Tag Archives: Iraq

All the Bad News That Fits

23 Saturday Jul 2011

Posted by in Afghanistan, budget, Congress, economy, Iraq, Medicaid, Medicare, Obama, Politics, Social Security, Unemployment, Wall Street

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“I met a girl who sang the blues, and I asked her for some happy news. She just smiled and turned away.”

In the latest episode of “As the Debt Ceiling Turns”; Boehner walks, Obama has a hissy fit, and Pelosi throws yet another plan into the mix:

“House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi acknowledged Friday that Democrats may reluctantly accept a last-minute compromise to avoid a default that involves up to $2.5 trillion in spending cuts — without agreed-upon new tax revenues — if Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are protected from the debt limit brinksmanship.”

Yes, by all means, let’s cut spending. Never mind this:

“Companies are laying off employees at a level not seen in nearly a year, hobbling the job market and intensifying fears about the pace of the economic recovery.

Cisco Systems Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp. and troubled bookstore chain Borders Group Inc. are among those that have recently announced hefty cuts, while recent government numbers underscore how companies have shifted toward cutting jobs.

The increase in layoffs is a key reason why the U.S. recorded an average of only 21,500 new jobs over the past two months, far below the level needed to bring down unemployment, which now stands at 9.2%.”

Or this:

“Initial weekly unemployment claims increased to 418,000. The 4 week moving average is 421,250. A weekly average above 400,000 does not indicate job growth and we now have a pattern of perpetual disaster for U.S. citizens trying to earn a living.”

About that default deadline, is it August 2, August 10, or August 15? Nobody seems to know for sure.

The Money Party has some questions and answers on Obama’s handling of the budget never let a good crisis go to waste. Here’s just one:

“Question:  Why did President Obama put Social Security and Medicare on the table in the budget negotiations when 80% of the people oppose cuts to these programs?

Answer:  The president is not in office to represent those people.  He was selected, funded and carried over the finish line by corporate America.  Look at the appointment of Wall Streeter Timothy Geithner, the bailouts, and the failure to prosecute any of the crooks who caused the current recession. He’s serving the people who put him in office.  Those people don’t need Social Security and Medicare.”

Not only serving the people who put him in office, but serving those who he is depending on to keep him there:

“Among big fundraisers, Obama has drawn close to a third of his money from people in the finance industry, up from 20% during his 2008 campaign, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The amount raised so far is more than two-thirds what Wall Street elites helped Obama raise in his entire 2008 campaign. And it is enough to make the finance world the single largest source of big-ticket donations for Obama.”

While we cut the social safety net out from under our most vulnerable at home, billions are going unaccounted for in Afghanistan:

“SIGAR [Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction] found that U.S. agencies have limited visibility over U.S. cash that enters the Afghan economy — leaving it vulnerable to fraud and diversion to the insurgency…”SIGAR auditors found that U.S. agencies have not done all they can to safeguard U.S. funds, and the Afghan government has not provided the cooperation needed to build a strong, secure financial system.”

Also on the Endless War front, the State Department is telling the Special Inspector General in Iraq to mind his own business when it comes to State’s mercenary army in that country:

“By January 2012, the State Department will do something it’s never done before: command a mercenary army the size of a heavy combat brigade. That’s the plan to provide security for its diplomats in Iraq once the U.S. military withdraws. And no one outside State knows anything more, as the department has gone to war with its independent government watchdog to keep its plan a secret.

Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), is essentially in the dark about one of the most complex and dangerous endeavors the State Department has ever undertaken, one with huge implications for the future of the United States in Iraq. “Our audit of the program is making no progress,” Bowen tells Danger Room.

For months, Bowen’s team has tried to get basic information out of the State Department about how it will command its assembled army of about 5,500 private security contractors. How many State contracting officials will oversee how many hired guns? What are the rules of engagement for the guards? What’s the system for reporting a security danger, and for directing the guards’ response?

And for months, the State Department’s management chief, former Ambassador Patrick Kennedy, has given Bowen a clear response: That’s not your jurisdiction. You just deal with reconstruction, not security. Never mind that Bowen has audited over $1.2 billion worth of security contracts over seven years.”

