Tuesday
Jan302007
Where the American dead in Iraq come from
By 
Issandr El Amrani | Iraq Military US
Issandr El Amrani | Iraq Military US
From TomDispatch:
Just over 3,000 Americans have died in Iraq. If the U.S. population is 300 million, then that's just 0.001% of it. Add into this the fact that the American dead come disproportionately from the most forgotten, least attended to parts of our country, from places that often have lost their job bases; consider that many of them were under or unemployed as well as undereducated, that they generally come from struggling, low-income, low-skills areas. Given that we have an all-volunteer military (so that not even the threat of a draft touches other young Americans), you could certainly say that the President's war in Iraq -- and its harm -- has been disproportionately felt. If you live in a rural area, you are simply far more likely to know a casualty of the war than in most major metropolitan areas of the country.
No wonder it's been easy for so many Americans to ignore such a catastrophic war until relatively recently. This might, in a sense, be considered part of a long-term White House strategy, finally faltering, of essentially fighting two significant wars abroad while demobilizing the population at home. When, for instance, soon after the 9/11 attacks the President urged Americans to go to Disney World or, in December 2006, to go "shopping more" to help the economy, he meant it. We were to go on with our normal lives, untouched by his war.
Reader Comments (4)
This might explain why so many troopshttp://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,117240,00.html" rel="nofollow"> are so in debt that they have their security clearances revoked for fear they may be vulnerable to bribery or selling secrets.
I read somewhere that the salary of the guys who remove/defuse IEDs is somewhere around $15K. Incredible.
Yeah, but heaven forbid the Freemarket Fundies (TM) should have their faith in subcontracting challenged, even when it wasteshttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001801.html" rel="nofollow"> millions of dollars that could be used to improve troop salaries.
An irony not lost on US soldiers in Iraq when SUVs filled with gun-toting contractors making six figures go roaring past.