Friday, October 05, 2007

 

Report on American War Dead in Afghanistan and Iraq

In the past thirty days, from September 4, 2007 to October 3, 2007 pursuant to Department of Defense news releases during that period, 63 of the American military forces in Iraq died and 9 of the American military forces in Afghanistan died, for a total of 72. That's less than the past several months. I'm not going to jump on these figures as support for our success in the war, mainly because I don't believe our casualties are a major sign of success or failure. The last major battle of WWII, the conquest of Okinawa, was the bloodiest of our entire war in the Pacific. Would any sane person have argued therefore that we were losing the war then? No, of course not.


The evidence of the success in Iraq is contained in the half again fewer civilian casualties from the month before (which was half fewer than the month before that and about the lowest since the mosque in Samarra was blown up); and in the words of our generals, et al., over there.


Here is the breakdown. In Iraq, 24 were killed by IEDs. Nine were killed in combat operations and nine again by small arms. Eight were killed in accidents, most in a single roll over and 12 died from non combat causes. One was killed in what was only described as an attack. Thanks for the details, DoD. This is really much lower and better than what we've been experiencing for the last 6 months and a little bit of good news amid the tragedies.


In Afghanistan, three were killed in combat operations, four from small arms and only one from an IED. The Less-dreaded Taliban Fall Offensive certainly has not gotten into any sort of high gear. One died from non combat causes.

Three women died in the war, all of non combat causes. Hope that stops soon. Two captains were killed one of them a woman.

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