22,000 US casualties in iraq?

[zimv20]

link (http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=1457)


** Breaking News ** DoD Reports up to 22,000 U.S. Casualties
David Hackworth
Soldiers for the Truth
http://www.sftt.org/
Posted 12/31/2003 1:08:00 PM
According to retired Army Colonel David Hackworth, "Lt. Col. Scott D. Ross of the U.S. military's Transportation Command told me that as of Dec. 23, his outfit had evacuated 3,255 battle-injured casualties and 18,717 non-battle injuries. Of the battle casualties, 473 died and 3,255 were wounded by hostile fire." That is a total of 21,972 casualties. Some may have been counted twice if they were transported more than once or injured more than once. This new count is far higher than the report from Mark Benjamin at United Press International. Veterans want to know: what is the true casualty count?


hackworth has been speaking out against the war for some time. i wonder how close to the truth these figures actually are.

i'd received a report from a former intelligence officer, in the early days of the war, that the US casualties were MUCH higher than the pentagon was reporting...

[Dont Hurt Me]

I dont want to spin this i hate seeing anyone get killed by those fanatics in Iraq but just this past week they were running numbers and showed there were more murders in chicago and a few other major U.S. cities this year then soldiers in Iraq. Just some food for thought....vote Kucinich he wants to pull out of Iraq and use that money for a National Healthcare Package.

[zimv20]

Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
there were more murders in chicago and a few other major U.S. cities this year then soldiers in Iraq.

soldiers killed, casualities, or total number of soldiers present?

[Dont Hurt Me]

Just killed ,

[zimv20]

according to http://www.iraqometer.com/, there've been 596 coalition deaths, which, iirc, is exactly the number of murders in NYC in 2003.

the point of the article i originally posted was not that the deaths were so very high, but the unreported casualities.

[huntsman]

Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
I dont want to spin this i hate seeing anyone get killed by those fanatics in Iraq but just this past week they were running numbers and showed there were more murders in chicago and a few other major U.S. cities this year then soldiers in Iraq. Just some food for thought...

What is it meant to suggest? I assume that the number of deaths is "acceptable" or "relatively low".

Indeed, looking at it from the neo-con perspective, the equivalent of the number of murders each year in a given major US city is a pretty damn small price to pay for a permanent military presence in Iraq. A few hundred dead soldiers a year in return for a lever providing ultimate power over the world's greatest energy resources, and in turn Europe and Asia, who are greatly dependent on those resources and will remain so for a long time. This secures US dominance in the world for decades to come.

And once this initial difficult stage is over, the psuedo-democracy has been set up, and the military presence scaled down to some fortress in the desert that ensures the new government is compliant, the number of US deaths will fall to an even more acceptable level.

So far it's gone remarkably well, and if things proceed as described it will have been an exceptional bargain.

Of course, even if things continue as swimmingly as suggested above, there are major risks. Just as the American presence in Saudi Arabia motivated Osama and his supporters, its presence in Iraq could breed such strong resentment that it spawns a new wave of terror against the US homeland, possibly of the nuclear variety. Then things might get just a little bit more expensive, as thousands of Americans are killed and any civil liberties you had left destroyed. The Iraqi insurgence could develop into a popular resistance in which thousands of American soldiers are killed. It could spark nuclear proliferation weaker powers seek the only deterrent against the US juggernaught they can afford, threatening the survival of the entire species. There is not an empire in history that hasn't experienced blowback as a consequence of its global ambitions, and in the nuclear age it's a pretty dangerous game to play.

Those with a keen sense of history keep whispering these warnings in the ears of the US administration. So far they've taken the risks and won. There was no "quagmire" in Afghanistan, nor thousands of dead American soldiers in the streets of Baghdad. But luck runs out.

And that's looking at things from a purely selfish perspective. Thousands of dead Afghan and Iraqi civilians are dead as a result of the American government's actions, and nothing short of the emergence of shining beacons of liberal democracy in both their contries can justify that.

[Desertrat]

The "non-battle" casualty number seems specious. It would indicate a fantastic number of klutzoiditis types in the military; how in hell did they survive basic training?

'Rat

[zimv20]

Originally posted by Desertrat
The "non-battle" casualty number seems specious. It would indicate a fantastic number of klutzoiditis types in the military; how in hell did they survive basic training?


lol

i'm interested in knowing what's counted as an 'injury'

[Desertrat]

"Injury" for the non-battle? Call me clueless. :)

"Battle casualties" pretty much means anything which requires medical attention by other than the person who's hurt. A bullet's graze or a minor scratch from shrapnel, which could be dealt with via bandaid probably wouldn't count--unless somebody's hungry for a Purple Heart to wear.

I commend Mauldin's "Up Front". One cartoon, there, is pertinent. Willie's at an aid station, talking to a medic. The cut line reads (aproximately), "Nah, just gimme an aspirin; I already got me a Purple Heart."

'Rat