Quote Originally Posted by wm View Post
Your point about the order of magnitude is true, in absolute terms. However, I suspect that in relative terms (size of forces engaged, total populations, etc), the impact may be more comparable. Also, I suspect that using a monthly KIA average is misleading. Were one to plot British Army deaths over the 38 years, it would probably show a curve skewed to the left (i.e., many more deaths early on in the 38 years).
This is possibly true, but still I think Iraq represents a massively different sort of fight. The worst year in NI for the British was 1972, when 149 soldiers were killed out of a force of 30k or so. No other year comes close to this in NI, and this still represents a casualty rate below a similar year for the U.S. in Iraq.

Moreover, you never saw anything like this in Northern Ireland. Can you imagine 500-lb. bombs hitting snipers in Derry or British tanks firing main gun rounds in Belfast? Combat simply was never at that high of a level. The horrific Omagh bombing that finally put an end to violent Republicanism killed 29 people. 58 Iraqis were killed yesterday, pretty much without any news coverage at all because of the soccer win. The level of violence, both against U.S. forces and within the Iraqi population, is vastly different. The best evidence, beyond the daily body count, is in the size of refugee flows. AFAIK there never was any significant mass refugee flow out of NI. Compare that to over 4m Iraqi displaced, 2m outside of the country.