No Need To Explain

Iraq war numbers abound: five years; 4,000 American military deaths; 28,500 more (or fewer) troops; $5,000 per second; and X number of Iraqi military and civilian casualties -- where the X is unknown, at least here at home.

The numbers can't actually tell us what we should do, and they are all inhumanely impersonal. Despite whatever "success" has come from the surge, public support remains low. Five years seems so long, and 4,000 seems a number so extreme to the cause, and a war costing $5,000 per second seems so obscene, and gas is more than $3 a gallon, and our economy is now reeling. There are 224 days until Tuesday, Nov. 4.

Yesterday, four U.S. soldiers were killed when their vehicle in south Baghdad was hit by an IED, bringing the U.S. military death toll in Iraq to 4,000.

Something You Probably Didn't Think Much About....

For me, reading this article was a "D'Oh!" moment. I had wondered why Reuters featured it, until I gave half a thought to it:

Of the nearly 24,000 wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, about a third suffer from some degree of traumatic brain injury, or TBI, according to the General Accounting Office.

The government has been on the defensive about veterans' medical care after a probe found shoddy living conditions of recovering wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, considered the jewel in the military's health care system.

A newly-appointed Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors was formed by U.S. President George Bush in response. A major topic is whether the civilian sector could be used more in treating traumatic brain injury, one of the fastest growing injuries of the war.

Brain injuries.

Losing a limb is one thing. Having shrapnel pierce your skin is one thing (my dad has lived into his 90s after having shrapnel nick his heart). Having your brains turned to scrambled eggs because of the concussive force of IED after IED?

That's a completely different kettle of fish.

With a corporeal injury, you see the damage, you fix the damage. Even with a physical trauma to the brain, you see the damage, you fix the damage.

But when you're talking about the effects that shock waves have on that 20 pound (in Republicans' case, about half that) mass of tissue, and what precisely it effects, you've got real problems that are long term and will require a lifetime of monitoring.

So 8,000 men and women have suffered brain damage in five years, just so this is put into perspective.

And the Bush administration's response? Outsource the problem! Here we have a chance as a nation to do right by people who may be irreparably harmed beyond repair, serving their country, and the first thing Bush's cronies can think is to help enrich their friends in the AMA and insurance fields.

Even if you take the most cynical view of this situation, that it's a marvelous opportunity to do research on brain function and trauma, this should be handled by the government, nevermind that the government not only ought to be footing the bill for this, but the government ought to have direct oversight over the treatment of these injuries suffered for an illegal invasion of a sovereign people who did nothing to harm Americans.

Pretty disgusting and feckless, if you ask me.

tags technorati : Bush Iraq brain injuries

Moron More On Pace

Y'know, the more I read of this interview the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs gave, the more I realize he is wholly unfit to be leading the greatest armed force in the history of the world:

I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is okay to be immoral in any way.

Immediately, of course, this brings to mind the classic bit out of Alice's Restaurant...

I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench
'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington."

Sure. Moral turpitude will get you out of military service in Pace's army...or will it?

After all, we wouldn't want, say, gang members to enlist, would we?:

(05/03/06 - FAYETTEVILLE) - An unlikely place has become the new battleground for American gangs. Gang leaders want their members to sign up for military duty so they can learn urban combat tactics.

Or maybe members of the Klan or Aryan Nation?:

July 7, 2006 -- Under pressure to meet wartime manpower goals, the U.S. military has relaxed standards designed to weed out racist extremists. Large numbers of potentially violent neo-Nazis, skinheads and other white supremacists are now learning the art of warfare in the armed forces.

Department of Defense investigators estimate thousands of soldiers in the Army alone are involved in extremist or gang activity. "We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," said one investigator. "That's a problem."

After all, nothing inspires a people to gather together in democratic convention under the auspices of an occupying force like walking past a sign calling you a "towelhead".

