(More than 650) US soldiers in Iraq hit by (flyborne) parasite (in Iraq)

[UpInArms]

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11352337%255E1702,00.html

MORE than 650 US troops deployed in Iraq have been infected with a fly-borne parasite that causes chronic, festering sores, officials said at a health conference in Miami.

About 660 soldiers were found to have contracted the leishmaniasis parasite since US troops launched operations in Iraq in March 2003, Colonel Naomi Arenson, an expert on the disease at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre, said.

The cases found in Iraq are all of cutaneous leishmaniasis, which is seldom lethal, and usually heals over time but can leave significant scarring.

If left untreated, simple skin sores in rare cases can spread to the nose and mouth.

<snip>

The most severe cases from Iraq are sent to the Walter Reed hospital, just outside Washington, for treatment. But US forces have recently set up facilities for basic treatment in Baghdad and Kuwait.

...more...

[ogradda]

1. damn they just can't get a break over there

can they :(

[JSJ]

16. say it's a break for the iraqi defenders

[Mojambo]

2. Wonderful

Just wonderful.

"Operation Iraqi Freedom - Everybody comes home with scars!"

Well... Not everyone is coming home I guess...

[chelaque liberal]

22. Those are just the visible scars.

[juliagoolia]

3. DEET DOES IT.. they need some OFF

http://deploymentlink.osd.mil/news/dquarterly/spring03/research.htm

Looks like DEET is what they need.. we need to be sending OFF because they can't afford deet for these guys?

[NAO]

4. I hope those Veterans Demand...and Receive Proper Health care

But I suspect Bush will try to pull some privatization scheme. You know, free up money for tax breaks for the wealthy. Some crap about "ownership" and "personal responsibility".

[alittlelark]

10. That's what the Vietnam vets demanded, and Gulf War1 vets

they did not get it, and these poor folks won't either


SUPPORT the troops....DAMMIT!

[Mabus]

5. Which reminds me, wasn't there a mystery illness

that was being reported in small newspapers about returning troops. Of course, the MSM didn't cover it very much. They probably had to go cover one of Ashcroft's terrorist announcements (that never came to anything anyway) or some new part of Laci washed up in California. But I digress. Anyway, is that mysterious illness any relation to this?

The part of the story that caught my eye came at the end:
"So far there have been no reports of US troops in Iraq or Afghanistan being infected with visceral leishmaniasis, which can cause severe damage to some of the body's internal organs, including the spleen, liver and bone marrow."

[will work 4 food]

6. Revelations chpt 9

9:5 They were given power not to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion, when it strikes a person.

[alittlelark]

11. My fundie-mom would say the same!

[Gyre]

7. The perfect disease

for a bunch of swaggering, nose-picking scabs. Eat hearty, me boys!

Gyre

[Columbia]

8. Well gee, that's nice

:eyes:

[yardwork]

9. A lot of the people dragged into combat were in the reserves for years

They are older people. They don't need abuse on top of everything else.

[MADem]

12. I agree, and thank you for piping up

I hope every one of those poor kids makes it home, in one piece, without too much emotional damage.

They do not deserve anyone's scorn. They have no option other than to obey direct orders. My heart is with them, even though I despise this damn war. They are not at fault--the civilian leadership put them in this untenable situation.

Poor bastards. All they were looking for is a little college money, an augment to their crappy regular paychecks, an opportunity to be patriotic and serve their nation, the land they love, and the next thing you know, they are political tools in a charade not of their own making.

I never find it humorous when people make fun of those of us who did, or are doing, the shitty job of providing for the national defense. In fact, I find it hugely offensive when people crap on service personnel, even though their target is the weecowboy. It's important not to forget that these youngsters volunteered to keep us all safe. It is not their fault that an idiot is issuing the orders.

I can disagree with the leadership, but not the poor sonsabitches trying to do the job they were ordered to carry out.

