JUS has learned that 47, not 7, US soldiers were killed in car blast.

[Nambe]

I just read this on indy media but I can't find "JUS" as it reported the story related to. Interesting.

[htuttle]

1. It is Jihad Unspun

There was a link at the bottom of the post:
http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=99626&list=/home.php&

[Nambe]

5. Thank H. I found right after I posted. The home page is radical..

to say the least. The truth is probably somewhere between what they say and what our media says. Who knows.

[wuushew]

2. I really doubt this

n/t

[acmavm]

3. I pray that you are correct in your doubts.

.

[still_one]

7. I agree, didn't happen

as bad and distorted as things are we should not add to the distortion unless it can be verified by multiple sources

[pa28]

10. The source seems questionable

Regardless, seven more kids died because the commander in chief is a liar.

[LynnTheDem]

4. They say this stuff

all the time. According to them, 1000s of US troops are dead that the US isn't reporting. Funny tho how family members haven't mentioned not hearing a word from their soldiers...how no reporters have reported on any of these 1000s of deaths (and the UK and Europe have some GREAT investigative reporters over there; can't see Robert Fisk not picking up on a single hidden US soldier death)

[Eloriel]

8. Not so sure about that

For one thing, it's been reported that if someone gets wounded in combat and dies later (Landstuhl or even back at the field hospital or Kuwait) that death isn't counted. And if you pay attention, what you hear are reports of "x number of soldiers died TODAY in an attack on a convoy (or whatever)." You don't hear "2 soldiers died today in Germany from wounds received two weeks ago."

I also don't believe they're counting the "non-combat" deaths like those pesky trucks rolling over and killing its occupants (another LIE, IMO, like "training accidents"), or the SUICIDES which are outta control.

Also, the number of wounded has seriously been underreported as well. 11,000 troops were medevac'd through Ramstein AFB (and that number is from some weeks ago, not recently) and Walter Reed's numbers were higher than the reported casualties as well.

It wouldn't be hard to hide the numbers. Where do you think the press gets the numbers they report? From the Pentagon (and not that they've ever lied to us before, huh?). The families is Pascagoula, MS and Bangor, ME and Olympia, WA and Des Moines, IA and Jeff City, MO don't really know whether their loved ones were (for example) 975 through 979 or 982 thru 986. And they're probably not thinking about such things anyway.

Who is there with the authoritative information to complain? And after you answer that, complain to WHOM? Local boy gets reported KIA in his newspaper, but do those reporters ever check to make sure that that casualty is included in the totals? Who WOULD check the totals? No one. The press takes the Pentagon's word for it, period. And there's no mechanism, short of FOIA (if that) to find out the truth, but that requries someone suspicious enough to check, and if you havne't noticed, for all practical purposes we no longer have much of a free press or investigative reporters.

[WEagle]

9. I also read a post here that

said non-citizen US soldiers don't get counted in the official count.
I haven't been able to find out the truth about troops who died in hospitals either. Somebody must know.

[LynnTheDem]

11. Also NOT TRUE.

Yes ALL SOLDIERS ARE COUNTED; US citizen or not. If they'r with the US military, they're counted in the US total deaths; if they're with a coalition army, they're counted within the "UK" or the "Other" totals.

We DO TOO get the Centcom and DOD reports when soldiers die later from their wounds.

Right this very minute we have several such cases listed on the "News" (righthand side) section at the Iraq Coalition Casualty site. YES we get releases when troops die out of country from their wounds.

WHERE do these myths come from??!

YES it would be VERY DIFFICULT to hide numbers of dead US troops! My husband was in Iraq for over a year; do you think I wouldn't have NOTICED had I suddenly stopped hearing anything from him??? Do you think I wouldn't have made any noise about suddenly not hearing anything from him???

You're talking full and total collusion between the soldiers' entire unit, the medics, the transport people, the hospital(s), the soldiers' families and friends, their hometown reporters and funeral homes etc etc etc to cover up soldiers' deaths.

WE check the totals! The Iraq Coalition Casualty site group. I myself spend at least 30 hours every single WEEK checking all WORLDWIDE newsfeeds, an average of 50,000 articles EVERY 15 minutes, and referencing all mention of troops killed back to our totals and Centcom/DOD releases. And *I'm* the sloth of the bunch; the others spend as much or more time on this than I do.

The USA no longer has free press, true...BUT THE REST OF THE WORLD still does. And a lot of VERY GOOD investigative war correspondants are IN Iraq and reporting.

YES the US media often reports the wrong figures; but WE DON'T, and the US media has never been very far off from our figures. Use this http://icasualties.org/oif/ instead of the news reports.

