Feral Jundi

     Ok, this pisses me off.  I totally respect what Michael White has done over the years as far as counting the deaths in this war. But to depend on a hobbyist to keep this record as to whom has died is not right, and his list is not complete.  This should be a function of the US government and every death should be counted in my opinion.

     I say every death, because the icasualties.org list is missing a ton of contractor deaths, and especially in Afghanistan.  It counts US deaths, and Coalition deaths, but it is lacking in contractor deaths.  Especially this year.  I have listed several deaths that were sourced in the media on this blog, and there has been no mention at icasualties about it. This supports the idea that depending on just one lone hobbyist to count these deaths does not work.

     We are basically counting on the poor guy to keep up, and for him to fund his own little show. Meanwhile the entire world links to his website for their stories and studies, and holds his website as the top source for casualties.  Even governments link to iCasualties.org, and it pisses me off that this is what we have for accountability.  Contractor deaths count for something, as do all deaths in this war, and there must be a better effort to do this.

     My suggestion is for the US government to take it upon themselves and start a casualty count website of their own. It should be an organization that strives to be current, complete, and staffed with the appropriate amount of people and funds to keep it running properly.  This crew’s job is to count every single death coming out of the war.  I say count the civilian deaths too and there should be no question what so ever as to how much blood has been spilled.  But for the sake of this conversation, at the very least, contractor deaths should be counted.

     I also believe that this contractor death count should include expats, third country nationals, and local nationals.  Local nationals are never counted, yet they died in that convoy operation supporting our war effort and the least we can do is recognize their sacrifice. Why do we ignore the sacrifices of an Afghan or Iraqi contractor?

     The other thing that gets me is that I know why we are not counted.  Politically speaking, the less numbers of deaths on ‘the list’, the better.

     As for the compensation factor for those deaths, if no one knows about the death, then a company can say that it never existed, and thus not pay any compensation.  Now of course contractors are smart enough to know, that if the company does not have a life insurance policy for them, or that they know that DBA is not afforded to them (for local nationals, etc.), then obviously the family of that dead contractor will receive nothing. That is the contractors choice when they sign the contract. I would like to think that we could compensate the families of these men in some way, but that is the way things are at this point.  Private industry in those countries is not forced to provide this kind of compensation or insurance, and many industries in the global economy operate with this kind of dynamic.

     But at the least, a contractor’s death(expat, third country national, local national) should be counted and we should not be depending on some hobbyist who might be able to put up a contractor’s death on his website, if he catches it or decides to put the effort into it. I commend Mike for doing as much as he has, but if there was ever anything that should be a function of government, this is it.

     Another idea is for the government to issue a grant to this guy.  Help him do the job that government should be doing anyways.  Hell, contract him out and put him on the payroll to do what he is already doing.  Or if the IPOA or similar association wanted to do something cool, they could kick some money into Mike’s fund, just so he gets the hint to count ‘contractors’.  Also, if folks wanted to individually give iCasualties.org a hint to count our dead, just send Mike an email with a link to the media source that lists the death. What I will try to do in the future, is list Mike’s email under each death I find, and I will ask the readership to send the link of contractors deaths to him to make sure these deaths are counted.  I am sure if he gets a couple emails from several guys that he will add it.  If you find stuff that has not been posted here, feel free to send it to him first. –Matt

Emails for Michael White and icasuatlies.org here:

michaelw@icasualties.org

michaelw@speedfactory.net

or try this one.

icasualties@bellsouth.net

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As a hobby, he counts the war dead

By Moni Basu, CNN

Stone Mountain, Georgia (CNN) — Fall leaves blanket Michael White’s deck at his suburban Atlanta, Georgia, home. In the cluttered attic study, the software engineer slouches over his Hewlett-Packard laptop.

A full-length floor lamp stands on top of his desk — the overhead light went out a while back. Next to him is his 1960s Stratocaster, a reminder of the rock-star career that never blossomed.

Jillian, his Vivaldi-loving, violin-playing 10-year-old, has gone off to school. Wife Ashley is at work. The house is quiet except for the occasional mew from Izzy, the atypically friendly Tonkinese cat.

