How much more blood do the Americans need for oil?

By: Michael Munk

To bring the cost of the invasion and occupation of Iraq to the public, antiwar groups across the country are organizing to mark the 3,000th death of a member of its military components.

But by focusing only on the number of dead Americans we are being manipulated along with the media and public by the administration’s determination to minimize the cost in blood of establishing permanent military bases in the heart of the Middle East oil patch. That public relations strategy consists of prohibiting images of the dead and wounded returning home and those of U.S. casualties in Iraq in the U.S. media as well as aggressive efforts to prevent such coverage by foreign media. It also plants stories and interviews, leaks to FOX and other Pentagon-friendly reporters and provides generous payola to foreign (especially Iraqi) news sources.

Still, the most consistent propaganda effort since the invasion aims to keep public attention away from the actual amount of blood being shed by the military victims of the war and their families. That cost now exceeds 50,000 casualties—a far cry from the 3,000 to which most of the public is restricted to know.

“Casualties” in the military sense is the total number made unavailable for duty from all causes, including deaths and wounds suffered in combat as well as injuries, accidents and illness. So whether caused by “hostile” (24,965 as of Dec.27) or “non-hostile” (25,406 as of Dec. 2) causes the Pentagon’s own web sites record more than 50,000 so far in Iraq.

However, for most Americans who depend on mass media for information, the number of only 3,000 is the only measure of the loss of life and limb the media allow them to know. For the rest of us, here are the facts:

The Pentagon reports deaths on a daily basis at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf,  although its own total always lags behind the wire services number because it insists survivors must be informed before a dead solider, marine, sailor or airman can be added to the casualty lists. But the Pentagon only reports the wounded on the weekly basis (usually on Tuesdays) at the same site and it reports the non fatal casualties from non hostile on another website http://siadapp.dior.whs.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/OIF-Total.pdf only monthly.

From those sources, we can count U.S. military occupation forces casualties as more than 50,371 as of Dec. 27. The total (as above) includes 2,400 killed and 22,565 wounded (which includes both severely and less severely wounded) by what the Pentagon classifies as "hostile" causes. By that date, another 583 military personnel had died from “non hostile” causes such as accidents, suicides (there were 99 “self inflicted fatalities) and illness and, as of Dec. 2, another 24,823 had been injured or become ill seriously enough to require medical evacuation. According the excellent site http://www.icasualties.org/oif/, another 147 US “contractors” have also been killed since they invaded Iraq.

I urge opponents of the war to make the public aware that the actual human cost of the invasion and occupation of Iraq exceeds 50,000 troops and their families who have suffered death and often life-long disability—of whom the 3,000 are just one tragic part.

-- Michael Munk is a retired political scientist in Portland, Ore., where his “Portland Red Guide” is to be published by Ooligan Press on May Day.