However, as is well known, many "private contractors" undertake off-the-books military activities in Iraq, but we never learn of any deaths among them.

It now appears the number is at least 770 deaths.

quote:

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The contractor death toll rose last week when five Americans working for Blackwater USA were killed in Baghdad after their helicopter was shot down by insurgents. The contractors were rushing to help a U.S. Embassy convoy that had come under attack.

Civilian contractors killed in Iraq are often eligible — and many have received — the defense secretary's Medal for the Defense of Freedom, the so-called Purple Heart for civilians working on behalf of the military.

But their names are left off the Pentagon's Iraq casualty rolls.

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So, the actual death toll among US "soldiers" is 25% higher than we have been told.

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Originally posted by Stargazer:
I hope this is not Jeff House's last post.

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[ 29 January 2007: Message edited by: Briguy ]

quote:

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The Green Fields of France
Well how do you do, Private William McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side?
A rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone that you were only 19
when you joined the glorious fallen in 1916.
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, William McBride, was it slow and obscene?

CHORUS:
Did they beat the drum slowly?
did they sound the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus?
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Coyote:
Gah! NO! Nononononononono. [Note to CSIS agent: Didn't mean it that way!]

I merely meant that hearing the song might stir something in him to get us out of our awful quagmire in Afghanistan, and realize that our role in the world is not to play with the lives of our troops - nor the lives of Afghan citizens - to further Bush's military agenda.

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And the UK's, Spain's, Germany's, Italy's...Sweden's....Belgium's....(in case you didn't know, they're all there too).

[ 29 January 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Piper-519:

And the UK's, Spain's, Germany's, Italy's...Sweden's....Belgium's....(in case you didn't know, they're all there too).

So what is our role in the world then? International arse-kisser?

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