[daleo]

13. I am not unsympathetic to this position

But I wonder how many years it can be sustained. At some point, almost everyone who joins the U.S. military will have done it in the full knowledge that they are supporting the Iraq invasion and occupation. At that point they could no longer be construed as unwilling victims of their political masters.

I don't know when that tipping point will occur, but it seems entirely likely that it will occur. I suppose it depends on how long the average military commitment is - four years? Will people still support the troops unconditionally then?

[MADem]

15. None of the Services are making quota

Generally speaking, you sign up for EIGHT YEARS. On average, an enlistee does four active, the remainder in the Individual Ready Reserve. There are other contract options, many of which require more active time in exchange for advanced training. There are also a couple of shorter active options, too. But one way or another, they own your ass for eight years, if they want to keep you.

They've increased the CAT IV acceptance ratio (those are the dummies that cut a 24 on the ASVAB), they've increased the number of non-HS grads accepted, and they've made waivers for criminal misconduct or juvenile offenses much easier to obtain....and they STILL aren't making goal. They've cut USAF and USN end strength to transfer these numbers to the USMC and USA, they've initiated targeted stop-losses, so people with critical skills can't leave even if they are retirement-eligible or at the end of their enlistment contract, and they have also initiated a massive recall of IRR personnel in targeted specialties (fuel truck drivers, specified helo and fixed wing pilots, medical personnel, etc.) and even at that, they STILL aren't cutting goal.

They play with the numbers, they go back and reduce the goals after the fact to make it appear that all is well, and then they hold people hostage so that they can lie to Congress that they made the end-strength numbers, but the truth of the matter is that the kids who are going in are the Lynndie Englands of the world, living in the middle of nowhere, or in the middle of an economically depressed urban center, with NO job opportunity, no prospects for college, no money, no nothing. You always have the odd kid who is following the family tradition, or wants to emulate a brother or sister, or who thinks it will be like a video game, but for the most part, these kids going in have no prospects in their communities. If the unemployment rate is around nine or ten percent in an area, recruiting is easy. If it is as high as fifteen or twenty percent, you only have to open the office a couple of days a week.

The kids (term used loosely) who are over there do include a bunch of the post-9/11 patriots, but a good measure are also experienced Guardsmen and reservists who have been doing the "drill" thing for ten, twenty or more years. They're showing up, fat, dumb and happy, doing what weecowboy didn't do, doing their two weeks a year, every other weekend, and BLAM!!! Next thing you know, their lives are turned upsidedown, and they find themselves in the sandbox. They're in the middle of an enlistment contract, they can't quit--they have to serve out their contract, so they are shipped off to Iraq...and then, they are held over by popular demand! The back door draft!

It's hard, especially when you are close to qualifying for retirement, to ask someone to toss that investment in time and sweat to the side. The benefits are considerable, not just for the servicemember, but for the family members as well. A lot of these guys are halfway or closer to that point, and they are just HOPING, hoping that they don't catch a bullet, and they make it home....

I want them home. All of them. Not one more killed for oil.

[JSJ]

19. and that's a bad thing?

[daleo]

25. Thanks for your thoughtful response

It is a difficult issue. There is such a thing as personal responsibility but we are also all enmeshed in a complicated set of social and economic relations which restrict our real scope to act. People in the military (any military) are an excellent example of this fact.

The moral issue is rendered even more difficult if the majority of voters in a democracy are willing to be complicit in invasion and occupation. These times have created difficult choices for everybody. But I fear history will not look back generously at the choices now being made, for the most part.

[MADem]

27. It IS a difficult issue

And your appreciation of the challenges faced by these poor kids is the first step in understanding the awful reality of it all.

