(Occasional sobering thoughts.)Amid news:
► that 1 in 5 servicemembers "returning from Iraq or Afghanistan suffers symptoms of depression or post-traumatic stress," but that "barely half are seeking treatment";
► that "due to Iraq's lack of state capacity, the primary responsibility for taking care of refugees has fallen on militia leaders who, naturally, use that situation to consolidate their power"; and
► that "[f]ighting between security forces and Shi'ite militiamen" in March drove "civilian deaths in Iraq to their highest level" since August 2007;
we proceed with a count Iraq/Afghanistan casualties in the 4 weeks since we last reported.
According to Iraq Body Count, between 82,987 and 90,521 Iraqi women, children, and men had died in the conflict -- an increase of between 747 and 770 deaths in the last 4 weeks. Regarding servicemembers: by the U.S. Defense Department's figures, as of Sunday 4,045 American servicemembers had been killed in Iraq. Total coalition fatalities: 4,354 persons. That's 56 servicemember deaths in 4 weeks, all but 1 of them Americans. (Without explanation, the site appears to have stopped listing how many servicemembers were
wounded.) Military casualties in the conflict in Afghanistan stand at 494 Americans and 305 other coalition servicemembers, an increase of 7 and 12, respectively, in the last 4 weeks.
