Good Morning.
Today is our 2,722nd day in Iraq and our 3,238th day in Afghanistan.
We'll start as we always do, with the latest casualty figures from our ongoing wars, courtesy of Antiwar.com:
American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 4416
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03): 4277
Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03): 3955
Since Handover (6/29/04): 3557
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 188
Other Coalition Troops - Iraq: 318
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,249
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 784
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq: 1,457
Journalists - Iraq : 338
Academics Killed - Iraq: 437
We find this morning's
cost of war passing through:
$ 1, 073, 224, 275, 000 .00 Even as more of our troops come home from Iraq, they face an uncertain future. While many of them will finally end up at home, many more of them will eventually re-deploy to Afghanistan. With our limited core of volunteer soldiers, there will be many that will be heading overseas for the 3rd, 4th, or 5th time...or more.
In WWII, soldiers often spent years away from their families. My own great-uncle had but one weekend at home from when he enlisted in early 1942 up until Japan surrendered 3 years later. But their war was different....there was a clear goal, as articulated by FDR...the "unconditional surrender" of Germany and Japan.
Our wars have been going on for the better part of a decade...with no clear goal given by anyone, and a seemingly endless engagement ahead.
Continue reading...
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