The following map shows wounded troops by state sustained in Iraq. These are just injuries. There were 4416 American deaths in Iraq over the 7.5 year war. Data is from iCasualties.org.
The human toll of the Iraq war is unacceptable. There were thousands of American and coalition forces injured or killed, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis injured or killed. To me, it should be known as the legalized mass murder of hundreds of thousands of people. I’m not even going to start in on CIA black sites, Guantanamo, and torture.
My biggest frustration is that no one will likely be held accountable for it. President Obama has had no stomach for going after war criminals. If he lets them off Scott-free, what does that say about committing war crimes as Americans? Nothing good or defensible, and history will not look kindly on this. It’s no way to earn the hearts and minds of the Middle East and Islamic world, the best way to protect our national security.
Iraq was a war of choice, a preventive war. Preventive war is also known as imperialism. For all our imperialistic actions, we spent a trillion dollars and lost many lives. In history, imperialists usually gain something for themselves by invading another country, not that it’s right or something we should have been doing. We’ve lost much and gained nothing.
Because of Iraq, we put Afghanistan on the back burner. The Afghanistan war was won and could have been over by 2003 at the latest. It’s 2010 and we’re escalating the fight. We’re about to hit year 10 in this war. So far, 1269 U.S. soldiers have been killed. Five U.S. soldiers died in combat today (Aug. 31, 2010, included in the total).
There is a map for Afghanistan, and I’ll post it separately when I discuss that war later.
Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent, embedded with the last combat brigade on their trip out of Iraq, and broadcast it live on the move during the Stryker convoy to Kuwait.
NBC was able to bring live video of this historic moment because of the “Bloom-mobile”, named after the late NBC foreign correspondent David Bloom. David passed away very tragically during the Iraq invasion in 2003. He suffered a pulmonary embolism caused by deep vein thrombosis, the culmination of cramped spaces with little body movement and insufficient hydration in a dessert climate.
No other TV news network has the technology to broadcast live video on the move. Check it out:
The technology was new in 2003, 7 years ago. It’s a satellite dish on a gyroscope that tracks a TV satellite in space and stays in constant contact with it as whatever the dish is mounted on moves. It works similarly to the GPS a lot of people have in their cars or as part of their smart phones today. The device on the ground tracks the satellite in space so the device can remain in communication with the satellite.
It surprises me that none of the other networks have invested in this technology since we’ve been at war for over 9 years in Afghanistan and 7.5 years in Iraq. There are other places where such technology could be deployed as well, like during natural disasters when news broadcasters must be able to move at a moment’s notice.
It may be the result that many news organizations are losing money. The number of foreign correspondents has dropped considerably over the past decade. With fewer foreign correspondents, it may have been decided that expensive equipment isn’t worth the cost if only a few correspondents will use it once in awhile.
But if the news is to continue to bring us live coverage of events in a global society, they need to have the technology to do it on the move.
When did the American people become so disconnected from war? We send our military to war, we no longer go to war as a country. The civilian population doesn't feel the war, just the military and their families. How do we change this back?
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