were killed.   Civilian deaths included 2.4 in Germany; over 400,000 in Japan; another 400,000 in Bulgaria; 6 million in Poland; 350,000 in France; 100,000 in the U.K.; 17 million in the Soviet Union; 250,000 in Holland, 400,000 in Greece, and 13 million in China.
        The "non-surgical" bombings of the London Blitz, Coventry, Cologne, Dresden, the siege of Stalingrad, plus the fire bombings of Japanese cities and the atomic bomb all contributed to holocaust of human life, the vast majority of it innocent civilians.

The Dresden bombings contributed to the holocaust of innocent civilian lives

        The Iraq Body Count statistics are horrible.   One death of a civilian in war turns my stomach.  In Vietnam, one of the first scenes I saw in combat was a child beheaded by one of our artillery shells, and his mother scampering about to find the missing parts of the child's body to insure he could be buried as a "whole."
          Any warrior who has walked through the rubble of war and looked at the faces of the dead innocent knows better than anyone in the world the horror of "collateral death."    By no means do I intend to suggest the righteousness of killing civilians, even if those numbers are the lowest in American war history.
        However, I do not agree it is fair to flog America as the Beast of Terror, perpetuating the killing of innocent people, as is the implication of the IBC website.
        In any discussion, when there is no data to compare or contrast the evolution of the issue, I become defensive.    To toss around the "killing of civilians" on a website appears to the casual observer as America perpetuating the cold killing of others.
        It feeds those who want to see America as the Beast of Terror, and blinds them to the history of a nation seeking to limit the pain and anguish and waste of innocent people being caught in the crossfire, or, being run over by a tank.
        Terrorism--the art of inflicting Fear, Intimidation and Complacency in its victims--is about showing one side of the coin.   Protestors who ignore the facts raise placards calling the American military "storm troopers," and "imperialists seeking oil," and flash the bodies of the dead civilians, especially those of children, as a Sally Struthers cry of sympathy to force the exit of America from a land it freed from tyranny on the grounds that it is doing "evil things."
        The IBC insures the venom is fresh by posting on its website the gruesome details of each civilian death, assuring its readers that Americans trying to patch up the wounds of oppression and brutality become the Beast in the eyes of its readers.

The IBC is feeding the Beast of Terror

       The IBC, ultimately, by intent or default, is the Beast of Terror's feeder.   Without contrasting the statistics historically, the unaware reader is led down the path to believe America is ruthlessly killing Iraqis in its effort to control Iraq.
        As a Sentinel of Vigilance, I warn those who go to the site to question why it doesn't present the comparative statistics to illustrate the struggle America is in to keep the civilian causalities to a minimum. 
         There is also a question as to how many of the "casualties" are fomented by Iraqi guerrillas.   Unfortunately, in Vietnam, as in most guerrilla wars, the Terrorists use children as shields, and often sacrifice them to meet their ends.    I remember children running at our positions with satchel charges strapped on their backs--small, innocent suicide bombers unleashed by their parents.
          All I know is that intent of the IBC is far from being a Source of Vigilance.
          It is a disguise of Terrorism, feeding those who blindly see any death as a punctuation of American "blood thirsty policy."
          If there is Vigilance in war, Iraq is the prime example of a massive effort to reduce casualties.  
          But judge for yourself.
        Below are links to various sites with data you can survey.   Look at WWII, the Korean War, and Vietnam and then ask:  "Has America become more or less Vigilant about limiting civilian deaths?"   Then ask the second, most important question:  "Then why doesn't the IBC website show the contrast?"

Become a Sentinel of Vigilance

        If you believe Vigilance is, in part, about the evolution of a nation to become more concerned about limiting the suffering and loss of others in combat, then one step forward in that direction has been made by the limited casualties in Iraq.

Take the Pledge of Vigilance