The Pentagon is underreporting the number of American soldier casualties in Iraq., page 1

posted on Dec, 12 2005 @ 12:17 PM

link

A group of seven House Democrats wrote President Bush this week, accusing the Pentagon of underreporting casualties in Iraq.

Salon.com

It’s a shocking charge. The letter writers argue that Pentagon casualty reports show only a sliver of the injuries, mostly physical ones from bombs or bullets. But war doesn’t work like that, the Democrats declare, adding that the reports skip a horrible panoply of accidents, illness, disease and mental trauma.

“We are concerned that that the figures that were released to the public by your administration do not accurately represent the true toll that this war has taken on the American people,” the group wrote Bush on Dec. 7. The Dems are right.

Pentagon casualty reports show 2,390 service members dead from Iraq and Afghanistan and over 16,000 wounded. By far the vast majority of the wounded and dead are from Iraq.

But by Dec. 8, 2005, the military had evacuated another 25,289 service members from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries or illnesses not caused directly by enemy bullets or bombs, according to the U.S. Transportation Command. That statistic includes everything from serious injuries in Humvee wrecks or other accidents to more routine illnesses that could be unrelated to field battles.

Yet those service members are not included in the Pentagon’s casualty reports. That’s odd. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a casualty as “a military person lost through death, wounds, injury, sickness, internment or capture or through being missing in action.”

As the war goes on, that picture is becoming more painfully clear. The Department of Veterans Affairs provides soldiers with medical care after leaving the military. An October V.A. report shows that 119,247 service members who fought in Iraq or Afghanistan – and are now off duty – are receiving health care from the V.A. Presumably, some of those health problems are unrelated to the war.

But the statistics seem to show that a lot of those health problems are war-related. For example, nearly 37,000 have mental disorders, including nearly 16,000 who have been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder. Over 46,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan receiving benefits from the V.A. have musculoskeletal problems. These are all veterans who within the last four years were considered by the military to be mentally and physically fit enough to fight.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Interesting...

“What we can be certain of is that at least tens of thousands of young men and women have been physically or psychologically damaged for life.”

I wonder why don't we see and read this kind of News in the Mainstream Media. It is kind of News that the Pentagon does not want Reported and does not want to get Out.

Anyway, this is not the First War that Pentagon is Fighting, so they know how to "Do it Right" and get away with it.

Related threads:
The media are minimising US and British war crimes in Iraq
Bodies of Killed Service Members Return as Freight (from ATSNN)

deltaboy

posted on Dec, 12 2005 @ 12:27 PM

link

Talk about ill as casualty relating to trauma from the war. Then all the American forces are pretty much out of the war right? If the American soldier is somehow ill because of the horrors of war then we just take him out. I wonder how we won WW2 in the first place since almost all the soldiers saw the horrors of war.

Humster

posted on Dec, 13 2005 @ 04:50 AM

link

Originally posted by deltaboy
I wonder how we won WW2 in the first place since almost all the soldiers saw the horrors of war.

Cause people of yester years are way tougher then us nowadays.

Probably thought that the extra voice in the head or pain at the lower back that wouldn;t go away is just part and parcel of life. Since all these "Stress related illness" only came popular when people nowadays gave it a name.

Souljah

posted on Dec, 13 2005 @ 05:11 AM

link

I wonder why don't you hear News like that on Fox News.

Ah! I remember! On Fox, NOBODY is Against War!

Caetano

posted on Dec, 13 2005 @ 05:51 AM

link

Originally posted by deltaboy
I wonder how we won WW2 in the first place since almost all the soldiers saw the horrors of war.

Because in ww2 the allies were fighting an enemy that had the goal to conquer the world. They were fighting an evil enemy and having that in mind the soldiers keep on fighting despite all the horrors of war. It's a thing called motivation. If you knew that a country had the objective to conquer your country and kill or family you would go to war right? But if you were send to a distant land to fight in a unfair war would you go?

