US troop deaths during Iran war exceed Pentagon count by at least four
reuters.com
reuters.com
If someone dies near a war, but not due to the war, is it really fair to count them as a war fatality?
If someone on a military base with no attacks going on, got a heart attack by watching the news, probably not a war fatality.
But we don't know, so any concrete speculation is probably not very helpful.
I've not seen this claim. The fact that they sent it immediately home for a port call (and had SecNavy visit for a pep talk) when the news of conditions on the Lincoln broke is probably indicative.
https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-us-naval-base-bah...
In a completely unrelated development the "worlds best logistics organization" is now having trouble with logistics.
Lose those advantages and even the US military is troubled and the results are what we see today. It cant invade Iran and it cant even bomb or launch an invasion of Houthi territory.
Did i mention the Ospreys which were built because of the Tehran Embassy hostages from the 1980s are grounded today or limited to very short trips because of constant mechanical failures ?
Smokes and mirrors, its not a smart thing to show your enemy your weaknesses.
Were they at that base as a (say) mechanic servicing aircraft engines for flights over the Persian Gulf? Are the only reasons why the planes (and thus him) are there is because of the hostilities with Iran, as otherwise they would be States-side?
Systems use arbitrary buckets like if someone commits suicide in less than six months from coming home after a war might count it, while excluding every case after six months. That’s going to misclassify cases in both directions but means you don’t need to track millions of people for decades or look through mental health details.
Obviously people with more data to work with can make a convincing case you’re wrong, but higher levels accuracy get expensive. In the end we know more than 1 million Americans died of COVID for example, how many more isn’t precisely known but ~1 million is plenty useful for decision making around the next pandemic.
> “Died of a COVID linked complication with COVID and other issue that is also linked to that complication.”
Where people refused to acknowledge the "linked complication" part of it at all. Many people refused to consider a death as being due to Covid unless the person literally suffocated, ignoring Covid's clear links to many other cardiovascular conditions.
Anyway, I agree with what you're saying here.
They politicized fallen heroes from the Afghanisation withdrawal for their campaign time during RNC 2024. Current events clearly show they don't give a F about anything but themselves.
no seriously.. who cares?
the administration sure doesnt, such cavlier attitudes to their own constituents is astounding.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/us/politics/trump-greenla...
https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/04-806-Denm...
The official added that under the deal, the US has unilateral power to build additional military structures with no approval needed from Greenland or Denmark. It includes "permanent access, basing and overflights rights," the official said.
It also bans non-Nato countries from building bases in Greenland, and "bans adversaries from making investments in Greenland that could threaten the United States".
The official added that under the current status quo, adversaries have been allowed to invest in Greenland's "sensitive sectors without investment screening".
The official specifically referenced Russia and China, saying it blocks them from deploying troops or making investments in "sensitive sectors".
Without the official text being released, it is unclear how exactly the deal differs from a 1951 agreement with Denmark, under which the US can send as many troops as it wants to Greenland."
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/den001.asp
"United States aircraft may fly over and land in any territory in Greenland"
"the Government of the United States of America, without compensation to the Government of the Kingdom of Denmark, shall be entitled within such defense area and the air spaces and waters adjacent thereto... (ii) to construct, install, maintain, and operate facilities and equipment"
etc.
I think interacting with Trump is like interacting with a dementia patient who also is a malignant narcissistic and pathological liar, so I imagine Danish and US staffers had to find a way to frame the agreement to him that made it sound like he had gained something major, in order to get him to shut up about the issue and stop obsessing over his conquest ideas.
Most of those wars were mostly caused or perpetuated by the US or USSR not wanting countries to go to the other side.
In any video that shows the timeline of any war, there's scenes from the war, then it cuts to photos and scenes of politicians in the "master countries" sitting in their offices making decisions,
looking worried, on the phone, arguing, exasperated etc but otherwise comfortable, in their armchairs or on their sofas, far far removed from the people dying in the war..
...It's amazing how people keep agreeing to that.
He's gonna change the name of the Strait of Hormuz to "Large of America". And all ships will be able to pass because freedom.
Take that Iran!
All my life I have had faith in the governments reports and statistics for the most part. This admin has torn everything down and for what?
To keep the grift going, of course.
Most of Trump's public statements are done through a company that he owns. That same company charges a modest $100,000 per month for early access to his posts; just straight up facilitating insider trading for the President's personal profit. Plus people might find the administration making decision in their favor while paying the $100,000 a month.
There's also Trumpcoin through which people can transfer money to the President. This just happens in the open. Remember when Trump had personal 1-on-1 meetings with the top Trumpcoin holders? I remember.
I've barely scratched the surface here. Trump's personal worth has increased $3,000,000,000 during his second term, so far.
Corruption has existed before, but it has never been this out in the open.
I will say that open corruption is only better if people recognize it as corruption. The people in my life do not know about the things I mentioned, and they don't care to learn about it.