[frylock]

12. you are assuming that the mil isn't informing the families..

and if you reread Eloriel's post, she addresses that:

The families is Pascagoula, MS and Bangor, ME and Olympia, WA and Des Moines, IA and Jeff City, MO don't really know whether their loved ones were (for example) 975 through 979 or 982 thru 986. And they're probably not thinking about such things anyway.

Yes, the military is informing families, but how are they to know when they were killed, and how would they go about comparing that info with the 1000+ families who have also lost someone? All we hear is that 7 US soldiers were killed by an IED on 09.07.04, we are not given names. As far as mom and dad in St Louis, MO are concerned, their boy was one of seven. It would be very easy to hide the actual numbers, and I don't believe for a damn minute that only 1000 soldiers have lost their lives in this bullshit bushwar.

[LynnTheDem]

15. Totally disagree with you

Yes we ARE given names. YOU aren't, and the MEDIA doesn't report the names very often, but I can give you the names. Or YOU can simply go to Centcom or DOD releases yourself and find the names.

YES the military releases the names, as soon as the families are notified.

NO it would NOT be easy to hide the actual numbers.

STOP going only by media reports and START going by the ICC and/or Centcom/DOD releases, and you will have the names and you will be able to cross check and referance those names and those numbers against US and world media, and you too will see that no it would not be easy to hide actual numbers.

Or you can do what rightwingnuts do; simply set your mind and continue to believe only what you want to believe. :)

[Eloriel]

16. Lynn, Lynn, Lynn

No need to get so excited. No one was questioning YOUR work. (In fact, "no one" knew about it.)

Actually, you conceded the point:

YES the US media often reports the wrong figures; but WE DON'T,

And:

The USA no longer has free press, true...BUT THE REST OF THE WORLD still does. And a lot of VERY GOOD investigative war correspondants are IN Iraq and reporting.

I don't know if you report the correct figures or not and I'm a little stumped as to how it is you can be so sure that you're reporting the correct figures. I don't think they're fully KNOWABLE. And here's why:

U.S. MILITARY DEATHS:
Here's a slightly different number than yours, at Cryptome:
Updated 8 September 2004. Total 1,028 US Dead -- 81 British, Iraqi and others, not included.
http://cryptome.org/mil-dead-iqw.htm

NEWSWEEK April 22, 2004
Box Score for the War: The military is reluctant to release comprehensive numbers of troops and civilians killed and wounded in Iraq. Here’s our count. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4766574/



January 31 / February 1, 2004
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate Undercounting of "Coalition" Fatalities By PAUL de ROOIJ http://www.counterpunch.org/rooij01312004.html
snip
Classification Fudge
If a soldier steps on a landmine, should the victim be classified as a "hostile" casualty? How about someone killed clearing mines? In order to arrive at the media-reported fatality statistics, one must actually classify several such deaths as "non-hostile" ­- which are thus not reported by most media, as they only report the soldiers killed by "hostile" action.

snip

There is also clear manipulation of the data. For example, soldiers killed by hostile actions are subsequently reclassified as accidental deaths

-- more --

Re Mercenaries
Deaths of scores of mercenaries not reported
By Robert Fisk and Patrick Cockburn, April 13 2004 at 01:21PM
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?sf=2813&art_id=vn20040413132117588C325435&click_id=2813&set_id=1

snip

But although many of the heavily armed Western security men are working for the US Department of Defence - and most of them are former Special Forces soldiers - they are not listed as serving military personnel. Their losses can therefore be hidden from public view.

The US authorities in Iraq, however, are aware that more Western mercenaries lost their lives in the past week than occupation soldiers over the past 14 days.



Media Underplays U.S. Death Toll in Iraq
By Greg Mitchell
Published: July 17, 2003
NEW YORK News Analysis
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1935586

Any way you look at it, the news is bad enough. According to Thursday's press and television reports, 33 U.S. soldiers have now died in combat since President Bush declared an end to the major fighting in the war on May 2. This, of course, is a tragedy for the men killed and their families, and a problem for the White House.

But actually the numbers are much worse -- and rarely reported by the media.

According to official military records, the number of U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq since May 2 is actually 85. This includes a staggering number of non-combat deaths. Even if killed in a non-hostile action, these soldiers are no less dead, their families no less aggrieved. And it's safe to say that nearly all of these people would still be alive if they were still back in the States.

