The date: October 22, 2010. The culprit: Wikileaks.org. The act: The publishing of classified military documents detailing the Iraq war and occupation from the dates of January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2009, save for the months of May 2004 and March 2009. The exposure: Detailing 109,032 deaths in Iraq, which include 66,081 “civilian,” 23,984 “enemy,” 15,196 “host nation” and 3,771 “friendly” deaths throughout the war.
Now let’s take a look at the facts, according to the leaks: There were more civilians killed than enemy combatants in the five years this leak details. That’s a problem. Regardless of if it were fire from our side or the enemy’s, that’s a problem. You wanna know why the Iraqi people have gone from praising us for getting Saddam the Hell out of there to hating us for just being there? Look no further than this statistic. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the truth. If we could just let the Iraqis fight the insurgents on their own, we’d at least look a little better to them and the rest of the world.
As it stands, we appear as a war-hungry country that doesn’t really know what it’s doing in the world. We think we know what we’re doing, and I’d like to think we’ve got good intentions, but when you get right down to it, we’re screwing up left and right. Look at the civilian tolls– we’ve (directly and indirectly) killed almost three times as many civilians as we have enemy combatants. Why isn’t anyone in the mainstream media completely outraged over this fact?
There are a few mentions of it here and there, but nowhere near the amount of coverage this story deserves. Like most things when it comes to exposing holes in the cheese, the crumbs seem to be getting swept under the rug. It’s okay, though– we’ve got our American Idol and Big Bang Theory to keep us occupied. Don’t think about the war, guys. Your show’s on.
[...] lot has changed since I began writing for Camp Campaign. The largest leak of classified military information in the history of the United States occurred, Osama bin Laden [...]