Matthew Nasuti, reporting for the Kabul Press (Kabul, Afghanistan) has written a two-part report about the Pentagon’s decision in 2001 to hide the truth of the human costs of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan from the American public. This was done to continue to garner support of an unknowing public.
Nasuti writes that the Pentagon officially admits that 5,500 troops have been killed and 38,000 injured. This deliberately ignores 95% of the actual injuries:
-170,000+ cases of hearing damage
-130,000+ cases of mild traumatic brain injuries
-200,000+ cases of serious mental health problems
These totals don’t include:
-over 30,000 cases of serious diseases
-hundreds of thousands of cases of minor diseases resulting from bacterial, viral, or parasitic infections
-thousands of cases of respiratory disease linked to exposure to toxic burn pit smoke
-hundreds of suicides
-thousands of cases of back, spinal and foot injuries due to wearing cheap and unnecessarily heavy body armor although lighter body armor is available
Nasuti rightly claims that in 2001, the Pentagon decided to follow the maxim that truth is the first casualty of war.
Nasuti, Matthew. “American Military Casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan Now Exceed 500,000 (Part 1 of 2).“Kabul Press (Kabul, Afghanistan). Kabul Press. 2010.