Five American families are, today, having the worst days of their lives, thanks to their generosity in allowing their child to participate in a pointless war, built on knowing lies more than eight years ago, by men and women who have faced no consequences for those lies.
The deaths of the five soldiers in Iraq today mean that 4,459 U.S. troops have been killed to date in that particular war, while 1,610 have died in Afghanistan for reasons which remain similarly unknown on this day as well.
That's 6,069 U.S. troops killed in wars begun, but still not ended, by war criminals who have faced no consequences for their dishonest actions in illegally and dishonestly and recklessly waging wars with our blood and treasure in the name of this country. That total, of course, fails to include the number of U.S. contractors, foreign troops, and the untold number of citizens of both nations (and of the several other nations where we are waging wars as well) who have been killed in the bargain.
The carnage continues, with little hope for a real end in sight, and virtually no hope for accountability for those whose actions led directly to these tragic deaths...
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8556National Security Brief: June 7, 2011
By ThinkProgress on Jun 7, 2011 at 9:00 am
The U.S. military plans to pay 10 Iraqi tribal leaders $10,000 per month to help secure American troops as they begin to withdraw at the end of the year. “Given the amount of money we have spent in this country, $100,000 to secure our highway a month is a small price to pay,” said Col. Douglas Crissman.
As the White House nears its decision on Afghanistan, military leaders will reportedly oppose a substantial withdrawal, while in Congress, opposition to the war “appears to be hardening.”
White House spokesperson Jay Carney said that President Obama was planning a “real drawdown” of U.S. troops in Afghanistan starting this July, but that the decisions were based on local conditions and not a re-opening of the debate on war strategy.
IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said “it is very likely” that a facility destroyed by Israel in Syria was a nuclear reactor. Amano says the reactor should have been reported to the IAEA and that “it is deeply regrettable the faciliity was destroyed-allegedly by Israel-without the agency having been given an opportunity to perform its verification role...”
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/06/07/238236/national-security-brief-june-7-2011/Interesting that this site is blocked right now. I captured this headline, but the link does not light up, and the link when put into a search engine, likewise will not light it up. Instead you get a "HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable," message.
State Dept. Blocks Audit of Iraq Police Training Program
http://www.allgov.com//ViewNews/State_Dept_Blocks_Audit_of_Iraq_Police_Training_110607ProgramThe State Department is refusing to allow the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction to conduct an audit of the department’s multibillion-dollar training program of Iraqi police.
June 7, 2011 at 01:29:14
Secret Wars Of CIA Cost U.S. Taxpayers Billions Of Dollars
By Sherwood Ross
It's been estimated the Iraq war, besides making that country pretty much unlivable, will flush $3 trillion in U.S. taxpayer dollars down the Pentagon drain. Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz, who made that cost estimate, wrote with co-author Linda Bilmes in The Washington Post March 9, 2008, "The Iraq adventure has seriously weakened the U.S. Economy...you can't spend $3 trillion -- yes, $3 trillion -- on a failed war abroad and not feel the pain at home."
The Stiglitz study is well known and is a factor in making many Americans want to get out of Iraq. (A CNN poll this January found two-thirds opposed the war.) But other costly wars have been waged by the White House, Pentagon, and CIA that have been kept largely secret. Their costs ran into the billions of dollars and not only cheated uninformed taxpayers but lacerated innocent nations, turning their populations against us, and ruined for American business countries that should have been harmonious trading partners.
Take El Salvador. President John Kennedy in the early Sixties worked to help El Salvador's military set up ORDEN, a rural paramilitary network, and ANSESAL, an intelligence agency, that were the forerunners of the dreaded Death Squads. Between 1980 and 1992, the U.S. literally waged a war to help the government suppress El Salvador's poverty-struck people. The CIA created right-wing Death Squads to murder labor leaders who fought on behalf of the poor for decent wages. By the time those killer bands had finished their slaughter, 75,000 civilians lay dead and "the U.S. Treasury depleted by six billion dollars," according to journalist William Blum's "Rogue State" from Common Courage Press.
"Officially, the U.S. Military presence in El Salvador was limited to an advisory capacity. In actuality, military and CIA personnel played a more active role on a continuous basis," Blum writes. "About 20 Americans were killed or wounded in helicopter and plane crashes while flying reconnaissance or other missions over combat areas, and considerable evidence surfaced of a U.S. role in the ground fighting as well..."
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Secret-Wars-Of-CIA-Cost-U-by-Sherwood-Ross-110607-246.htmlU.S. Taxpayers Raked Over The Fake War Coals Again and Again
Congressional Grifters Scam U.S. Taxpayers
Cost of War in Iraq & Afghanistan is $1,202,614,324,202 – more details >>>
by Debbie Menon
The $1,202,614,324,202 dollar cost to date and counting, for the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan is the low estimate, or rather the literal cost. This does not include the cost of borrowing that money, or the cost of 5 or 6 decades of medical care and disability pensions for several hundred thousand American soldiers.
These figures don’t include the health and education services and other social programs which were robbed to pay for the war, which will probably never be funded again. And most important, the direct costs and the opportunity costs to the Iraqi people and their economy, including the lost income and pain and suffering of more than a million dead and many million Iraqis turned into refugees in an illegal assault on their nation.
Suddenly, life in the U.S.A. doesn’t seem so stable anymore, if you believe half of what you read in the press and there is no reason not to.
Unemployment is as high or higher than it has ever been, and this is reflected in statistics of which enumerating procedure is ever-changing in order to minimize the impression and impact. Those hundreds of thousands of healthy, trained, capable and willing “workers” who are unemployed and looking for work, taking anything they can to earn enough to put something on the table, are probably even greater than they were during The Great Depression in 1929...
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/06/06/u-s-taxpayers-raked-over-the-fake-war-coals-again-and-again/U.S. Plans Private Guard Force for Iraq
State Department Prepares to Hire 5,100-Strong Security Detail and Take Over Military Hardware for After Army Leaves
By NATHAN HODGE
WASHINGTON—The State Department is preparing to spend close to $3 billion to hire a security force to protect diplomats in Iraq after the U.S. pulls its last troops out of the country by year's end.
In testimony Monday before the Commission on Wartime Contracting, Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, said the department plans to hire a 5,100-strong force to protect diplomatic personnel, guard embassy buildings and operate a fleet of aircraft and armored vehicles.
Underscoring the security risks in Iraq, five American troops were killed Monday in an attack in Baghdad, the largest single loss of life for the U.S. military there since April 2009.
Fewer than 50,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq. Under a 2008 U.S.-Iraqi security agreement, all U.S. troops are supposed to leave the country by the end of the year, leaving behind only a small military office to oversee arms sales...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304906004576369801913947130.htmlHi ho!
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