22
Aug

2,003

letterstomycountry:

That’s the number of American soldiers who have died in Afghanistan since the inception of the war.  The New York Times has an excellent infographic that breaks down the numbers further by branch, province, age, and so forth.

Most telling, in my view, is the graph which demonstrates that the most violent years come after 2008, when we of course saw a policy shift from the Obama administration away from Iraq and focused on “winning” the war in the Afghanistan.  As you can see from the graph, the 2009 troop surge was consonant with the heaviest period of American casualties in the history of our involvement in Afghanistan:

More at the link.

And of course with the surge came more civilian casualties. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan estimates 2,412 deaths in 2009 (14% increase from 2008), 2,777 deaths in 2010 (15% increase from 2009) and another 1,462 in just the first 6 months of 2011 (a 15% increase from the same period in 2010).  The Afghanistan Rights Monitor also estimates that over 100,00 civilians have been forced to flee their homes.  

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#politics #war #afghanistan #foreign policy

39 Notes

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  12. disobey reblogged this from letterstomycountry and added:
    That’s the number of American soldiers who have died in Afghanistan since the inception of the war. The New York Times...
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    surge came more civilian casualties....UN Assistance Mission
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