Not that I have any problem with gang members or prisoners fighting in wars. It sounds like it would be a pretty good idea, so long as there was careful supervision, say the kind you'd get in a real war, with two armies and guns and bullets and bombs. Why not let them sacrifice and win back some of the freedoms they so willingly (and in many cases, unwillingly) let go of?

But to suddenly claim there's some moral standard for fighting an illegal and immoral war against a people that did nothing to us, to remove a leader who was no threat at all to us, and in fact may have been stabilizing a region that is clearly in danger of falling into genocidal ethnic cleansing (and you thought him killing his own people was brutal...just wait), is ludicrous at best, and cynical at worst.

Especially when the hodgepodge we've thrown at Iraq is made up of the loose ends and detritus of the great American military, four years into the conflict that made no sense to begin with. Here's your immorality, general:

The U.S. military is sending troops with serious psychological problems into Iraq and is keeping soldiers in combat even after superiors have been alerted to suicide warnings and other signs of mental illness, a Courant investigation has found.

Despite a congressional order that the military assess the mental health of all deploying troops, fewer than 1 in 300 service members see a mental health professional before shipping out.

Once at war, some unstable troops are kept on the front lines while on potent antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs, with little or no counseling or medical monitoring.

And some troops who developed post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq are being sent back to the war zone, increasing the risk to their mental health.

"Support the troops," huh? You just know the same folks who are waving the biggest flags and brooking no dissent will be the first to turn their backs on these guys when they come home, labelling them criminals and crazies, just like what happened after Vietnam, when honest veterans, looking to find help for themselves and their fellow soldiers and sailors, were belittled, marginalized and then denigrated...."swift boated," if you will. People like John Kerry, and Ron Kovic, people who saw an injustice being done to ordinary citizens and spoke out.

No, these Iraqi soldiers will be the first to be marginalized by the Karl Roves of the world. After all, how much more use to Rove can they be, once they're back from fighting the war he was too scared to strap on a rifle and stand a post for?

And they'll blame us "liberals"...

(hat tip to MissC for the Courant story)

snarkasm, snarcasm, snarky

Bush
Iraq
Peter Pace

Why This War Is So Wrong

Before:

After:


For all the reasons we should never have gotten into this misguided and illegal war, this one should stand out in stark contrast to all the pontifications and think-pieces combined.

This kid, this boy, got in harm's way for a war we shouldn't be fighting, and two lives were changed completely for it.

(Hat tip Scribes at Martini Republic)
Photos courtesy of Nina Berman/Redux. The entire series here.

This Is Why Bloggers Are So Vital

Especially if you have an ability to retain any information at all, because it is in blogs that you learn things that pass the American public by:

WASHINGTON -- Americans are keenly aware of how many U.S. forces have lost their lives in Iraq, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll. But they woefully underestimate the number of Iraqi civilians who have been killed.

When the poll was conducted earlier this month, a little more than 3,100 U.S. troops had been killed. The midpoint estimate among those polled was right on target, at about 3,000.

[...]The number of Iraqis killed, however, is much harder to pin down, and that uncertainty is perhaps reflected in Americans' tendency to lowball the Iraqi death toll by tens of thousands.

Iraqi civilian deaths are estimated at more than 54,000 and could be much higher; some unofficial estimates range into the hundreds of thousands. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq reports more than 34,000 deaths in 2006 alone.

34,000 a year is probably more accurate, given the 2004 Johns Hopkins study which showed that over 100,000 Iraqis had died in the first year and a half of war.

Which you read about only on the blogs.

Or the Lancet study of 2006 which showed upwards of 650,000 dead Iraqis. Again, you barely heard about this in the paper or on your nightly news, but you read about it on the blogs.

Here's the shocker:

Among those polled for the AP survey, however, the median estimate of Iraqi deaths was 9,890. The median is the point at which half the estimates were higher and half lower.

Amazing. Simply amazing.

I guess it has something to do with the low expectations of having the same story hammered into your head, day after day. You start to think they're all the same story being rehashed and retold.

But they're not.

We're committing genocide. Remember: you read that charge here first.