Disturbing Stirrings - Ratcheting Up For War On Iran

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By Stephen Lendman (about the author) Page 6 of 7 page(s)

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Left out of the above figures are future illnesses and deaths from exposure to toxic substances like depleted uranium. It now saturates large areas of Iraq in the soil, air and drinking water. Also omitted is the vast psychological toll. For many, it causes permanent damage, and whole families become victims.

Consider civilian contractor casualties as well. They may be in the thousands. A February Houston Post report noted 1123 US civilian contractor deaths. It left out numbers of wounded or any information about foreign workers. They may have been affected most.

Several other reports are played down. One is from the VA about 18 known daily suicides. The true number may be higher. Another comes from Bloomberg.com on May 5 but unreported on TV news. It cited Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health on an April 2008 Rand Corporation study. It found about "18.5% of returning (Iraq and Afghan) US soldiers (afflicted with) post-traumatic stress disorder or depression (PTSD), and only half of them receive treatment."

Much of it shows up later, and many of its victims never recover. A smaller psychiatric association study put the PTSD number at about 32%, and a January 2006 Journal of the American Medical Association put it even higher - 35% of Iraq vets seeking help for mental health problems. A still earlier 2003 New England Journal of Medicine Study reported an astonishing 60% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans showing PTSD "symptoms." Most victims said their duty caused it, but over half of them never sought treatment fearing damage to their careers.

The same Rand study said another 19% have possible traumatic brain injuries ranging from concussions to severe head wounds. About 7% of vets suffer a double hit - both brain injury and PTSD or depression. It's a wonder numbers aren't higher as most active duty and National Guard forces serve multiple tours - some as many as six or more in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Surviving that ordeal in one piece is no small achievement.

Patraeus' calculus omits these victims and all other war costs abroad and at home. They're consigned to an over-stuffed memory hole for whatever outs the facts on the ground or his PR-enhanced image.

Petras strips it away and calls him "a disastrous failure" whose record is so poor it takes media magic to remake it. This man will now direct administration Middle East policy. He supports its aims, and if neocon wishes are adopted it means continued war and occupation of Iraq, stepped up efforts in Afghanistan, and making a hopeless enterprise worse by attacking Iran. No problem for Petraeus if it helps his ambitions. They, of course demand success, or at least the appearance, the way Petraeus so far has framed it. It remains to be seen what's ahead, and how long defeat can be called victory.

And one more thing as well. Congress will soon vote on more Iraq-Afghanistan supplemental funding. Bush wants another $108 billion for FY 2008. In hopes a Democrat will be elected president, Congress may add another $70 billion through early FY 2009 for a total $178 billion new war spending (plus the usual pork add-ons) on top of an already bloated Pentagon budget programmed to increase.

It's got economist Joseph Stiglitz alarmed and has for some time. In his judgment, the Iraq war alone (conservatively) will cost trillions of dollars, far more than his earlier estimates. That's counting all war-related costs:

-- from annual defense spending plus huge supplemental add-ons;

-- outsized expenses treating injured and disabled veterans - for the government and families that must bear the burden;

-- high energy costs; they're affected by war but mostly result from blatant market manipulation; it's not a supply/demand issue; there's plenty of oil around, but not if you listen to industry flacks citing shortages and other false reasons why prices shot up so high;

-- destructive budget and current account deficits; in the short run, they're stimulative, but sooner or later they matter; they're consuming the nation, and analysts like Stiglitz and Chalmers Johnson believe they'll bankrupt us; others do as well like Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert Higgs who last year outed the nation's trillion dollar defense budget; in a recent May 7 article, he wrote: "As the US government taxes, spends, borrows, regulates, mismanages, and wastes resources on a scale never before witnessed in the history of mankind, it is digging its own grave;" others believe we're past the tipping point and it's too late;

-- debts must be serviced; the higher they mount, the
greater the cost; they crowd out essential public and private investment; need growing billions for interest payments; damage the dollar; neglect human capital; and harm the country's stature as an economic leader; the more we eat our seed corn, the greater the long-term damage;

-- debts also reduce our manoeuvring room in times of national crisis; limitless money-creation and reckless spending can't go on forever before inflation debases the currency; that's a major unreported threat at a time monetary and fiscal stimulus shifted financial markets around, and touts now predict we're out of the woods; they don't say for how long, what may follow, or how they'll explain it if they're wrong;

-- add up all quantifiable war costs, and Stiglitz now estimates (conservatively) a $4 - 5 trillion total for America alone; watch for higher figures later; both wars have legs; another may be coming; leading presidential candidates assure are on board and have no objection to out-of-control militarism;

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I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.

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