The Dead

To date, the death toll in Afghanistan stands at 2,000 US troops and 13,009 civilians. In Iraq: 3,332 US troops and an estimated 119,000 civilians. Pakistani deaths due to ongoing drone strikes so far number 3,325 (some 474 to 881 of those were civilians, including 176 children).

If we add the body counts above—American, Iraqi, Afghan, and Pakistani—the total number of deaths so far from the “War on Terror” stands at 140,666 human beings.

I should add that the US death toll does not include war veterans who later died of their wounds, or those who commit suicide (estimated at 18 veterans per day). I should add, too, that the civilian death tolls above are conservative figures; the actual number could be much higher.

At any rate, this conservative figure of 140,666 is many times more than the 3,000 or so who died in the September 11 terror attacks—the provocative act that was used as the excuse to start this war.

It would be nice if this ongoing holocaust were an issue in the current presidential campaign, but both the Republican and Democratic candidates spoke only of a “strong national defense,” while the three third-party candidates who would have made it an issue were excluded from the debates.

Americans could demand something better of their political system. But will they?

The numbers above were collected from the following sources:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
http://antiwar.com/casualties/
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/2000-dead-cost-war-afghanistan/story?id=17367728
http://rt.com/news/pakistan-march-us-drones-792/