There's been a sudden jump in the casualty count in the last 24 hours

[WilliamPitt]

I wrote this yesterday:

As for American casualties, 67 soldiers have died in the last fifteen days. The total number of American soldiers killed in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion stands at 1,188. The total number of 'Coalition' troops killed to date stands at 1,334. There is no accurate count of the number of wounded from these first two weeks of November.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111604A.shtml

...using numbers taken from this site:

http://icasualties.org/oif/

That site now lists 1,203 American troops dead in Iraq, 82 in November.

I think more of the Fallujah casualties are finally being released.

[flamingyouth]

1. Terrible, tragic and wholly unsurprising

I would imagine we'll see the number climb even higher in the next few days. A shame, to put it mildly.

[Comadreja]

2. That early report of 35 captured

that was on the Chinese news source may have been true after all.

[Mojambo]

35 of our guys captured?

That would be a disaster.

[Mike L]

29. I seriously doubt it's true. After the beheadings, I don't think one armed

person would surrender, much less 35.

[PittLib]

3. Shane Kielion married his high school sweetheart last year.

His wife, April, had their first child, a son, Monday.
Father and son will never meet. Kielion died Monday in combat in Iraq.

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=1636&u_sid=1260647

What is the point of this again?

[Stephanie]

6. The point is Iraqi Liberation.

They never said liberation from what.

Is Bush Nixon?

[PittLib]

9. Right ...

By razing their cities and killing their children. How silly of me to forget.

[Cheswick2.0]

14. Iraqi liberation to heaven

Liberation from their oil?

[Stephanie]

15. They are being liberated

from the planet. This mortal coil. God save us all.

[Minstrel Boy]

4. I refer to this graph often

Note the abrupt verticle climb after Nov 2.



http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/USfatalities.html

[Selatius]

5. I think we may have lost .5 to 2 times more than what is shown

I hear that they may use accounting tricks to keep the numbers down. I heard that if you got wounded in Iraq, evacuated to Germany, and died there, then you wouldn't show up in the list of dead. You wouldn't show up on the list of war dead but some other list like non-combat deaths. Have any of you heard similar things?

[Stephanie]

7. And how is it possible they don't have numbers for the wounded?

Of course they have numbers.

This is just horrible. It's so horrible.

[DeaconBlues]

21. The brain dead are sent back to the States where the families have to

decide whether to pull the plug or not. This way they can be counted as merely wounded.

[RoyGBiv]

22. Yes ...

Not quite the way it works, but close to it.

Soldiers who die as the direct result of a wound, whether in Iraq or not at the time, are listed as combat deaths, or at least some have been.

However, if a solider is stabilized, evacuated, "treated successfully," which is a poorly defined phrase, and then dies later of "complications," he or she may not list as a combat death. The Pentagon has a complicated calculus for this. Similarly, a soldier can actually die in Iraq, and if his or her wounds are not the result of "combat action," the death is not listed as combat related, however it is presumably included in the larger total, that total being reported less often in favor of the "combat death" total in the mainstream press nowadays. The latter includes such things as being involved in a vehicle accident, which are quite common due to the fact standing orders have them driving at incredible speeds through potential hot spots. Having a wreck while evading a sniper is somehow not combat related.

The bottom line is the Pentagon gets the final say on what constitutes a combat death.

More than this, the number -- and it is far more than a mere number -- of casualties of all kinds are not being reported with any consistency. You see a stray story here and there about an individual, but not the larger picture. That picture is truly horrifying as the wounds soldiers are experiencing are life-altering in the most negative sense. Body armor means the extremities tend to draw the most wounds, and they're nasty, especially those to the head. I've now personally met several wounded veterans of this war. They are not in good shape, no one hears about them, and they're having trouble getting treatment. Some people end up thinking they're just vagrants or whatever and shun them as a result.

[xray s]

8. The media has been downplaying casualties for a few months now

They do this in a couple of ways. When fighting was flaring throughout Iraq last weekend, the infotainment networks were only reporting on soldiers killed in Falluja, ignoring the other cities.

Also, they report deaths that occur the same day as a battle, but do not report deaths that occur days, weeks or months later from injuries. They are just added quietly to the total by the Pentagon.

[bemildred]

10. I saw Pentagon number == 1210 tonight. Forget where. nt

[stopbush]

11. For all their morals and cheap yellow ribbon decals on their SUVs,

90% of Americans don't give a flying fuck about our troops. Otherwise they'd be in the streets protesting. Otherwise, bush would have lost in a landslide that even Diebold wouldn't have been able to fix. Otherwise, they'd have the balls to admit they were wrong about bushco all along.

Face it. Americans know exactly what is going on there. They just don't care.

[arewenotdemo]

23. I totally agree. They know and don't care.

And Iraqi casualties mean less than nothing to them.

[shrike]

28. "They died for our freedom"

and that's all that matters.

[LowerManhattanite]

12. You don't send 1200+plus innocents souls to their deaths for bullsh*t...

..and NOT have it come back on you in spades at some point.

God...don't play that. He just doesn't. I would absolutely HATE to be in Bush's shoes when the karmic smack-down comes.

[fujiyama]

17. 100% correct

n/t

As a nation, in the near term,

we are FUCKED.

[Poiuyt]

13. Now you know why we postponed the Fallujah assault until after

the election.

