What are the U.S. casualties so far from the Iraq invasion and occupation? It is a huge number that has not yet been calculated, according to this article by Dan Froomkin:
The death count is accurate. But the wounded figure wildly understates the number of American servicemembers who have come back from Iraq less than whole.
The true number of military personnel injured over the course of our nine-year-long fiasco in Iraq is in the hundreds of thousands — maybe even more than half a million — if you take into account all the men and women who returned from their deployments with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress, depression, hearing loss, breathing disorders, diseases, and other long-term health problems.
We don’t have anything close to an exact number, however, because nobody’s been keeping track.
These numbers, whatever they might be, are a tiny portion of the total human casualties caused by the decision to invade Iraq.
If war casualties other than “direct hits” aren’t being counted, are decreases in indirect costs attributable to the Iraq War being measured. I keep wondering how much of a decrease we’ll see in the $2B spending per week ( I understand that a portion of this money is transferred to Afghanistan but it seems illogical – uh oh, I’m in trouble now – that costs will simply slide to another theatre of war). Anyone have links or information on this piece of the economic equation?
A reader named John G. wrote with this question:
“What do you think history would reveal if Bush and Clinton switched the years of their Presidency? Would we had 9/11? Would we had the financial meltdown?”
I don’t claim to know the answer, though my speculation is that no president would have prevented 9/11, based on what we know about the events of that day; to pronounce otherwise would be hindsight. Another way of looking at this is that I don’t have any reason to believe that the 9/11 terrorists were timing their action to occur on Bush’s watch. If 9/11 still happened on 9/11 (under Clinton’s watch) I would suspect that Bush would have engaged in at least as many military actions as Clinton prior to 9/11, and Clinton would probably have engaged in almost as much warmongering as Bush post 9/11. Based on it’s history of engaging in warfare, America is a warmongering nation, and when making predictions of this sort, I would rely heavily on the baseline behavior for the country rather than the personality or skill set of any particular office-holder.
Quote from Dr. Wilhelm Reich : “Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck. The responsibility for war falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anybody else. To stress this guilt on the part of masses of people, to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom-fighters; the latter the attitude held by the power-thirsty politicians.”
I agree with Dr. Reich – the soldiers fighting the war, and the masses of civilians who automatically support the actions of these soldiers, are responsible for the initiation not only of the current war, but of all future wars. It’s time to stop placing blame only on the leaders when it’s the followers who are mainly guilty.
Mike M: I’m mostly with you on this one. The internet would allow 100 million people to pick a day to demonstrate from coast to coast . . . if only we really opposed this warmongering. And notice over the next couple of months how many people you overhear even mention the wars we are waging, the money we are spending on those wars and the people being displaced, maimed and killed by this orchestrated violence. You won’t hear a peep out of people regarding America’s wars, but you’ll hear them outraged about sports–even off the field sports stories. You’ll hear them fully involved in the lives of Hollywood celebrities. You’ll hear them yapping about trivia. You’ll hear them bragging about the great meals they just had at an upscale restaurant. As my neighbor once (correctly) lectured to me: “If you really cared, you wouldn’t just be talking about it. You’d be doing something about it.”
Then again . . . look what is not being covered by the news media: America’s ongoing wars. What if we filled the front pages of America’s papers with photos and stories of the blood being spilled in America’s wars and we tell people about all of those infrastructure repairs/improvements that they will NOT have because we are blowing that money on blowing up poor people who we are (mostly) scape-goating halfway across the world. If we covered America’s wars for even a couple weeks, Americans would become outraged and they would come to a stop. War is a victim of America’s gossip & happy news culture. http://dangerousintersection.org/2010/05/06/where-are-the-photos-of-good-things-supposedly-happening-in-iraq-and-afghanistan/