Injuries in Iraq
It's always struck me as odd that in news reports of accidents, disasters, and wars, only deaths are usually reported. Even if someone receives a head injury that leaves them with reasoning or memory impairment, or loses all his limbs, that usually goes unreported. As many have noted, the advent of more effective body armor has made this problem more acute, since the proportion of injured to killed has risen dramatically. And more sophisticated medical procedures mean that soldiers who would have been KIA twenty years ago now survive, though sometimes with terrible injuries.
Consequently, we can't get an accurate picture of the cost of the Iraq war for the U.S. without accurate reports of serious injuries as well as reports of deaths. (Of course some of us are also concerned about the cost of the war to Iraqis...but that's a different topic.) The MSM gives us frequent updates of the death count, but that's not all we need here. We also need a report of life-changing injuries. Perhaps if such reports showed up on the nightly news more of our fellow citizens would sit up and take notice.
(Hey: I read an interesting article on this in Harper's a couple of months ago, but can't find it now.)
It's always struck me as odd that in news reports of accidents, disasters, and wars, only deaths are usually reported. Even if someone receives a head injury that leaves them with reasoning or memory impairment, or loses all his limbs, that usually goes unreported. As many have noted, the advent of more effective body armor has made this problem more acute, since the proportion of injured to killed has risen dramatically. And more sophisticated medical procedures mean that soldiers who would have been KIA twenty years ago now survive, though sometimes with terrible injuries.
Consequently, we can't get an accurate picture of the cost of the Iraq war for the U.S. without accurate reports of serious injuries as well as reports of deaths. (Of course some of us are also concerned about the cost of the war to Iraqis...but that's a different topic.) The MSM gives us frequent updates of the death count, but that's not all we need here. We also need a report of life-changing injuries. Perhaps if such reports showed up on the nightly news more of our fellow citizens would sit up and take notice.
(Hey: I read an interesting article on this in Harper's a couple of months ago, but can't find it now.)
4 Comments:
fyi, http://icasualties.org/oif/ has some wounded numbers.
It used to be that "casualties", meaning "seriously injured + killed", was reported. But that would make Bush look worse.
And then there's this from November, 2003: "...there is a huge number of severely wounded soldiers whose injuries and fate go largely unreported." If a severely wounded soldier dies in Germany, does it get added to the Iraq total?
Winston,
Not sure if this is the place to post it, but I think you'd like this discussion:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/08/history_politic.html
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