Ministry of Defense Braces For A Surge In Suicide Rate
Although they represent a tiny percentage of the troops who have undergone tours of duty – about 100,000 in Iraq and 50,000 in Afghanistan – there is concern that the risk of troops taking their own lives is increasing.
Greg Sanders on the impact of air strikes on Afghan public opinion
Such deaths have both a human and a political toll. At a recent CSIS event, ABC Director of Polling, Gary Langer, described their impact on popular support for the coalition. The ABC/BBC/ARD poll found that local experience with U.S. bombing and artillery fire was strongly correlated with both negative attitudes towards the U.S., towards the Afghan central and provincial governments, and regarding Afghanistan’s direction. This dissatisfaction can lead to radicalization: some 44 percent of Afghans who experienced local bombing believe that attacks against coalition forces could be justified.
Korean Victims of Nuclear Warfare
I didn’t realize that 40,000 Koreans who were in Japan were killed in the two atomic bombings in 1945. There also are thousands of Korean survivors, and they want help from the Japanese government.
Value of Life and estimating the human cost of Iraq war
We often hear that life is precious. But how precious? Can we really try to ascribe cold monetary values to a warm life? When you don’t consciously estimate, you run the risk of underestimating it. Every living moment we take chances: it’s unsafe to eat, it’s unsafe to work, it’s unsafe to drive. And whenever we trade risk of death off for time or money, we reveal the value we ascribe to our own life. And with this, we can also contemplate about the cost of economic disasters, and measure them in human life.
Christopher R. Albon is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in armed conflict, public health, human security, and health diplomacy.
Want more? Subscribe to Conflict Health through RSS or email.
Comments on this entry are closed.