US military deaths in the Afghan theater officially reached at least 2,121 today, having passed 2,000 by June 21. The reason the MSM and some sources that should know better are only announcing 2,000 deaths this week is because they count only those who actually died in Afghanistan and exclude those the Pentagon includes who died supporting the war from other countries of the region.
US foreign fighters in Afghanistan under Commander-in-Chief Obama suffered 43 casualties in the week ending October 2, as the official casualty total for the Iraq and AfPak wars* rose to 115,469.
The total includes 79,468 casualties since the US invaded Iraq in March, 2003 (Operations “Iraqi Freedom” and “New Dawn”), and 36,001 since the US invaded Afghanistan in November, 2001 (Operation “Enduring Freedom”)
AFGHANISTAN THEATER: US foreign fighters suffered 43 combat casualties in the week ending Oct. 2, raising the total to 36,001 This includes 19,357 dead and wounded from what the Pentagon classifies as “hostile” causes and 16,644 dead or medically evacuated (as of May 7!) from what it calls “non-hostile” causes.
IRAQ THEATER: US casualties remained at 79,468 for the week ending Oct. 2. This includes 35,753 dead and wounded from “hostile” causes and 43,715 dead or medically evacuated (as of May 7) from “non-hostile” causes.
US media divert attention from the actual cost in American life and limb by reporting regularly only the total killed (6,610- 4,489 in Iraq, 2,121 in Afghanistan) but rarely mentioning those wounded in action (49,911-32,227 in Iraq, 17,684 in Afghanistan). They ignore the 58,955 (42,752 in Iraq,16,204 in AfPak (as of May 7!) military casualties injured and ill seriously enough to be medevac’d out of theater, even though the 6,610 total dead include 1,410 (962 in Iraq, 448 in Afghanistan) who died from those same “non hostile” causes, including 314 suicides (as of May 7) and at least 18 in Iraq from faulty KBR electrical work.
*LIBYA :Operation “Odyssey Dawn” launched in March, officially ended Oct 31, 2011 with no reported US casualties.
WIA are usually updated on Tuesday at www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf
Monthly reports at http://www.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/
NOTE: The Pentagon has stopped its monthly reports on “non hostile” injured and ill. Its previous website was changed to https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/pages/report_sum_reason.xhtml. The last total was as of May 7, 2012.
The above report is published by Michael Munk via his email list.