Posts Tagged ‘war’
Iraq and Afghanistan, June 2010
July 5th, 2010 at 7:00 am
The big Afghanistan news of the last couple of weeks was Gen. McChrystal and his aides having a few too many Bud Lite Limes and talking out of turn. Not in the news was the big jump in US and coalition casualties.
More US deaths, and far more coalition deaths, last month than in any other month of this 8½-year war. The military death rate is now comparable to that of Iraq in 2005 and 2006, although it’s not composed overwhelmingly of US deaths.
Iraq and Afghanistan, May 2010
June 4th, 2010 at 10:35 am
US military deaths in Iraq stayed about where they’ve been for the last year.
Both US and coalition deaths in Afghanistan jumped back up after a couple of months of modest decrease.
Whatever we’re doing in Afghanistan, it doesn’t seem to be working. As I’ve said before, that this war was justified in 2001 doesn’t mean it’s still justified in 2009, 2010, 2011,…
Iraq and Afghanistan, April 2010
May 4th, 2010 at 8:07 am
I can’t think of anything I haven’t already said on this topic.
Iraq and Afghanistan, March 2010
April 2nd, 2010 at 4:05 pm
As expected, US and coalition military deaths in Iraq stayed low last month:
Coalition deaths passed the 4700 mark, and US deaths are slowly approaching 4400. (The two numbers are moving in parallel now; there haven’t been any non-US coalition deaths for over a year.)
In Afghanistan, US and coalition military deaths went down a bit:
US deaths passed the 1000 mark in early March. Did I miss the announcement of this in the news?
Iraq and Afghanistan, February 2010
March 2nd, 2010 at 9:58 pm
US military deaths in Iraq stayed low last month.
US military deaths in the Afghanistan war went up and passed the 1000 mark. I don’t recall seeing anything in the news about this sad milestone.
Strictly speaking, these numbers are for the whole of Operation Enduring Freedom, not just Afghanistan and the neighboring countries. The folks at icasualties.org point out that this includes deaths in (or due to wounds received in) Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Guantanamo Bay, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Yemen. I’ll continue to refer to OEF as the Afghanistan war—the war started in response to the attacks of September 11.
I’m increasingly pessimistic about our chances of being out of Afghanistan before September 11, 2011.
Iraq and Afghanistan, January 2010
February 2nd, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Military deaths in Afghanistan ticked up last month; military deaths in Iraq stayed very low.
The war in Afghanistan is now well into its ninth year. We’ve been there longer than the Soviets were in the 80s.