In a previous posting, I mentioned that almost 1400 mercenaries had been killed in Iraq. There's another underreported story mentioned in the same Swift Economics article I referenced previously.

In 2007, CBS News investigated suicide among U.S. military veterans and determined that in 2005 alone, 6256 committed suicide! (15) The war has now been going for almost six and half years; if that number were held constant, (something we cannot assume), the total would now be over 40,000. Overall, the investigation showed the suicide rate for veterans, adjusted for age and gender, (young men are the most likely to commit suicide), was about twice as high as for non-veterans. A study by the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health corroborated these findings. (16)

It is important to recognize that these studies involved all military veterans, not just those of Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, correlation does not equal causation. Other factors, such as gun availability, may be involved. Needless to say, given the high rates of PTSD among veterans and the despicably poor care veterans have received at military hospitals, such as Walter Reed, it is highly probable that many of these suicides can trace their way back to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even if only one in five of the 40,000 military suicides mentioned (as of 2007) were the result of the Iraq War, that would be 8,000, far more than the 4,337 count of US troops killed in Iraq as of 8/30/09.

Government officials and corporate media enablers don't just omit many of the financial costs of the Iraq War, they are lowballing the human costs of this illegal conflict that violates this nation's values.

What have Bush, the Congress, and Obama done to our country?