Good Morning.
Today is our 2,183rd day in Iraq.
We'll start this morning as we always do, with the latest casualty figures from Iraq and Afghanistan, courtesy of Antiwar.com:
American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 4256
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03): 4117
Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03): 3795
Since Handover (6/29/04): 3398
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 27
Other Coalition Troops - Iraq: 318
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 661
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 434
Journalists - Iraq: 136
Contractor Deaths - Iraq: 1264
We find this morning's
cost of war passing through:
$ 603, 540, 900, 000.00 Here at "Ask a Vet", we tend to focus almost exclusively on the War in Iraq. Often, even we overlook what's happening in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world, as the magnitude of what we have done in the Middle East tends to dwarf everything else.
Today, I want to take a brief look at a group of persons that has been under-reported by
everyone...the Iraqi civilian.
In every war since the beginning of time, there's two casualty lists; the soldiers that fight, and the civilians that suffer. Often, the non-military person simply 'gets in the way' and pays the ultimate price. Modern militaries are quite adept at something called "battlefield recovery", and the United States Marine Corps and the Israeli Army famously have a policy of leaving no one behind in times of war.
Continue reading...
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