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The wounded and the dead

It's a cliche that the wounded in wars far outweigh the dead (unless you nuke a city)

Australia has had 11 men killed in Afghanistan.The wounded are rarely mentioned,and then in an almost casual way. I guess that like a lot of people ,I just didn't think about it. Absence of evidence I guess.

Today the Week End Australian has reported that 83 Australians have been wounded in Afghanistan since 2005.Some gravely (loss of limbs,that kind of thing) It seems that some of the soldiers are in public hospitals under false names to protect their privacy.

My immediate response is "BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!" It's a classic case of government humbuggery. They do not want the public to know those figures. It might turn even more of us against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I occurred to me [hard as it may be to believe] that I may have over reacted a smidge. We'll see what happens during the coming week,I expect a shit storm.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26126928-601,00....

The mind boggles at what the figures for US wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan might be.

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Permalink Reply by Johnsky on September 25, 2009 at 8:40pm

Oh, you have full right to be angry.

The whole purpose to not telling the public about the wounded and keeping them "invisible" is so that nobody raises a finger when they send another batch off to get wounded.

Can't make a fortune off manufacturing weapons if nobody is firing them.

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Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on September 25, 2009 at 8:52pm

Yes. It is one thing to wave flags and have brass bands belt out John Philip Sousa numbers while the talkshow pundits rail about freedom and democracy. It is quite another to count the cost and deal with the realities. It is incorrect to say the military are incapable of learning from their mistakes. They learnt a big one in Vietnam by not regulating the media and allowing the public to see what was actually happening. That, of course, has now changed.

Let's see some media with the balls to really make this a public issue. Not so much for the fact that there are wounded - that is a brutal reality. But for gutlessness displayed by the need to conceal it.