The pendulum you speak of, just like a physical pendulum, runs out of steam, slows down due to friction and the loss of energy. And the only way to restart it is a not with nudges. It’s with a huge push all at once. This may result in some pretty radical swings before things settle down.
*by "they" I mean the voters... the people that were elected were, and are well informed
How true is that? Plenty of older people I know vote consistently for one party because it did something good for them a long time ago.
(Of course, that doesn't capture the full story either -- before '92, white blue collar workers were already abandoning the Democrats to support Reagan while he and the Republicans gutted private sector unions.)
Sorry what does that mean? Are all PPPs woke or something? Did US elites ever stand with workers against corporations?
OWS itself fell apart when activists started with race and sex based grievances rather than class solidarity.
Trump is a result of that choice to institutionalize bigotry rather than address class issues — as Trump’s margin in 2016 seems to come down to working class voters uninterested in grievance politics. (And the large Obama -> Trump voter swing, eg, among Millennial men.)
> Ds abandoned the working class for grievance politics circa 2010
Which I already explained in the first part of my statement you selectively edited out.
Others pointed out the meta, which is that if you want -ism to hate some people, a good way to do that is to say that their -ism hates you. I suppose that could be extended to third or fourth levels of meta.
Anti-vaxxers are a good example. Despite studies repeatedly debunking the link between vaccines and autism, plenty of people still believe vaccines cause autism. Many people who know someone who has experienced side effects from a vaccine start to believe vaccines are dangerous regardless of any studies demonstrating how exceedingly rare said side effects are.
Flat Earthers are another example. While undoubtedly some of their ranks are people just trying to be contrarian, the true believers will find alternative explanations for every piece of evidence you try to show them that Earth is indeed round.
I just wish people would snap out of it _eventually_
My Boomer mother tells me about this all the time. She said, growing up, people had absolute faith in everything the US government did or said; it was like religion. Then Vietnam happened. Specifically, the reporting around Vietnam and the number of casualties. My mother said that everyone knew someone who lost a family member in Vietnam, but the government was like, "Everything's fine."
It’s 2026. The President has embroiled us in an unpopular war in the Middle East and has lied about it.
To put it differently: its stated allies are direct lineal political and military descendants of the parties who were ostensibly its enemies in 2006, including Al-Qaeda / Jabhat Al-Nusra.
There's even (disputed) allegations that Bush Sr funneled money and weapons to bin Laden in opposition to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. If true, the big 2006 enemy was a 1986 ally.
“Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken”[1]
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
I also recommend the book “The Great War for Civilisation” by Robert Fisk
Yeah, I was gonna say, as conspiracy theories go, this one is pretty much in the books at this point. Fuck man, Tom Hanks stars in a movie about it; that's about as mainstream as it gets.
So theoretically in another 20-30 years we can take a guess at who we’ll be fighting.
Canada?
"Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel [...] also visited Washington in late 2002 to lobby for the invasion of Iraq.
Apparently referring to testimony on the Middle East that Mr. Netanyahu delivered to Congress on Sept. 12, 2002, when he was a private citizen, Mr. Kerry told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, “The prime minister, as you will recall, was profoundly forward-leaning and outspoken about the importance of invading Iraq under George W. Bush, and we all know what happened with that decision.”
Video of Mr. Netanyahu’s 2002 remarks — in which he said “I think the choice of Iraq is a good choice, it’s the right choice”
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/world/middleeast/kerry-re...
He's not just a liar. He sold out his country.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/6-times-trump-said-obama...
The Republican President has embroiled us in an unpopular war in the Middle East and has lied about it.
we're no strangers to troops dying due to ongoing conflict pretty much everywhere
so why are they seemingly hiding a small number like this?
They deny everything, no matter how low the stakes. See, for example, the reflecting pool fuss.
Thanks for the laugh. The Dems have a habit of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Because they claimed a "flawless victory".
Over 500,000 PAVN/VC soldiers died.
Who lost the will to fight, and the war?
Wars tend to end long before one side runs out of men between the ages of 13 and 73.
He taught Trump to always take credit for the good things and blame someone else for the failures. When there is no one to blame, hide it and/or deny it loudly
Reflexive lies are basically the policy of this administration and party. They have demonstrated no interest in telling the truth about anything. The proper question is: Why would they start telling the truth now?
Their base has already demonstrated that there is no red line. There is no lie they could tell that would suddenly disillusion the MAGA-types.
American built cities and killed the natives and started farms and introduced cattle and crops, while the Europeans mostly kept to a few strategic towns and cities and did neither.
Hitler was a big fan of American stories, just like Stalin loved westerns.
Mining operations for example in the Roman times were hardly any different, thousands if not more died in equally horrible conditions. The construction of the buildings and the mechanim may have changed but the results were the same.
And I don't want to poorly paraphrase Aimé Cesaire, so I'm taking a translated quote: 'What he cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.'