Maybe all of our people didn’t join the military to honor
the dead of 9/11; perhaps some joined to pay their way through college, learn a
craft or some other reason. In any case, they were volunteers defending our
country and our freedoms and they were not alone. Per the militarytimes.com
website, Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003 – 2012), Operation New Dawn and
Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan (October 7, 2001 – 2012) took the
lives of 6,433 Americans (in all 3 operations) through May 20, 2012. Not all of
our soldiers have died at the hands of the enemy. We had a soldier kill 5
others in an Iraq clinic in May 2009, a couple suicides in 2011 because of
hazing incidents, several (the latest On January 20 and February 21, April 20,
2012) were killed because of helicopter crashes due to weather or mechanical
failure, on March 29 a soldier gave his life when he pushed an Afghan girl out
of the way of a truck, on May 4 a soldier died of rabies after being bitten by
a stray dog in Afghanistan and many of our soldiers as well as others died
because our soldiers peed on Taliban dead (1/12), burned Qurans (2/12), killed
innocent Afghan civilians in their sleep (3/12), and on April 18 photos taken 2
years ago (released to the LA Times) were all over the internet of American
troops smiling and acting out with the body parts of suicide bombers. Hundreds
perhaps more have died because a few soldiers violated our regulations and core
values.
According to the August 22, 2011 Guardian website, over
400 soldiers from 47 other countries had been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom
and Operation New Dawn and over 1,300 for the first 9 years of Operations
Enduring Freedom. In addition to soldiers, at least 1,500 private contractors
died in Iraq alone and local security forces accounted for about 12,000 police
killed in Iraq (2003 - 2010), over 3,000 Afghanistan policemen (2002 - the
middle of 2010), and between 2,000 and 4,000 policemen have died in Pakistan.
As for local military personnel over 11,000 Iraqi soldiers have died, Afghan
National Army casualties were running at 2,820 in August 2010, while in
Pakistan, around 3,000 soldiers have been killed. Across the Middle East (from
the Sudan to the Seychelles and from Tajikistan to Turkey) and further afield
in the other theatres that had become part of the 9/11 wars, local security
forces paid a heavy price too. For example, more than 150 Lebanese soldiers
were killed fighting against radical "al-Qaeda-ist" militants in the
Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Lebanon in 2007. There were many others, in Saudi
Arabia, in Algeria, in Indonesia.
In all, at least 40,000 to 50,000 soldiers and policemen have so far died and
rough figures showed a total of well over 150,000 civilians killed; they
included more than 400 assassinated Iraqi academics and almost 150 journalists
killed on assignment. The approximate overall figure for civilian and military
dead was near 250,000 by mid 2010. If the injured are included – even at a
conservative ratio of one to three – the total number of casualties reaches
750,000. Add the bereaved and the displaced, let alone those who have been
harmed through the indirect effects of the conflict, the infant mortality or
malnutrition rates due to breakdown of basic services.
Since
entering the wars in the Middle East the number of people killed here in
America due to vehicle accidents has been: 2002 – 43,005, 2003 – 42,643, 2004 –
42,836, 2005 – 43,443, 2006 - 42,642, 2007 – 41,059, 2008 – 37,261, 2009 –
33,808, 2010 – 32,885 (the lowest number since
1949); I could not find a total for 2011 however it was estimated to be
around 35,000 for a total of 394,582 in 10 years.
On May
1, 2012 a report said many die because we don’t use our turn signals and we
know there are deaths because of cell phone use and texting. (Syracuse, NY and
Hartford, Connecticut were used for a survey regarding cell phone and texting
usage; after 9,000 citations were issued the citations in Syracuse went down
32% and in Hartford a reduction of 57% for hand-held and 72% for texting.) It’s
no wonder that on May 7 we heard that Nevada gave Google the opportunity to
test driverless cars – cars on autopilot like airplanes – a driver can take
control by grabbing the wheel or stepping on the break.
In over
10 years we have lost 6,433 American soldiers in the wars against terrorism;
that’s a whole lot less than the 400,000 Americans we’ve lost on the streets of
the US. I think that as long as our allies support our efforts to get those
that caused the 9/11 attacks killing over 4,000 people we should also support
our government’s efforts. The Chicago protestors have a right to be angry but I
think their anger is misdirected. Anger because our voluntary military has lost
lives protecting our freedom is ironic (disrespectful) especially when we show
no anger over our stupidity (lack of common sense) in driving a car or
non-working investors becoming rich while 15% of our population lives in
poverty; the Occupy Movement has the right idea.
It is
said that the decisions you make create your destiny. Americans must remember
that this is not the worst times we have survived. We’ve been through Civil and
World Wars, 9/11, depressions and several other recessions. Last year, Lakewood
Church Pastor Joel Osteen said - this too will pass; you’ll come out better
than before.
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