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Body Count
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Last night, watching
Hardball with Chris Matthews I could have fallen
from my cozy couch when I heard him announce the number of U.S. deaths from
hostile action was now at 509. I backed up to hear it again (Thank the technological
universe for TiVO). Yep, he said 509. I sure did think we were well over 600.
What had happened?
Listening carefully to his wording (because we all know it depends on what
the definition of "is" is), I found that he was reporting
only those
deaths attributed to hostile action.
This eliminates those who have died from nautral causes.
This eliminates those who have died from traffic accidents.
This eliminates those who have died from undetermined illnesses.
This figure may even eliminate those who have died as the result of friendly
fire.
And this figure of 509 damn sure eliminates the number who have died from
self-inflicted wounds.
It is rumored that the number of suicides by our Iraqi troops is anywhere
from 10 to over 1,000. I don't know. I don't have the resources to find out.
They certainly are not listed in the
DoD
Casualty Reports.
The current Casualty (what a nice, soft word; it sounds so—well—disgustingly casual) Report follows:
Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF)
U.S. CASUALTY STATUS
as of April 20, 2004, 10 a.m. EDT
| OIF U.S. Miltary Casualties |
Total Deaths |
KIA |
Non-Hostile |
WIA RTD |
WIA Not RTD |
| Combat Ops |
138 |
109 |
29 |
115 |
426 |
| Post Combat Ops |
569 |
401 |
168 |
1,141 |
1,948 |
| DoD Civilian Casualties |
2 |
2 |
0 |
|
|
| Totals |
709 |
512 |
197 |
1,256 |
2,374 |
What we, unfortunately, do know from these stats is the number of injured. You'll find them on the chart as WIA (Wounded in Action) and either RTD (Returned To Duty) or NOT RTD (Not Returned to Duty).
Because of significant advances in medical care, because of an increased use of body armour, a considerable percentage of the 3,630 total wounded are amputees. In earlier conflicts—say Vietnam—these would be certain deaths.
Don't worry, though, when they come home we won't even be able to tell they are limbless. Medical technology can make their wounds invisible to us with new computerized prosthetics.
Technology has not yet reached the point where the experience of war cannot be wiped from the psyche, although with more and more unmanned weapons we are getting closer to removing the humanity from inflicting wounds on an enemy.
Anyway, what I really wanted to do here is hoist a warning flag. Is it possible that perhaps we are seeing a new method of reporting the body count by the media (read DoD) as we begin to approach numbers over 1,000? The longer the body count goes without any commas, the more palatable to the American viewing public.
Lin McNulty | April 20, 2004
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