Classified Info

posted on Dec, 13 2005 @ 08:56 AM

link

Are they reporting this on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC Souljah? If they are not, why just single out Fox news?

deltaboy

posted on Dec, 13 2005 @ 10:03 AM

link

Originally posted by Caetano
Because in ww2 the allies were fighting an enemy that had the goal to conquer the world. They were fighting an evil enemy and having that in mind the soldiers keep on fighting despite all the horrors of war. It's a thing called motivation. If you knew that a country had the objective to conquer your country and kill or family you would go to war right? But if you were send to a distant land to fight in a unfair war would you go?

Caetano...my post is sarcasm in response to Souljah's post about soldiers who have post traumatic stress disorder in which they are counted as casualties. Even after the end of WW1 or WW2 there are veterans who have nightmares and cant handle such horrors of war. Souljah believes they should also be counted as war casualties along with the dead and wounded. So Souljah can make the justification that the casualty numbers should be higher like oooo say over 200,000 American casualties. That should be though provoking.

Classified Info

posted on Dec, 13 2005 @ 10:47 AM

link

Ernest Hemingway's short story, Soldier's Home, is a good story to read concerning what I believe to be a soldier who is suffering from post traumatic stress disorder on his return home from World War I.

Hemingway could see it happening back then even though few other could.

Souljah

posted on Dec, 13 2005 @ 11:37 AM

link

Originally posted by Classified Info
Are they reporting this on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC Souljah? If they are not, why just single out Fox news?

I used Faux News as a Role Model for ALL Corporate Owned Media - Left or Right Wing, it does NOT Matter which - and the way they Distort and Hide the Truth, when they are Told to. They are all Corporate Whores - they are all made out of same Cloth, ya know?

But I have to admit that Fox News has just,

Went where NOBODY Else has Went Before!

That is the Ultimate Propaganda Machine EVER Designed.

Think about it.

Corporation in the Goverment.

Corporation in the Media.

Corporation in the Military.

They MAKE Money - the SMALL People pay for it!

If a Certain Corporations, in Contract with US Goverment, CAN Influence their Foreign Politics, and while doing that, use the Corporate Media, in order to Maintain that Foreign Politics - because these are generating Enormous PROFIT for that same Certain Corporations - then We ALL are in Eine Scheiße, Man!

And, MEN, the Business is GREAT Today!

Global military expenditure and arms trade form the largest spending in the world at over $950 billion in annual expenditure
High-income countries account for about 75 per cent of world military spending but only 16 per cent of world population.
In the period of 1990-1999, the United States supplied 16 of the 18 countries on the. Recipients included Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Sri Lanka ..., where, arguably, the risk of diversion is high.
The main reason for the increase in world military spending is the massive increase in the United States, which accounts for almost half of the world total.
America’s military is the country’s biggest business. According to the House Budget Committee, in 2000, defense expenditures represented 16 percent of discretionary federal spending.
Major defense contractors own CBS and NBC, two of the largest US television networks.
A Lockheed advertisement actually claimed that "the perception of peace means less jobs for Americans", (And yet, for example, Turkey builds all F16s, not Americans).
An ad even claimed that the F22 was an Anti-War Plane! - which is all paid for by the US taxpayer - with no enemies in sight.
Arms contractors contributed at least 12 million dollars to Congress who actually vote on how much to spend on major weapon systems.

WestPoint23

posted on Dec, 14 2005 @ 03:58 PM

link

Casualties have always been only deaths, wounded are counted separately. Want you’re trying to do is lump every disorder/death/wounded together so you can make your point about how the US is losing in Iraq. By your definition every military in every conflict has “underreported” it’s casualties.

Souljah

posted on Dec, 15 2005 @ 10:12 AM

link

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Casualties have always been only deaths, wounded are counted separately. Want you’re trying to do is lump every disorder/death/wounded together so you can make your point about how the US is losing in Iraq. By your definition every military in every conflict has “underreported” it’s casualties.

You know how is thta Called?

Military Control of Information

"Information is the currency of victory!" - from August 1996 U.S. Army field manual.

From a Military's Perspective, Information warfare is another front on which a battle must be fought. However, as well as needing to deceive adversaries, in order to maintain public support, Information to their own public must no doubt be managed as well.

That makse sense from a military perspective. Sometimes the public can be willing to scacrifice detailed knowledge. But that can also lead to unaccountability and when Information that is presented has been managed such, Propaganda is often the result.