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[bacasper]

IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN: American casualties total 500,000, counting injury and disease, writer claims

June 24, 2010 | 10:07 am

Here's an eye-popping number:

A blogger and writer claims American military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan now exceed 500,000.

That's if you count certain injuries and diseases including mental illness that he alleges the Department of Defense doesn't include in its official combat-related casualty toll in an effort to soften U.S. military losses in the wars and win funding for them from the Congress. For example, cases of traumatic brain injury and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, as a result of serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are excluded from the official list of casualties.

"Under this scheme, chronic injuries and many acute internal injuries such as hearing impairment, back injuries, mild traumatic brain injuries, mental health problems and a host of diseases suffered by personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan are usually not counted as being war-related regardless of how debilitating they are," writes Matthew Nasuti in an article published on the Afghan news site and media organization Kabul Press. "They are either generally lumped into the category of 'non-hostile wounded' or simply not counted at all."

Masuti is a former Air Force captain and Los Angeles deputy city attorney who worked for the State Department in Iraq for a spell. He's now a critic of the U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The writer claims that 95% of injured soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen were not reported as casualties due to what he refers to as the Pentagon's "fudging the numbers" in a bid to win funding from American lawmakers to finance the wars.

"Wounded in action is narrowly defined to essentially be an injury directly caused by an adversary," he writes. "So called 'friendly fire' injuries and deaths would apparently not be counted. The emphasis is on acute injuries caused by enemy munitions which pierce or penetrate."

He cites sources such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Navy to conclude that the more than 170,000 U.S. soldiers suffer from hearing damage, the 130,000 or more cases of milder brain injuries, and the 200,000 troops suffering from mental problems are left out of the casualty count.

If they were to be included in the Pentagon's official numbers of 5,500 troop deaths and 38,000 injuries, the total American military casualty toll in Iraq and Afghanistan would amount to well over 500,000.

And it doesn't end there. The 500,000 tally would increase significantly if one also added to the count what Nasuti claims are around 30,000 cases of serious disease and hundreds of accident injuries and suicides, among many other types of disease and injury-related military casualties.

cont'd at link

[Fox]

Just imagine the casualities in the places we're invading. If we used the same definition used in this article, the number would probably be immense. And unlike American soldiers -- who willingly signed up for their duties -- the denizens of the countries we invaded were simply living their lives.

[Koveras]

To add i. to i. Hollywood is actually in there shooting movies.

[jrwhite82]

That's a shocking article. I have a number of friends who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and they didn't come back the same. The military never considered "shell shock" or PTSD an "official by the books injury." So imagine what the WW1 and WW2 numbers would look like too. Or even the Civil War, omg....

I think that more military personal and government officials and the general public are starting to become more aware of this major problem. It's too bad they aren't doing enough to help these soldiers cope with it or avoid it from happening.

[Leon]

"Skeptics would maybe argue that a soldier suffering from a gastrointestinal disease from having eaten bad meals in Iraq and Afghanistan and minor roadway accident injuries do not belong in the tally along with troops who have been killed in ambushes with insurgents."

Count me as a skeptic. The numbers in the article are as much propaganda as the official ones. I agree with Fox's comment about the native casualty rate. It's a bit sad that we never here about that, but I consider their deaths the true tragedies, not to say that what happens to the soldiers isn't. I feel like in the media and in public perception the life of one American solider is worth 1,000 civilians.

[jrwhite82]

[recessiontime]

I can't say I have any sympathy for the soldiers. They knew what they were getting into and they went for it. They went there to kill other people for whatever reason and came back maimed or not at all - sad day for them.

[jrwhite82]

[Leon]

[recessiontime]

[Leon]

[Fox]

[Leon]

[Harpeau]

The death toll is a lot higher than that!! Those numbers are very conservative. Way back, armies would fight for salt. Now the motivations are oil, heroin, (fill in the blank). It's very sad what it has come to. As a patriot I say: we have no business over there. Let's bring our soldiers home alive~ not in body bags!