4/1/08

How Many Shovels Have YOU Used?

How many times have you actually picked up a shovel and buried a friend? A colleague? A comrade? A fellow soldier?

You can't buy me on the truth...

Noah Shachtman at Danger Room finds a 2006 report written for U.S. Special Operations Command that suggests ways the military should deal with the blogosphere. One suggestion is for the military to hire bloggers to “pass the U.S. message“:

Information strategists can consider clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers or other persons of prominence…to pass the U.S. message. … On the other hand, such operations can have a blowback effect, as witnessed by the public reaction following revelations that the U.S. military had paid journalists to publish stories in the Iraqi press under their own names. People do not like to be deceived, and the price of being exposed is lost credibility and trust.

An alternative strategy is to “make” a blog and blogger. The process of boosting the blog to a position of influence could take some time, however, and depending on the person running the blog, may impose a significant educational burden, in terms of cultural and linguistic training before the blog could be put online to any useful effect.

Only unvarnished facts here.

Do you even know how many American soldiers are dead because of Iraq? How many are seriously injured? How do I politely say "Fuck you!" because you very likely did not know? Hell! The majority of you don't seem to care.

American Deaths

Since war began (3/19/03):40113274
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03) (the list)
3872
3166
Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03):35502966
Since Handover (6/29/04):31522641
Since Election (1/31/05):25732379
American WoundedOfficialEstimated
Total Wounded:2949623000 - 100000
Latest Fatality Mar. 31, 2008
Page last updated 03/31/08 12:07 am EDT
Iraqi Casualties
US Military Deaths by Month from Icasualties.org
Others
Just Foreign Policy Iraqi Death Estimator
Other Coalition Troops
309
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan
491
American Civilian Casualties
Sources: DoD, CentCom, MNF, and iCasualties.org

20,000 vets' brain injuries not listed

U.S. lacks mechanism to accurately track troops wounded in Iraq

A Running Log of the Wounded

UPI reports :

As many as 1 of every 10 soldiers from the war on terror evacuated to the Army's biggest hospital in Europe was sent there for mental problems.

Between 8 and 10 percent of nearly 12,000 soldiers from the war on terror, mostly from Iraq, treated at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany had "psychiatric or behavioral health issues," according to the commander of the hospital, Col. Rhonda Cornum.

That means about 1,000 soldiers were evacuated for mental problems.

The hospital has treated 11,754 soldiers from the war on terror, with 9,651 from Iraq and the rest from Afghanistan, according to data released by the hospital.

Also see The Missing Wounded.

American Count

Dates and sources of Americans killed in Iraq since 5/1/03 are documented in this file. Admittedly the file is incomplete, for the Department of Defense does not maintain old records. All data was compiled from http://www.defenselink.mil. If something is amiss in the data collection, please contact Margaret Griffis.

Iraqi Civilian Count

We maintain a daily count based on news reports. It is not intended to be complete. There is no agency that keeps track of accurate numbers of Iraqis killed. JustForeignPolicy maintains a running estimate based on the Lancet study with the rate of increase derived from the Iraq Body Count.


Sources and Links
Central CommandDepartment of DefenseCost of War
BBC NewsCoalition Casualty CountThe Washington Post
JustForeignPolicyFox NewsListing by month

You know you couldn't answer these simple questions.

If you are afraid of hearing my opinion on these facts... Don't ask me to tell you the truth. Because I will. Too bad for you if you don't like the answers. Too bad for you if you can't handle the truth.

2 comments:

sptmck said...

I think you've been more than "polite." Thanks for the information.

Connecticut Man1 said...

It pisses me off that there have been about 5 reports TOTAL in the media on the number of dead soldiers passing 4000. Never mind that Iraqi deaths, and injured soldiers don't matter at all. sigh...