Understating..

 

It’s become increasingly apparent that official data on U.S. military personnel deployed in so-called war zones overseas may be understating the actual number.

Likewise, active duty military casualties account for only a portion of the American deaths suffered in Washington’s various overseas crusades in the last 20 years.

The principal mechanism for that statistical deception is the Pentagon’s growing use of “civilian contractors,” like the one killed in a drone strike targeting U.S. military on a coalition base in eastern Syria last week. According to the Congressional Research Service in January, at the end of 2022 there were approximately 22,000 contractor personnel working for the DoD throughout Central Command’s area of responsibility, with a reported 7,908 contractors located in Iraq and Syria.