To be continued…unfortunately.

Why Is This So Damn Difficult?

09 Saturday Jul 2011

Posted by in Afghanistan, budget, economy, Iraq, Medicare, Obama, Politics, Social Security, Taxes, Unemployment, Wall Street

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This is so simple it’s ridiculous. The three major causes of the dramatic increases in debt and deficit are:

1) The Bush, now Obama, tax cuts.

2) The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

3) The financial collapse caused by Wall Street greed.

Ending the tax cuts just for those making over $250,000 will bring in $700 billion over 10 years. The wars cost about $140 billion a year. End both and we save $1.4 trillion over the same 10-year period. A financial transaction tax of just one quarter of one percent will result in $150 billion a year, $1.5 trillion over 10. There’s $3.6 trillion over 10 years, which is just about the same amount the debt ceiling dealers are talking about cutting spending. And we haven’t touched Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, etc. Yet none of these three are even on the debt ceiling/spending cut/revenue increases negotiating table. Why?

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the cost of repairing our crumbling infrastructure to be $2.2 trillion over 5 years. Do you see where I’m going here? Take the money we’ve saved, not from cutting the safety net out from under our most vulnerable who had nothing to do with the debt explosion and who did not benefit from it, but from the root causes and from those who did.

The result is millions of Americans have jobs. They’re paying income taxes, Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes. They no longer need unemployment, food stamps, or other forms of government assistance. They’re buying stuff, which creates demand for stuff, which creates more jobs, which creates more demand for stuff. And so on, and so on, and so on. Why is this so damn difficult?

But what do we get from our “leaders?” Gobbledegook and gibberish. Like President Obama’s remarks yesterday after the release of the horrible job numbers. Things like streamlining the patent process, advancing more so-called free trade agreements (which costs jobs rather that create them) and this:

“[T]o put our economy on a stronger and sounder footing for the future, we’ve got to rein in our deficits and get the government to live within its means, while still making the investments that help put people to work right now and make us more competitive in the future.

The sooner we get this done, the sooner that the markets know that the debt limit ceiling will have been raised and that we have a serious plan to deal with our debt and deficit, the sooner that we give our businesses the certainty that they will need in order to make additional investments to grow and hire and will provide more confidence to the rest of the world as well..”

Beside the fact that this is straight of the Republican playbook for economic growth, it’s nonsense (but I’m being redundant). Live within our means while making investments? What the hell is that? Give businesses the certainty they need? Businesses don’t need certainty, they need customers. Customers create jobs, not the ever-elusive confidence unicorn. Why is this so damn difficult?

The president’s mouthpiece at the Council of Economic Advisers, Austan Goolsbe offered more of the same:

“Today’s report underscores the need for bipartisan action to help the private sector and the economy grow – such as measures to extend the payroll tax cut, pass the pending free trade agreements, and create an infrastructure bank to help put Americans back to work.  It also underscores the need for a balanced approach to deficit reduction that instills confidence and allows us to live within our means without shortchanging future growth.”

*Sigh* Can’t anybody here play this game?

Americans Still Dying in Iraq

27 Monday Jun 2011

Posted by in Iraq

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In spite of the alleged “end of combat operations” June has seen both the deadliest day and the deadliest month in Iraq in over 2 years:

“Two American soldiers were killed Sunday in Iraq, the military command said, making June the worst month in combat-related fatalities for United States forces in Iraq in more than two years. The casualties also reflected the dangers ahead as the United States prepares to withdraw all its troops from Iraq by the end of the year.

[…]

In a statement issued Sunday night, the American military said the two soldiers were killed “conducting operations” in the north. It did not elaborate, but that terminology is usually meant to indicate the deaths were caused by enemy attack. In the deadliest single-day death toll since 2009, five soldiers were killed June 5 when a rocket struck Victory Base Complex, the military’s base near the Baghdad airport. A sixth later died of his wounds.”

I guess it all depends on what the definition of “combat operations” is.

