Pentagon Cover Up:
15,000 or more US casualties in Iraq War
By Mike Whitney
11/17/07 "ICH" -- -- The Pentagon has been concealing the true number of
American casualties in the Iraq War. The real number exceeds 15,000 and CBS
News can prove it.
CBSs Investigative Unit wanted to do a report on the number of suicides
in the military and submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to the
Department of Defense. After 4 months they received a document which
showed--that between 1995 and 2007--there were 2,200 suicides among active
duty soldiers.
Baloney.
The Pentagon was covering up the real magnitude of the suicide epidemic.
Following an exhaustive investigation of veterans suicide data collected from
45 states; CBS discovered that in 2005 alone THERE WERE AT LEAST 6,256 AMONG
THOSE WHO SERVED IN THE ARMED FORCES. THATS 120 EACH AND EVERY WEEK IN JUST
ONE YEAR.
That is not a typo. Active and retired military personnel, mostly young
veterans between the ages of 20 to 24, are returning from combat and killing
themselves in record numbers. We can assume that "multiple-tours of duty" in a
war-zone have precipitated a mental health crisis of which the public is
entirely unaware and which the Pentagon is in total denial.
If we add the 6,256 suicide victims from 2005 to the official 3,865
reported combat casualties; we get a sum of 10,121. Even a low-ball estimate of
similar 2004 and 2006 suicide figures, would mean that the total number of US
casualties from the Iraq war now exceed 15,000.
Thats right; 15,000 dead US servicemen and women in a war that--as
yet--has no legal or moral justification.
CBS interviewed Dr. Ira Katz, the head of mental health at the Department of
Veteran Affairs. Katz attempted to minimize the surge in veteran suicides
saying, There is no epidemic of suicide in the VA, but suicide is a major
problem.
Maybe Katz right. Maybe there is no epidemic. Maybe its perfectly normal
for young men and women to return from combat, sink into inconsolable
depression, and kill themselves at greater rates than they were dying on the
battlefield. Maybe its normal for the Pentagon to abandon them as soon as soon
they return from their mission so they can blow their brains out or hang
themselves with a garden hose in their basement. Maybe it's normal for
politicians to keep funding wholesale slaughter while they brush aside the
casualties they have produced by their callousness and lack of courage. Maybe
it is normal for the president to persist with the same, bland lies that
perpetuate the occupation and continue to kill scores of young soldiers who put
themselves in harms-way for their country.
Its not normal; its is a pandemic---an outbreak of despair which is the
natural corollary of living in constant fear; of seeing ones friends being
dismembered by roadside bombs or children being blasted to bits at military
checkpoints or finding battered bodies dumped on the side of a riverbed like a
bag of garbage.
The rash of suicides is the logical upshot of Bushs war. Returning soldiers
are traumatized by their experience and now they are killing themselves in
droves. Maybe we should have thought about that before we invaded.
Check it out the video at: CBS News Suicide Epidemic among Veterans
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/13/cbsnews_investigates/main3496471.shtml
Satrio Arismunandar
Producer - News Division, Trans TV, Floor 3
Jl. Kapten P. Tendean Kav. 12 - 14 A, Jakarta 12790
Phone: 7917-7000, 7918-4544 ext. 4026, Fax: 79184558, 79184627
http://satrioarismunandar6.blogspot.com
http://satrioarismunandar.multiply.com
"If you know how to die, you know how to live..."
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