And yet, from the humdrum of this ordinary subdivision home comes an arresting daily statement.

For six years, White has faithfully produced a number that is critical to shaping the legacy of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: the death toll.

Every day, White, 51, updates a Web site he launched in 2003, icasualties.org, to keep count of the dead: American troops, coalition troops, contractors and Iraqi civilians. He eventually began documenting deaths in Afghanistan as well.

He knew the wars would carry on, but he did not anticipate casualties continuing at this pace. October proved to be the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the beginning of that conflict in 2001.

Nor could White have predicted the toll his task would take on him. As the numbers climbed, the dead came back to life on his screen. They weren’t just statistics anymore.

Stepping into the breach

No one asked him to start the site. He wanted to do it. It was his way of making sure the world knew the exact toll of the war.

He could have written letters to the editor voicing his opposition to the invasion of Iraq. He could have marched on the streets. He chose instead to post a steady roster of names from towns such as Belleville, Illinois; Cortland, New York; and Gretna, Louisiana. Fathers. Mothers. Husbands. Wives. Sons. Daughters.

He began posting on icasualties at a time when he said media outlets were often sloppy about reported war deaths. They were late with the news or inaccurate.

“They were doing a lousy job,” he said of the press in 2003.

White started getting out of bed before sunrise to scour Defense Department releases and small-town newspaper reports that often came out before official notices of deaths.

At lunchtime, he’d perform his searches again. When he visited his mother in South Carolina during Thanksgiving or Christmas, he’d sneak off to the closest Starbucks for a Wi-Fi connection. Later, when he acquired a wireless card for his laptop, he’d pull over on Georgia 400 on his drive home to check the 6 p.m. Pentagon update.

White grew the numbers into a searchable database that allows users to analyze where troops were killed, what branch of service they were in, their age, sex, race. He added the number of wounded and Iraqi and Afghan civilian casualties, not easy to track.

News organizations, including The Associated Press and The New York Times, took notice, citing icasualties in their reports.

The Reuters news agency routinely culls the icasualties site to help compile its tallies of fatalities. David Stamp, who works in its editorial reference unit, said the fact that the agency uses the site means that it views it as a reliable and authoritative source.

While White established himself as a standard bearer of grim news, he put up a wall between himself and what he typed. That was the only way he could carry on the task.

“I tried not to get personal about it. It was just a part of the documentation that I do.”

But sometimes the wall crumbled.

Parents who thanked him for keeping track surfaced a few weeks later in an obituary on their son. And suddenly, a number turned into a human being.

White wanted to know how a soldier died. Was he on foot when the bomb went off? Or inside a Humvee? Was this the first tour of duty? What was his wife like? How many children did he leave fatherless?

During the “surge” in Iraq, when monthly death tolls soared above 100 for three months in a row, White began breaking down.

“It was too much, too intense,” he said.

But slowly, the violence began to quell in Iraq. And with it, so did the interest in icasualties. White’s site dropped from 1 million hits a day during the surge down to 50,000.

“People may be fatigued on this,” said Matt Tatham, spokesman for the market research firm Experian Hitwise, which tracks usage of Web sites. “It may be the economy replaced the war.”

White came close to pulling the plug.

Jillian had never known a father who was not a keeper of death. Ashley thought her husband’s hobby had spiraled out of control.

But when Afghanistan heated up again, White realized his job was far from finished.

“Hopefully, that won’t last,” White said. “I wake up every morning now and hope there is nothing there.”

Though hits are significantly lower than they were a year ago, Tatham said that icasualties ranked 105th in mid-November among almost 1,100 political sites. White’s site was on par with those of the public policy think tank the Cato Institute, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and Washington gossip blogger Wonkette.

And with President Obama about to announce a decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan, the relevance for icasualties has hardly evaporated.

“I think the site could get more visits,” Tatham said. “It’s a cyclical thing.”

As long as he is able to raise the $500 a month he needs to maintain his server, White said he will keep icasualties going.

“I’ll stop it when it has no meaning anymore,” he said.

White was a wannabe rock star who always wanted to make headlines for his music, his creativity. Instead, he is known as the keeper of death, a man who packs a punch with a series of stark numbers.

Story here.