Vietnam Redux

22 Wednesday Sep 2010

Posted by in Afghanistan, Iraq, war on terror

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The ever-increasing toll that an endless number of deployments necessitated by our state of perpetual war is taking on our soldiers. In Iraq:

“When Lt. Col. Dave Wilson took command of a battalion of the 4th Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, the unit had just returned to Texas from 14 months traveling some of Iraq’s most dangerous roads as part of a logistics mission.

What he found, he said, was a unit far more damaged than the single death it had suffered in its two deployments to Iraq.

Nearly 70 soldiers in his 1,163-member battalion had tested positive for drugs: methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana. Others were abusing prescription drugs. Troops were passing around a tape of a female lieutenant having sex with five soldiers from the unit. Seven soldiers in the brigade died from drug overdoses and traffic accidents when they returned to Fort Bliss, near El Paso, after their first deployment.”

In Afghanistan:

“The U.S. soldiers hatched a plan as simple as it was savage: to randomly target and kill an Afghan civilian, and to get away with it…For weeks, according to Army charging documents, rogue members of a platoon from the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, floated the idea. Then, one day last winter, a solitary Afghan man approached them in the village of La Mohammed Kalay. The “kill team” activated the plan.

One soldier created a ruse that they were under attack, tossing a fragmentary grenade on the ground. Then others opened fire…According to charging documents, the unprovoked, fatal attack on Jan. 15 was the start of a months-long shooting spree against Afghan civilians that resulted in some of the grisliest allegations against American soldiers since the U.S. invasion in 2001. Members of the platoon have been charged with dismembering and photographing corpses, as well as hoarding a skull and other human bones.”

Steve Hynd at Newshoggers (my emphasis):

“Drug abuse and suicide rates are at record highs, misdemeanours committed while in uniform have almost doubled in the last five years, sexual assaults by those in uniform have trippled since 2001.

Over a million US servicemen and women have passed through Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. Estimates on how many suffer from some form of PTSD-related illness range from 40-60%. If current psychological data on how mental illness spreads its hurt like ripples in a pool are any guide, each of them will adversly affect between five and twelve friends and close family, who will see negative behavioural changes themselves ranging from mild PTSD-like symptoms to full shell-shock caused by a mentally ill but still abusive partner or parent.

And this is why you should care. The American victims of Bush’s adventures, continued by Obama, are your brothers, sisters, parents, spouses and friends. Their troubles will affect your sister, your brother…you get the idea. This is one area where both Iraq and Afghanistan are like Vietnam.

Bring them ALL home.“

Army Suicides Hit a Record High

16 Friday Jul 2010

Posted by in Afghanistan, Iraq, war on terror

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As if another reason to get the hell out–and I mean completely out–of Iraq and Afghanistan were needed:

“The U.S. Army on Thursday reported a record number of suicides in a single month among active duty, Guard and Reserve troops, despite an aggressive program of counseling, training and education aimed at suicide prevention.

Suicides for the first half of the year are up 12 percent over 2009. In June, 32 soldiers are believed to have committed suicide, including 21 on active duty.

[…]

Army officials have been grappling in recent years with how to prevent suicides among soldiers dealing with the stress of multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Last year, suicide claimed the lives of 163 soldiers on active duty and 82 Guard and Reserve soldiers not on active duty.

The problem is not isolated to the Army. In 2009, 52 Marines and 48 Sailors took their own lives in 2009, according to a report by the American Forces Press Service. Air Force officials reported 41 active-duty suicides, a 12.5 per 100,000 ratio, in 2009.”

Supporting the troops means bringing them home. Not next year or when “conditions on the ground” are right, or when Vietnamization Afghan forces taking responsibility for their own country is complete. Now.

The Semantics of Perpetual War

06 Tuesday Jul 2010

Posted by in Afghanistan, Iraq, Obama administration, war on terror

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I can change my name to Buick and sit in the garage—it doesn’t make me a car. Likewise, whether it’s called “combat operations” or “stability operations” in Iraq—it’s still a war. And leaving 50,000 troops there isn’t a “withdrawal.”

“President Obama has set an August deadline for the end of the combat mission in Iraq…The August deadline might be seen back home as a milestone in the fulfillment of President Obama’s promise to end the war in Iraq, but here it is more complex. American soldiers still find and kill enemy fighters, on their own and in partnership with Iraqi security forces, and will continue to do so after the official end of combat operations.