-- more --


INJURIES:

Medical evacuations from Iraq near 11,000
By Mark Benjamin United Press International
Published 12/19/2003 3:30 PM
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031217-032344-8720r

Page of Links: The Iraq WAR
http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/terror_war/iraqw.html

Pentagon Concealing US Casualties: True Numbers Could Top 21,000
February 12, 2004, David Walsh

The Pentagon and the Defense Department have refused to release information on the total number of soldiers wounded in Iraq. The US media may finally be awakening to evidence that the number of wounded could range between 14,000 and 22,000. Many soldiers are so badly wounded they will never be able to lead normal lives.

http://forum.therandirhodesshow.com/index.php?act=ST&f=28&t=2590

(February 4, 2004) -- The Bush administration is deliberately concealing from the American people the number and condition of US military personnel who have been wounded in Iraq. The efforts by those few politicians and media figures who have pursued the issue make this clear.
-- more at http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/edit/index.php?op=view&itemid=1107 --


Thursday, May 6th, 2004
Doctor Who Treated Thousands of GIs Wounded in Iraq: "Severest Form of Injuries I've Seen in My Career" (also uses the 11,000 figure)
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/06/149259


Posted on Sat, Dec. 06, 2003
Combat casualty count doubted
By Patrick Peterson
KNIGHT RIDDER TRIBUNE
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/democrat/7427192.htm
GULFPORT, Miss. - An influential Mississippi congressman has raised the possibility that the Pentagon has undercounted combat casualties in Iraq after he learned that five members of the Mississippi National Guard who were injured Sept. 12 by a booby trap in Iraq were denied Purple Heart medals.

The guardsmen were wounded by an artillery shell that detonated as their convoy passed the tree in which it was hidden, but their injuries were classified as "noncombat," according to Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss. Taylor, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, learned of the classification when he visited the most seriously injured of the guardsmen, Spc. Carl Sampson, 35, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

-- more --


PBS News Reports More than 16,000 Wounded and Injured from Iraq War, Bill Moyers
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=1782
NOW with Bill Moyers
http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transcript325_full_print.html
Posted 6/29/2004 5:25:00 PM

The national press missed this blockbuster on June 18: the Pentagon confirms more than 16,000 U.S. service members have been wounded or injured in the Iraq War. DoD failed to report 11,000 soldiers who were wounded or injured. The TV networks and newspapers failed to follow-up on this major scoop. As Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center said, "They believe that by putting this information out, it's somehow going to affect public opion." Donald Rumsfeld must believe that good public relations is far more important than medical care for our wartime wounded.

-- more --

---------------------------------------------------

So, please don't take it PERSONALLy that I'd never heard of your tally (and congratulations, I'm sure you're doing great work), but HAVE seen these and other reports seriously calling into question the numbers we're getting -- and perhaps the number you're getting too. I am also not prone to believe ANYthing coming out of any part of this administration, and you will likely to see that sort and level of cynicism from other DUers as well. Again, no need to take it personally.

[LynnTheDem]

18. I'm not explaining this well..

NO they can't get away with hiding deaths.

You're saying what if the military reported in month X a total of 75 deaths, but ACTUALLY had 100 deaths, and they tell the families of the unreported 25 soldiers that their soldiers are IN THE 75 REPORTED.

WON'T WORK.

I KNOW the names of those reported 75 soldiers killed.

And if just ONE name of the 25 unreported soldiers EVER shows up online, then I (and a lot of other people) immediately compare that name to my list of known names and voila...an unreported death.

ONLINE = a family member posting online about their loss...interviews with the press...local hometown funeral notices...mentions in passing, such as an example; "Mr. Tom Thumb retired today after 80 years as head salesman of the Anywhere USA hardware store...Tom lost his son Thumb Jr last year in Iraq"...and we compare that name to the list of names and then we would KNOW.

You're talking wounded soldiers.

I'm talking KILLED SOLDIERS.

As for MERCS...why would the US military track private citizens?

Yes the military sometimes screws up, on purpose or not, the CLASSIFICATION of a soldier's death, calling it non-hostile when it was hostile, etc, but that DOES NOT CHANGE THE TOTAL NUMBER OF DEATHS.

YES the military reports accidental deaths and suicides and natural deaths etc of any and all US soldiers in Iraq and YES Centcom and DOD release notices with the names of such soldiers.

The military doesn't track wounded soldiers very well. Absolutely agree with that. So does the military agree with that.

But they DO track killed soldiers. And no they could not hide soldiers' deaths. :)

[Eloriel]

27. I'm talking wounded and killed

And the reason the U.S. should track and report mercenaries and contractors is because they are working as privatized MILITARY, AND they're U.S. citizens (well, some of them, some are 3rd country nationals, like S.A.). AND because it gives a better, more accurate picture of the costs of this war.

Further, it's also been reported that there are active duty military who get assigned to some of the contractors, and are thus "off the books."

As for your site, where is the breakout for those wounded in action who die later, or who die in "accidents" like rolling over one of those make-shift bombs or apparently flipping a humvee for no known reason? Are you saying those deaths are also reported in your 1004 total?

Edited to add: If you're so damned sure of your numbers, I think you ought to contact some of those who've written articles expressing their doubts.

[LynnTheDem]

26. Difference between cryptome and ICC

Print out the cryptome list of US dead. Go to the ICC list, and compare, name by name.

You'll see why the difference.

