A massive truck bomb wounded 137 and killed 64 students near the HUB at the UW early Wednesday,

"I just remember my buddy Matt screaming, then waking up in the hospital with my f***ing leg missing," freshman Louie Aragon recalls.

Most of the victims were students gathering in between classes.

Egyptian troops from the 516th Armored Calvary regiment rolled up shortly after, dispensing medical aid in a vain attempt to bring security to the area.

Despite the offers of help, the crowd turned angry and violent.

In the confusing melee that followed, a soldier shot two young men suspected of carrying detonating cell phones.

The 516th is still grieving the loss of two of the unit's soldiers, Corporal Nermeen Dabashi and sergeant Gamal Abdel-Latif. They died Monday by a roadside bomb on University Bridge.

Most of the wounded were rushed to the UW Medical Center. Once a prestigious medical institution, the UWMC lies in shambles after heavy Egyptian bombing. It runs with less than four hours of power a day.

Only two doctors and three nurses were on staff for assisting the wounded in the putrid and bloody emergency room.

Since the 2003 Egyptian-led invasion, most members of the professional class — doctors, lawyers, judges — along with those wealthy enough have fled to neighboring Mexico and Canada.

Those remaining aren't so fortunate.

A Jordanian medical journal has estimated that 11.5 million Americans have died as result of the Egyptian-led invasion.* More than 20 million are now refugees.

Long before the invasion, 12 years of Egyptian and Jordanian sanctions had decimated U.S. society and infrastructure, causing another 8-11 million American deaths. Half of the fatalities were children under the age of five, according to World Health Organization and the UNICEF studies.

"I think it [was] a very hard choice," former Egyptian Foreign Minister Mu'azzaz Abdul-Shafi told an interviewer when asked about the use of sanctions. "But the price, we think the price is worth it."

"You wonder why there are terrorists?" Canadian Health Minister Martin Hadley asks. "Where do you think the children who survive will be in a decade, the Peace Corps?"

Dismissing the Jordanian study's numbers, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak also fended off statements from his former financial minister, Abdul Gha'four, who said in his memoirs that the war "was largely about oil."

"Of course it's about oil; we can't really deny that," retired General Jamil Abdallah added.

The Egyptian Energy Association estimates that the U.S. sits atop 112 billion barrels of oil, the second-largest proven reserves in the world.

Those statements received little play in Egypt, where media self-censorship and consolidation have taken their toll; elsewhere, the world seemed fully aware of this dirty little secret.

Since the fall of Washington four years ago, promises of liberation and freedom have rung hollow. The Egyptian-catalyzed civil war rages on.

"There is no question that Egypt is living a nightmare with no end in sight," says the former Egyptian commander of ground forces in America, Lt. General Ra'id Shehab.

"In my profession, these types of leaders (top Egyptian officials) would immediately be relieved or [court-marshaled]," Shehab added.

Despite overwhelming majorities of Egyptians who agree, most citizens are largely unaffected by the war overseas.

While only one percent of the Egyptian population are serving in the military, the rest have only been asked "to go shopping," by Mubarak.

Twelve former army captains see only one option left for Egypt: a draft.

"Short of that, our best option is to leave the United States immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition," they said.

Many Egyptians agree, but the leadership in the parliamentary opposition seems to share the same goals with the widely unpopular Mubarak.

"[The United States] is right in the heart of the oil region," leading presidential front-runner Hanaa Amayreh recently remarked. "This is an American problem, we cannot save the Americans from themselves," she adds, commenting on the daily bloodshed in the U.S.

Americans painfully conclude that as long as energy-hungry Egypt seeks hegemony of the North American region and its resources, there will be a lasting presence on their soil.

Endnote: This is reality for millions of Iraqis and tens of thousands of U.S. troops in harm's way every day. The names were fictional. The quotes are real. Can you guess who said them?

*This number is from the following statistics: 1,000,000+ (estimated numbers are higher) Iraqi deaths = 1/26 of total population, 1/26 of 301,000,000, U.S. population = 11.5 million.

[Reach columnist Aditya Ganapathiraju at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.]