Anyone know the current number?
I know the US news lies because the US govt. lies about all casualties. From personal experience I know that the no. of MIA’s / and all personnel of any kind missing and killed in Vietnam was a lie, and every other war since then. In fact, maybe every US government has lied about casualties in every war, “police action” etc. since the beginning of the country - if so, mabe a lot of countries have lied since the beginning of recorded time over 6,000 years ago. It certainly wouldn’t help when there is no longer any conscription in the US (who now accept felons into all of the services) to tell the truth about the number of wounded and dead females and males. Also, it is important not to forget that numerous people wounded and killed that are listed as “non-combat” or “nonessential” personnel are totally forgotten about in these fake counts. Another problem is the kind of wars we have been in - preserving oil for the Saudis in Desert Storm, and looking for Sadaam Hussein and atomic bombs in Iraq instead of Osama Bin Laden (who as I told everyone I knew from 9/11 on was in Pakistan) living down the street from the Pakistani military and police HQ in a huge compound with 10 foot high walls). BUT NO ONE KNEW HE WAS THERE. Also, when did we start (again) trying and failing to preserve democracies for countries who don’t want democracies and hate the countries who invade them to “save them”, we didn’t, and don’t understand why they don’t thank us. [
Back to your question, I have always gotten most of my realistic casualty figures concerning US wars from other countries in the world. For instance, during Vietnam, I had British, Australian and Turkish casualty reports. Where I live we now we have access to British, Russian, Greek and other countries’ news stations on our regular cable TV. [/FONT]**[/SIZE][/SIZE] Also, I have had pen pals to correspond with, both military and non, especially during the Vietnam war. These men sent me foreign and South and North Vietnamese newspapers both underground and “established” publications with very different figures than we had in the US. You can always find a website to write to service people from other countries as well as the US and visit VFW’s and talk to the men and women there about past war service.
I am not a nut. Almost every boy and man in my lower middle to middle class neighborhood in (then) the 2nd most populous city in the U.S. was drafted for Korea when I was in elementary school, and Vietnam and the DMZ in Korea during high school. Most of them are dead, including my 19 year old male best buddy I went to secondary school with every day, and the love of my life, my first boyfriend, who I met when I was 15 and was engaged to at 19. The friend died at 19, my fiance at one month into his 21st year. 70% of my area was killed or wounded or so sick they almost died. The ones who came back were deathly ill, no one would ever talk about the horrors of that war (Women posing as being in labor, and 5 year olds sneaking into tents with IED’s, etc. and guys fragging their officers who led them into ambushes and didn’t have a clue how to fight a jungle war). A lot of the guys from Philly OD’d on drugs they took mostly so they wouldn’t think or remember what happened in that war, and others who did think and remember ended up spending their lives locked up in psychiatric wards. One friend of mine had to be carried out of our local hangout in a straight jacket 20 years after he left Nam, another, a chopper pilot, still has nightmares about the wounded and dying guys he had to leave in the field during fire fights because they were too far gone to make the flight to the MASH field hospital. My friend Paul, who jumped down into a basement stairwell and crouched down with his hands over his head when we were walking into a restaurant and a car coming down the street backfired.I don’t know if it was related to him being so shaken up, but Paul nearly died choking on his first bite of duck in the restaurant that 15 minutes before, he was crouching outside of. The onus was on me to save his lfe when I realized when he turned blue and his eyes rolled up into his head that if I didn’t save him he was going to die. Luckily, I did, but nfortunately, he was in a VA drug rehab when I lost track of him. The man I was going to live with, and probably marry, also a victim of Vietnam, is dead of an overdose after having a secret habit (once a month on payday) and OD’ing because he shot up cocaine for the first time in 10 years. I also have three friends that died from Agent Orange, and a friend who died from it after being in a POW camp for years in a a tiger cage in the river. He eventually became a psychiatrist at the
VA hospital to try and help other vets. Not to belabor the point any more, but no one ever comes back from anywhere where they had a license to kill people and is the same. My dad, uncles, cousins, friends, etc. all were changed and never talked about the wars. As far as Afghanistan casualties go, I have three cousins who left for Afghanistan this week, so if I can find anything aout( after they are there a while, I will contact you again on this thread. Meanwhile, campaign for No more WARS! Let that be your mantra. I have fought against them since I was 16, and burnt bras and draftcards at the main armory in Philly in 1964. Good luck finding out your information!!!
Uh… wow. Apparently guys are being blown up left and right out here and I never even noticed…
Anyways, iCasualties.org reports that there have been 1746 OEF KIA and and 4474 for OIF/New Dawn. For OEF 26 of them have been women, but I can’t get the filter to work for Iraq to get you a count. These figures exclude non-military government types, as well as contractors.
And outside of Ron Paul, not one of the bastards running for President, including Obama, has even mentioned a plan about bringing our boys and girls home.
Where are the anti-war protest marches that we saw during the Bush administration?
Why does Obama get a pass???
Well, I’m convinced.
This is GQ, not Great Debates. Political potshots are not allowed here, and even if they were, your comments do nothing to answer the OP’s question.
phillygal, while I appreciate that you made some effort to answer the question, the majority of your post is much more suited to Great Debates or the Pit. Don’t do that in GQ.
A simple Google search for female+iraq+dead reveals 102 female dead; of those, appears 6 are from the UK and 3 are listed from Puerto Rico. http://mibazaar.com/costofiraqwar/womencasualties.html