We are Not Getting All The Numbers
by James Glaser
July 20, 2010

I know our major media outlets have little interest in President Obama's War in Afghanistan, but you would think they would at least tell us how many troops are dying and getting wounded. They don't.

How many died last month or last week or yesterday? How many were wounded? I don't know either. Here is what I could find. 1,190 American troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001. Last year the number was 317, and so far this year it is 244 dead. Last month (June) 102 were killed, and so far this month 57 American troops have been killed.

I can find nothing on the number wounded, but here is something interesting. Kristina Wong of ABC News reported this yesterday:

Since the Obama administration has taken over the War in Afghanistan, U.S. contractor deaths there have accelerated dramatically.

Recently released Department of Labor records show that at least 521 U.S. contractors have been killed in Afghanistan since the war began in October 2001. The majority, 332, have been killed in the last 12 months alone—an increase of 175 percent over the previous year.

According to the DOL's website, this is not an official count of the number of contractor deaths. The statistics only reflect the number for which an insurance claim was filed.

So in the last year, about 28 American contractors are being killed in Afghanistan every month. Have you ever read that? I hadn't either. I had to search for these numbers. Last year there were 317 Soldiers and Marines killed, and we did hear about some of them, but we didn't hear about the contractors killed because the Obama administration and our media has been keeping the number of American contractors killed a secret.

Can you even imagine the power the Military Industrial Complex has in order to do that? We still have not a clue of how many troops are being wounded each year, or month or week. How many of our troops were blinded, lost limbs, their hearing, or had traumatic brain injuries. How many returned home needing a lifetime of care for mental health issues like PTSD.

Washington, the Obama Administration , and the Pentagon are not about to tell us those numbers, the Military Industrial Complex won't let them. Giving us all the numbers would be bad for business.

Post Script:

Every day we hear about the oil spill, and they give us an estimate of the numbers of gallons of oil pouring into the Gulf. Some how it seems even more important to tell us about the number of troops and American contractors killed and wounded each day, in not only Afghanistan , but Iraq and any place else our troops are in harms way.

Yes, it is good that we know what is going on with the oil spill, but that oil spill has become like a cover-up, to keep Obama's War out of the news.

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