Cost of Iraq war

I gave out this page of notes as prep for a justice and peace forum last night. (I can't get the URLs to copy in full, but they are as follows: antiwar.com/casualties/ and justforeignpolicy.org and nationalpriorities.org/Cost-of-War/Cost-of-War-3.html)

Americans killed in Iraq:

* Since 3/19/03: 3,836
* Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03): 3,697

Americans wounded in Iraq:

* Officially, 28,276
* Estimated, up to 100,000

Iraqis killed:

* Johns Hopkins/Lancet estimate of July 2006: 601,000 violent Iraqi deaths
* Sept. 2007 study by the prestigious Opinion Research Business (UK) estimates that 1.2 million Iraqis have been killed violently since the U.S. invasion

In dollars::

* As of today, at 2:40 p.m.: $462,715,002,937. ($333,000 per day)

Iraq War Corruption

Frank Rich has a powerful article in today's New York Times entitled SUICIDE IS NOT PAINLESS. The article can be found at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/opinion/21rich.html

For those who are not going to read the article, here is an excerpt:

"That Vatican-sized (Baghdad) complex is the largest American embassy in the world. Now running some $144 million over its $592 million budget and months behind schedule, the project is notorious for its deficient, unsafe construction, some of which has come under criminal investigation. First Kuwaiti has also been accused of engaging in human trafficking to supply the labor force. But the current Bush-appointed State Department inspector general — guess what — has found no evidence of any wrongdoing. Both that inspector general, Howard Krongard, and First Kuwaiti are now in the cross hairs of Henry Waxman’s House oversight committee... Representative Waxman is also trying to overcome State Department stonewalling to investigate corruption in the Iraqi government. In perverse mimicry of his American patrons, Nuri al-Maliki’s office has repeatedly tried to limit the scope of inquiries conducted by Iraq’s own Commission on Public Integrity. The judge in charge of that commission, Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, has now sought asylum in America. Thirty-one of his staff members and a dozen of their relatives have been assassinated, sometimes after being tortured.

"The Waxman investigations notwithstanding, the culture of corruption, Iraq war division, remains firmly entrenched."

Down to 24 percent

OK, the rate of Americans waking from a deep sleep seems to be accelerating. The latest Reuters-Zogby poll shows that George W. Bush's approval rate has now dropped to 24%. To put this in perspective, the record is held by Richard Nixon at 23%. (That was just before he resigned in the wake of the Watergate fiasco.)

The sleeping, however, seems to be a lot deeper on Capitol Hill. Despite the obvious signs that Bush is delusional (see my Sept. 26 blog for definition), Republicans still stand by their man and keep his veto stamp very well inked. The word is around that many of them will stop burning incense before The Decider right after the primary elections. So how immoral is that kind of waiting? The deaths in Iraq mount, as that so-called country--like Caesar's Gaul--divides ever more solidly into three totally antagonistic parts. The possibility of a US attack on Iran grows. (The fear-mongering president today came up with "Third World War" language.) The propaganda mill is cranked up over and over again. ("The United States does not torture prisoners.") More and more working Americans are losing their health insurance. (And how will the vote on children's health coverage go tomorrow?)

Snap out of it, you craven Hill people. We all know he's not going to resign like Nixon. So get to work on impeachment. (Yes, Ms. Pelosi, we do know that the path is well laid out in the Constitution.) And if you Hill folks can't come up with the numbers to impeach, at least start throwing monkey wrenches into the Bush-Cheney machine. As a nation we have good reason to believe that our democracy might not survive 14 more months of this imperial presidency.

Bushspeak vs. Carter clarity

Last Friday, George W. Bush said, "This government does not torture people." I would bet that most of the people around the world who learned of that statement groaned.

Yesterday former President Jimmy Carter said that the United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law. He told Wolf Blitzer of CNN News: "I don't think it. I know it."

Carter said, "Our country for the first time in my lifetime has abandoned the basic principle of human rights. We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners..."

The evidence that our own country tortures people is overwhelming. It is undeniable. And so is the fact that--shamefully and sadly--the president of our country is a bald-faced liar.

Paying for the mercenaries

How often do average Americans stop to consider that they are the ones paying for Bush's mad oil adventure in Iraq? To the tune of about $333,000,000 a day.

A sizeable hunk of that money is going to the mercenaries of Blackwater. The Bush government now pays $1,222 per day for each one of those guys, $445,000 a year, more than 600% the cost of an equivalent US soldier. From 2001 to 2006, the federal government has paid Blackwater over $1 billion.

So what has that billion dollars purchased? According to a NY Times article Monday on a report given to the House oversight committee, "Reckless, shoot-first guards who (are) not always sober and (do) not always stop to see who or what was hit by their bullets," That same article says, "Guards working in Iraq for Blackwater USA have shot innocent Iraqi civilians and have sought to cover up the incidents, sometimes with the help of the State Department."

And now the gutless wonders of Capitol Hill are almost surely going to give Bush another 190 billion war dollars--for Iraq and Afghanistan, but so far the Iraq war/occupation by itself has cost at least 450 billion dollars. Anyone reading this already knows about the ghastly death toll, which as of today includes 3,808 US troops.

In the meantime, the eyes of the nation seem fixed on the ever-more-pathetic Britney Spears. There's just not enough time, I guess, to concentrate on upping the heat on Congress to cut off Bush and Cheney's war bucks and bring the troops home.