I worked with these kids, for decades. They aren't a bunch of frothing at the mouth, crazyass muthas, they are your children, your neighbor's children, your siblings, your parents, your loved ones. They just want to make a buck and provide for themselves and their families, maybe get an associate's or a BA, if they apply themselves, get a good skill to carry them over to civ-land, support their families. They are us. They love their country, they figure they can help. They may not all be sophisticated, but they have good hearts, good sense, and good souls. They cannot speak against the sitting commander in chief, all they can do is try to do the best they can to make their little corner of the theater of operations livable.

I am bothered when they are stereotyped, and I am probably unusually sensitive to it, because I've lived the reality. I went in the military as a Democrat, and I came out as a Democrat. I kept my fucking mouth SHUT, but I did not change my stripes in spite of Ronnie Reagan's buildup, GHWB's bullshit war, or Junior's Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL). I could not contribute to any presidential candidates who advocated the ousting of a sitting Commander in Chief (oh yeah, that is technically illegal, and if they get wise to it, you can kiss that promotion goodbye), but you CAN, and I DID, contribute to the DNC in every damn election cycle, as well as a number of reps and senators--I was careful to ensure that no mail went to any military PO boxes, though--who needs the goddamn hassle.

I did what these kids are doing, what many did. Kept my head down, worked for change from within.

Someone has to do it.

[JSJ]

18. no, they need to stop killing the citizens of iraq- the flies are merely..

... heavenly retribution.

[nytemare]

20. like the planes hitting the towers were??

heavenly retribution? Sounds an awful lot like the types of things Jerry Falwell says.

Karma is more of a bitch when you can't put yourself in the other guy's shoes. Hope karma doesn't come for you in the form of a draft. The troops over there are not the "Fortunate Sons" who started this war. Don't mix them up.

[JSJ]

21. now, repeat after me- iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks

[nytemare]

26. Did I say that they did?

I was referring to your calling this fly bourne plague on our troops "heavenly retribution". This sounded very much like Falwell's comments that the towers were hit because the abortionists, pagans, etc. caused God to "lift his veil of protection" on the US.

In both cases, it was a failure of our leadership. Falwell should have been asking Dubya why he was vacationing the month prior to the attack, and YOU should be asking the President why he committed our troops away from Afghanistan, where they should be, to a war that was based on false pretenses.

The White House wasn't hit by the planes, and Dubya wasn't infested with flies, so what you refer to as "heavenly retribution" seems to be a little off mark.

Now, repeat after me, "I will not confuse the financially strapped soldier with the rich chickenhawk who sent them to fight his own battle."

[JSJ]

17. ha ha ha- nicely put

[donsu]

24. agree - maybe if they pray hard enough it will go away

if you are going to murder people you have to pay the penalty.

[nytemare]

14. The flies are nasty over there

I went the first time around, there was about one fly for every 3 square inches of air. I got where I could swipe three of them with my hat at one time. They attacked our food, and they would bug us when we were sleeping.

They were pretty icky.

A good deal of these guys signed up after 9-11, and wanted to protect the country. Many of these guys also, signed up because they cannot get decent paying jobs, and they can't afford college without joining up. A lot of them are reservists and guardsmen, who did not see themeselves on long deployments in a war waged under false pretenses. These guys have failed leadership. They, as troops, should have the security of knowing that their Commander in Chief will not put them in harms way unless it is absolutely necessary. They do not have that security now, thanks to (give or probably take) some 50 million. Now not only has the Commander in Chief failed them, so has the American public.

[chelaque liberal]

23. So true: Now not only has the Commander in Chief failed them,

so has the American public.

[MADem]

28. And we need to do what we can

...to rally the American public to their side. NOT the side of war, but the side of the servicemember. It is an honorable thing to want to defend your country, to defend and protect your fellow citizens. When an asshole in charge uses military personnel in inappropriate fashion, it is HE we should be pissed at, not the poor bastard in the trenches.

Did you wear a flea collar, too? Funny, the "military medical establishment" tried initially to blame Gulf War Illness on the dog collars so many used in an effort to combat the goddamn sand fleas...lame ass bastards!