[…]

What soldiers today would call combat operations — hunting insurgents, joint raids between Iraqi security forces and United States Special Forces to kill or arrest militants — will be called “stability operations.” Post-reduction, the United States military says the focus will be on advising and training Iraqi soldiers, providing security for civilian reconstruction teams and joint counterterrorism missions.

“In practical terms, nothing will change,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen R. Lanza, the top American military spokesman in Iraq. “We are already doing stability operations.”

[…]

“I like to say that in Iraq, the only thing Americans know for certain, is that we know nothing for certain,” said Brett H. McGurk, a former National Security Council official in Iraq and current fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This much IS certain. The end is not in sight for the practice of perpetual war. In Iraq or Afghanistan.

Senate Turns Down Extension of Unemployment Benefits

17 Thursday Jun 2010

Posted by in budget, Congress, Democrats, economy, Politics, Republicans

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The Republicrats in the Senate gave a big middle finger to the long-term unemployed yesterday, as 12 Democrats joined all the Republicans in voting down the extension of unemployment benefits, citing their hypocritical concerns about increasing the deficit as the reason:

“I’ve said all along that we have to be able to pay for what we’re spending,” said Sen. Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat who voted against the bill. “$77 billion or more of this is not paid for and that translates into deficit spending and adding to the debt, and the American people are right: We’ve got to stop doing that.”

Funny, Sen. Nelson didn’t have any problem with deficit spending when he voted for $165 billion to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for 2008 and 2009.

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) also voted again the extension over her concerns that unemployment benefits are so generous that they encourage people to not look for a job:

“We have 99 weeks of unemployment insurance,” Feinstein said. “The question comes, how long do you continue before people just don’t want to go back to work at all?”

Right DiFi, the unemployed are getting fat and happy living on benefits that are about one-third of their previous wages. This coming from the ninth richest member of Congress whose assets in 2005 were estimated at $40 million. And oh by the way, whose husband, Richard Blum, just happens to own two defense contractors that benefitted greatly from Sen. Feinstein’s time as chairman of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee.

Feinstein was echoing what Congressman John Linder (R-GA) said last week:

“Georgia Republican Rep. John Linder suggested Thursday that extended unemployment benefits keep people from looking for work…”[N]early two years of unemployment benefits are too much of an allure for some,” said Linder.”

OK, Rep. Linder, let’s apply your logic to the Pentagon. Since you also voted for the $165 billion in funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, isn’t that “too much of an allure” for the continuation of both wars? Let’s cut off their funding and end their addiction.

Last but not least, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) turned up the stoopid yesterday with his proposal that the unemployed undergo drug tests in order to receive benefits. Right, Orrin. The 46% of the unemployed who have been out of work for more than 6 months, the highest number since the Labor Department started keeping that statistic in 1948, would rather sit around the house, get high and watch the tube than go to work. Idiot.

I propose that members of Congress undergo drug testing. Or maybe more appropriately, brain scans.

“More Empires Have Fallen Because of Reckless Finances Than Invasion”

09 Tuesday Feb 2010

Posted by in Afghanistan, George W. Bush, Iraq, Obama, war on terror

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From Eric Margoils’ Wars Sending US Into Ruin, at Common Dreams:

“More empires have fallen because of reckless finances than invasion.”

Speaking of empires:

“There are 750 U.S. military bases in 50 nations and 255,000 service members stationed abroad, 116,000 in Europe, nearly 100,000 in Japan and South Korea.

The Pentagon now accounts for half of total world military spending…China and Russia combined spend only a paltry 10% of what the U.S. spends on defense.”

And now for the reckless finances:

“Obama’s total military budget is nearly $1 trillion. This includes Pentagon spending of $880 billion. Add secret black programs (about $70 billion); military aid to foreign nations like Egypt, Israel and Pakistan; 225,000 military “contractors” (mercenaries and workers); and veterans’ costs. Add $75 billion…for 16 intelligence agencies with 200,000 employees.