[MissMarple]

16. Here's a little heads up, sad to say.

http://denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36%257E73%257E2537059,00.html

"As we saw with Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the Lebanese resistance morphed and adapted to the occupying Israeli forces. The insurgency there went through three or four incarnations before it gave rise to Hezbollah as the dominant force.

The same is happening in Iraq. The first generation or incarnation of the insurgency was primarily the remnants of the Baath Party. The second generation is characterized by Muqtada al-Sadr's militia and the what is loosely labeled as Islamists.

We have yet to see what the third and fourth generations of the Iraqi insurgency will look like, since that will depend on how long we insist on staying. The longer we stay, the more generations of the insurgency our military occupation will spawn.

Thanks to our unprovoked conquest and mismanagement of Iraq, that country is devolving into a failed state, much like Afghanistan in the 1980s and '90s, and is becoming a primary breeding ground for new terrorism. Ironically, Iraq is actually becoming the threat the Bush administration deceived us into thinking it was under Saddam Hussein."
...
"We knew then and we know now that Iraq was not a threat to the United States before our March 2003 invasion...".

In my opinion,they knew, they disregarded, they did this anyway.

Hubris...hummm... now... who gets to pay?

[Selatius]

20. It's about power and greed, not necessarily pride

What does it matter if you're a corporatist getting big contracts in the "reconstruction" of Iraq? Whatever happens during the war there, you walk away with more money than before. If money is your game, who the hell cares what happens to everybody else? You've achieved your objective. You've made money. That's the bottom line.

Just look at Halliburton, Bechtel, et al. They've made untold billions off gov't contracts in this war. They don't give two shits what happens to US soldiers or what happens to Iraqis. They're just there to make a profit. That's how the game has always been played in this arena.

They knew the dangers, but their greed trumped it all. It's not hubris; it's the lust for more power and wealth. Greed is the grease that helps the cogs turn.

[bemildred]

18. Over 1,200 US soldiers die since Iraq war begins

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- A total of 1,210 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the United States launched war against the Middle Eastern country in March 2003, latest figures from the Pentagon showed on Tuesday.

Of the dead, 943 were killed in combat and 267 in non-battle circumstances.

Ninety-one casualties were reported for November so far, bringing the number to 1,210 from 1,119 at the beginning of this month. Many of the deaths occurred during the US military operation in Falluja that began on Nov. 7.

A total of 38 US soldiers were killed in the week-long offensive, which was aimed at helping pave the way for the general elections in Iraq scheduled for January next year. November would become the second-deadliest month for American forces since March 2003, following April this year when 135 deaths were reported.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-11/17/content_2226677.htm

[JCMach1]

19. Some mentioned 400+ casualties in Fallujah

yesterday (ground commander I believe)... most of those would be wounded... most not needing to be EVACed

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

24. You missed it in the exit polls.

More people wanted to die after 11/2 than before. CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, MSNBC all said so.

[Starfury]

25. Don't know if this is part of the total yet, but....

http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1187.htm

"Aside from the rapidly fading allegations of voter fraud (some truth in Ohio and Florida where the Rove people were very busy with technicians and lots of money) we have two topics of some interest this week. The first is a real horror story out of Iraq that is being immediately and very severely suppressed by order of the White House via the Pentagon. It seems that US troops entering Fallujah uncovered several so-called ‘slaughter houses’ where the Iraqi Resistance people had been killing various people. Most of this killing was done when American troops began their attack on the city. Most of the rebel leaders had long ago departed, leaving a small but fanatic rear guard in place to do as much damage to the attacking troops as they could. The real shocker is that the Iraqi resistance people are killing captured GIs! And badly mutilating them, hopefully after they are dead. Why are they doing this? Fanaticism? No, their rationale is that since the US has unilaterally withdrawn from the Geneva Convention (by Bush courtesy of the new AG designate Alberto Gonzales) and since US forces are well-known to have tortured and murdered legitimate Iraqi prisoners of war, they are apparently killing any and all US soldiers that fall into their hands. Pictures of the bodies came over today but no one wants to look at them, so terrible are the mutilations. We cannot hide the existence of these bunkers but the word is to be that only Arabs were killed there. Of course Bush does not care because, according to the now-subservient press, he has a “great mandate” from the American people. More likely a heavy vote by fanatical Jesus Freaks coupled with some Diebold diddlings. We all knew these atrocities would happen except for Bush and of course Gonzales is Bush’s stalking horse. Bush wants Alberto on the Supreme Court and a docile Congress will no doubt oblige the Fuehrer."

[The Backlash Cometh]

26. God bless you, Will Pitt. For keeping an eye on this and keeping

us informed.

[catmandu57]

27. Noticed that as well

There has been a spike, a sharp spike, it's now 1205 at icasualties. I believe also that most Americans know what is going on, or, they have a pretty good idea that something is smelling and they want to put it away from them.
If they just ignore it it'll go away and they can return to sports, celeb news, sitcoms, or whatever other distraction is currently being provided.

[Ishoutandscream]

30. 4 more wars! 4 more wars!

What the hell is wrong with this nation?

[LynnTheDem]

31. Yes, because we DON'T REPORT any casualties UNTIL DOD confirms

And DOD is playing silly buggers with their releases, sending us bunches at a time.