[telamachus]

21. But ....

if true that would ruin the great fun that the conspiracy folks have around this place ! :)

It is more than enough to face the REALITY of this mess in Iraq without muddling it up with fantasy..

Thanks for your post and great link!

[LynnTheDem]

24. True, lol!

Thanks!

It sure shows though how come so many rightwingnuts willingly believe Kerry faked his Purple Hearts, and close their minds, etc, when the left is as willing to believe and close their minds to things, too.

People will be people.

[DoNotRefill]

14. eloriel, no offense, but that's just nuts.

OK, let's say what you're saying about people dying later is true. When a list of war dead is put out, don't you think the family members of the people who died in Germany (who undoubtedly know their loved one was WIA in Iraq) would say something when the person isn't listed?

How could the government keep something like that secret? Wouldn't the families miss their loved ones? It's not like most people deployed to Iraq forgot to mention to their families that they were going to Iraq, is it?

[Bunny]

17. Great post, Eloriel!

I was wondering the same thing myself. Do they count the troops that die when their Hummer rolls into a ditch or river? What about the wounded who die later, in Germany? It's likely that the toll is much higher than 1,000.

And you are right, our media will never investigate.

[LynnTheDem]

20. Once again...

YES they count accidental deaths. AND suicides. AND natural deaths.

YES they count troops who later die from wounds.

And YES they release the names.

Just because the MEDIA doesn't always report the names doesn't mean the military doesn't; they DO. Just because the MEDIA doesn't always bother to make sure they're reporting the correct total doesn't mean the military isn't; they ARE.

And a lot of people investigate every day of every week to make sure all soldiers' deaths continue to be reported correctly and fully by the military.

If the MEDIA refuses to take the same care, well that's our media; time to do something about them. But that's NOT the military's blame.

[Tahoe Mom]

19. I've been saying this here...

since last Xmas.

A member of my sister's immediate family worked at the German airbase that received the remains of soldiers killed. He was responsible for unloading the "tubes".

At Thanksgiving, while visiting with my sister, he told the family not to believe what they were hearing about the situation in Iraq and said that the fatalities were "significantly" higher that was being reported.

I know who I believe.

Hell Hath No Fury

[LynnTheDem]

22. Fine.

Now is this friend saying higher than the MILITARY is reporting, or higher than the MEDIA is reporting?

And is this friend talking of MERCS and CONTRACTORS etc, or strictly SOLDIERS?

And how does this friend explain the fact that NOT ONE MEMBER of the "unreported" soldiers families has ever pointed out that their loved one's name isn't on the ICC list?

How does this friend explain that NOT ONE of the names of these "unreported" soldiers has EVER showed up online anywhere; not hometowm papers, not funeral notices, not family posting anywhere, not in interviews, nothing period?

[seangivan]

29. "Fine."

I dunno.. I looked at http://icasualties.org/oif/BY_DOD.aspx and I couldn't find any sign of Lila Lipscomb's son.

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. His name was Michael Pedersen

and he is on that list (04/02/03).

In the film, Lipscomb is surrounded by her extended family in her living room as she reads her son's last letter home. He thanked her for sending the Bible, books and candy. And he wondered what in the world is wrong with Bush, that he tries so much to be like his father. "He got us out here for nothing whatsoever," he wrote. "I am so furious right now, Mama."

"I cannot wait to get home and get back to my life."

Sgt. Michael Pedersen, a crew chief on a Black Hawk helicopter, was killed two weeks later.

http://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-9/1089022519247220.xml

[onehandle]

6. The video I saw taken right after the blast....

....showed no evidence of this. The wreckage I saw could not carry 47 people.

Unless it was a clown car vaporized like the plane that hit the Pentagon.

[DoNotRefill]

13. dude...

do you really think putting out links to enemy propaganda sites like JUS as credible news HELPS DU look non-tinfoilhattish to browsers?

[wolfgirl]

23. Not only am I devastated

at the loss of life due to Bush's actions, but it is a horrible thing that we are at such a point in time that we cannot trust what the media, the military and others tell us. Because of what Bush has done, we are forever tainted with scepticism and distrust.

We need the hope that Kerry/Edwards has been telling us about, a hope that I believe many of us question is possible.

[LynnTheDem]

25. Ummm...

BushCartel have FURTHERED the secrecy and lying thing, but to even suggest they're the CAUSE of it is just WRONG.

The military has been covering up things, like troops committing atrocities for instance, in every single war US troops have ever been involved in.

Are you saying you trusted the media and the government and the military and all your neighbors etc etc etc UNTIL bushCartel came down the pike??? YIKES! ;)

[wolfgirl]

28. No...

I'e always been skeptical, it's the level & scope of the deceit that has run rampant since Bush & Co. They have taken the last of my idealismand ground it into the mud.