Like Bush, Obama is paying for America’s wars through supplemental authorizations — putting them on the nation’s already maxed-out credit card. Future generations will be stuck with the bill.

The Afghanistan and Iraq wars ($1 trillion so far), will cost $200-250 billion more this year, including hidden and indirect expenses. Obama’s Afghan “surge” of 30,000 new troops will cost an additional $33 billion – more than Germany’s total defense budget.

Military spending gobbles up 19% of federal spending and at least 44% of tax revenues. During the Bush administration, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – funded by borrowing – cost each American family more than $25,000.

Margolis concludes:

“Increasing numbers of Americans are rightly outraged and fearful of runaway deficits. Most do not understand their political leaders are also spending their nation into ruin through unnecessary foreign wars and a vainglorious attempt to control much of the globe – what neocons call “full spectrum dominance.”

“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” James Madison—1795.

Facing Tough Choices on Deficit and Debt

04 Thursday Feb 2010

Posted by in economy, Politics

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I think most people who live in the real world (leaving out the gutless wonders who inhabit Washington, D.C.) will agree that if we ever hope to get our fiscal house in order some tough choices will have to be made. David Pauly has a piece at Bloomberg today with 9 suggestions:

1. Restore all income taxes to the pre-President George W. Bush level, not just those for people earning $250,000 or more.

2. Tax the banks $90 billion as proposed by President Barack Obama to pay for their bailout. Then break them up — making them small enough to fail and eliminating the need for more trillion-dollar rescues.

3. Eliminate income-tax deductions for property taxes and mortgage interest. Phase it in over five years so it hurts less.

4. Break Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into four mortgage- buying companies and get them off the federal dole.

5. Raise the retirement age for collecting full Social Security benefits to 72. Cut cost-of-living increases for beneficiaries to half the inflation rate for 10 years.

6. Raise the age for Medicare eligibility to 68.

Regarding numbers 5 and 6: Keep in mind that when Social Security was passed in 1936, life expectancy was 62. When Medicare was passed in 1965 it was 70. Today it’s 78.

7. End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the current schedules.

8. Kill farm subsidies.

9. Reduce government.
Pauly lists some of the overlapping agencies and departments which could eliminated:

The government has both the U.S. Postal Service and the Postal Regulatory Commission. Doesn’t competition from e-mail and FedEx Corp. keep postal rates in line?

[Does] the president really needs both a Council of Economic Advisers and a National Economic Council?

Government housing officials will have less to do if we cut Fannie and Freddie loose.

Whole agencies might be suspect. We, for instance, have a Selective Service System but no draft.

Certainly food for thought.

A Simple Solution to the Army's Suicide Epidemic

31 Sunday Jan 2010

Posted by in Afghanistan, Iraq, war on terror

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McClatchy has the account today (January 31) of Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Samuel Rhodes and his battle with thoughts of suicide as an example of this ever-increasing problem among active duty soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan:

“It’s been roughly five years since Rhodes came home from his third tour in Iraq, and despite a highly-decorated 29-year career in the Army, a new book, more than a hundred speaking engagements and praise from the likes of Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, for his efforts in suicide prevention, Rhodes still wrestles with his own demons.

…Rhodes is among a small cadre of senior non-commissioned officers and officers who’re opening up about their journeys back from the brink of suicide — efforts that top military commanders applaud as they battle a suicide epidemic.

…This month, the Defense Department reported that there were 160 reported active-duty Army suicides in 2009, up from 140 in 2008. Of these, 114 have been confirmed, while the cause of death in the remaining 46 remains to be determined. The increase in military suicides includes men between the ages of 18-30, mid-career officers and, increasingly, women.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other military leaders have said the increase is likely related to repeated deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and to the stigma long associated with seeking treatment for mental health problems.

…In response, the Pentagon has poured millions of dollars into new suicide prevention programs and thousands of hours on helping soldiers suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

If I may, the people at the Pentagon are treating the symptoms but not the disease. I can save them those millions of dollars and thousands of hours spent on seeking a solution to this problem with one simple prescription. It’s a great, big dose of  ‘Get the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan and put an end to this perpetual state of war.’