by James Glaser
November 24, 2003

Six Americans died in Iraq this weekend and it has been reported that thirteen died this week, but America is getting jaded about these deaths and only the spectacular ones make it to a headline on page one.

If your Black Hawk helicopter is shot out of the sky and a half dozen of you are killed, you make the front page. If you are killed by small arms fire or a command detonated bomb, well that happens too often and your story goes to the inside pages.

This weekend is a prime example. Two soldiers were shot and then had their throats slit. Right away you know that will make the front page, but four other Americans died too. One died from a roadside bomb and three were killed in vehicle accidents. It was only by searching many papers that I even found out about the three vehicle deaths.

Another slam on our troops and the American people by our media happens when they report about deaths in Iraq and never tell us how many Americans have died over there. They usually just give us the number killed in combat since George Bush said major combat was over on May 1st. (185). Even that number is shading the truth because 290 American troops have died in Iraq since May, 1st.

To be totally honest and factual with us, the media should be keeping a running total on just how many Americans have died in Iraq since we first attacked that country this year. That number would be 432. It helps the war effort and is a form of propaganda to keep telling us these lower numbers.

By separating the death figures with that May 1st date, our media always is able to make it sound like things are not all that bad. Also. nobody ever reports about the 2300 to 4500 wounded soldiers because Washington does not allow the Pentagon to release those numbers.

This is also true about the number of Iraqi people getting killed and wounded. You see in this war we don't do body counts. No body counts them or reports them and so the War doesn't seem that bad does it? Washington wanted this War to be fast and with as little killing as possible. It didn't turn out that way, but they don't want us to know that. They think they can hide the horror going on over their.

Now our troops are getting their throats slit. Their bodies are getting dragged out in public and it is reported that teenager Iraqis were beating them with cement blocks. That sounds pretty horrible to me.

We are supposed to be helping the Iraqi people and we don't even value their lives enough to count the number of innocent Iraqi citizens we kill, let alone those we kill in actual combat. Our troops are living and fighting in the middle of a horrible situation, but Washington doesn't want us to relize that, so they keep all numbers as low as possible or they have no numbers.

We have played these number games before in Vietnam and the American people learned that you couldn't trust the government and let me tell you that to this day there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of Vietnam Veterans that know our government lies to us on a daily basis.

Now with the help of the American media, it is even easier for them to continue to shade the truth, play with numbers, or lie through their teeth to us. Yes, years down the road from now we might find out what is really happening in Iraq today. Someday the People of Iraq will count all the people they have lost. Years from now the Veterans Administration will report just how many Soldiers and Marines were wounded and put on disability. By that time there will be another President in the White House and all we will have is hind sight. Politicians will say, "If only we had known."

In the first Gulf War it was reported that just a couple hundred Americans were wounded and that is what most Americans believe today. The truth from the Veterans Administration is that over 8,000 veterans have died and over a 155,000 are receiving disability payments for injuries sustained in that war.

No, I do not believe what Washington says about the amount of our troops killed, wounded, and injured in Iraq. I have been lied to, too many times.