An average of 18 US military veterans are taking their lives every day as the Obama administration and the Pentagon grow increasingly defensive about the epidemic of suicides driven by Washington’s wars of aggression.
The stunning figure was reported last week by the Army Times, citing officials in the US Veterans Affairs Department.
The department estimates that there are 950 suicide attempts every month by veterans who are receiving treatment from the department. Of these, 7 percent succeed in taking their own lives, while 11 percent try to kill themselves again within nine months.
The US commander in Afghanistan said Friday that the military is wasting money by employing too many private contractors to do jobs better done by soldiers or local Afghans.
“We have created in ourselves a dependency on contractors that is greater than it ought to be,” General Stanley McChrystal told an audience of French officers and military experts at France’s defence university in Paris.
“I think we’ve gone too far. I think that the use of contractors was done with good intentions so that we could limit the number of military. I think in some cases we thought it would save money. I think it doesn’t save money.”
Another Tax Day is upon us, in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and our country is still in trouble. Many are still out of work. Times are tough. People are hurting.
Back in 2005-06, I wrote a book, The Case for Impeachment, in which I made the argument that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as other key figures in the Bush/Cheney administration–Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales–should be impeached for war crimes, as well as crimes against the Constitution of the United States.
These days, when I mention the book’s title, people sometimes ask, half in jest, whether I’m referring to the current president, Barack Obama.
Sadly, it is time to say, just 14 months into the current term of this new president, that yes, this president, and some of his subordinates, are also guilty of impeachable crimes–including many of the same ones committed by Bush and Cheney.
Let’s start with the war in Afghanistan, which Obama has taken full ownership of with an escalation that will bring the number of US troops in that country (not counting mercenaries hired by the Pentagon and CIA) to 100,000 by this August.
The whisteblower website WikiLeaks — which exploded onto the national stage earlier this month after it released avideo recording showing US servicemembers shooting two reporters and six others to death – says they plan to release another, even more harrowing clip. Collateral Murder was the title give to the project which released the video earlier this month and can be viewed by going to the following link:
Now, this new clip about to be released will show previously classified footage from US warplanes that had been tapped to bomb Taliban positions in Farah province, Afghanistan last year.
Adds the UK Telegraph: “The Afghan government said at the time that the strikes by F-18 and B1 planes near Granai killed 147 civilians. An independent Afghan inquiry later put the toll at 86.”
Update #3. Iraqi journalists want probe of taped US shooting. (click here)
Update #2. AP Military Source confirms video authenticity. (click here)
Update #1. Unedited long version of video below.
Overview
5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff.
Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.
The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.
This Saturday marks the 7th year of war in Iraq. National rallies have been planned. (SF Rally info here.)
In San Francisco, ANSWER has decided to turn down the requests of many to have a speaker who represents the 9/11 community some time on the stage.
The Northern California Truth Alliance, San Francisco 9/11 Truth, SF Truth Action, ourselves here at Nor Cal Truth, along with others will be meeting and marching together in unity. We will have signs, shirts, banners, and information to hand out, along with the new Obama deception dollars!. Since the organizers have barred us from having stage time, we must make our presence known in other peaceful and constructive ways.
The people in the crowds this weekend are people who still may not see the importance of 9/11 truth in ending the corrupt, illegal War of Terror. Many might not even know about World Trade Center #7.
Have you noticed how bad it is Haiti? Maybe you have seen the news images of corpses in the street. Sometimes piled high, or even being loaded into a tractor or bed of a 18 wheel truck. Many pictures within days of the earthquake contained scenes of crushed limbs peering through the rubble, or burning bodies on the street of Port Au Prince. Nevermind it was the French, U.S. , Central Banks and others that were keeping Haiti from being developed and prepared for an event like this.
Can you believe we have been at war for almost 9 years and still not seen the kinds of pictures from Iraq or Afghanistan that we have seen from Haiti. Where has the media been? What soldier was killed today, how, where, why? What did the soldier do for a living before being deployed? Will the soldiers remains be sent to the States, is there multiple pieces of the body, or is there even anything left of what used to be a son or daughter? Do the parents care?
What of the Afghan and Iraqi people, and Pakistan, Palestine? What do we know of the horrors in those lands committed by many including our own brothers and sisters? If you look through the internet you can find some bloody war pictures, but you will not find that material on the hourly CNN reports.
During a visit to Ramallah a year ago while the Israeli bombardment of Gaza was underway, I shared my fears with a close Palestinian friend. “It may sound insane, but I think the Israelis’ real objective is to see them all dead.”
My friend told me not to be silly, the assault was horrific, but it was not mass killing. I said that wasn’t the issue: This was a population already very vulnerable to disease, ill-health, and malnutrition after years of siege, with its infrastructure rotted, its water and food contaminated. Israel’s war would surely push the people over the brink, especially if the siege was maintained — as it has been.
In other words, Israel would not directly kill tens of thousands of Palestinians, but it would create the conditions for tens of thousands to die. Any epidemic could finish the job. My friend fell silent at these words, but still shook his head in disbelief.
Two things have changed since last year: More people have started to apply the term “genocide” to what Israel is doing to Gaza. And not only is Israel being directly accused but also, increasingly, Egypt.
Is it genocide? “The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” — a clear, concise document adopted by the United Nations in December 1948 — states that genocide is any of five acts committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
More US military personnel have taken their OWN lives than have died in action
Here is a shocking statistic that you won’t hear in most western news media: over the past nine years, more US military personnel have taken their own lives than have died in action in either the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. These are official figures from the US Department of Defence, yet somehow they have not been deemed newsworthy to report. Last year alone, more than 330 serving members of the US armed forces committed suicide – more than the 320 killed in Afghanistan and the 150 who fell in Iraq (see wsws.org).
Since 2001, when Washington launched its so-called war on terror, there has been a dramatic year-on-year increase in US military suicides, particularly in the army, which has borne the brunt of fighting abroad. Last year saw the highest total number since such records began in 1980. Prior to 2001, the suicide rate in the US military was lower than that for the general US population; now, it is nearly double the national average.
This is a step in the right direction, but being that Iraq is still occupied by the U.S. Military, Blackwater, NATO, etc., the people of Iraq have a long road ahead of them..
Iraq will help victims of the 2007 shooting of civilians in Baghdad to file a U.S. lawsuit against employees of security firm Blackwater, an incident that turned a spotlight on the United States’ use of private contractors in war zones.
Last week, a U.S. judge threw out charges against five guards accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians at a Baghdad traffic circle, saying the defendants’ constitutional rights had been violated.
Iraq called that decision “unacceptable and unjust” and, as well as supporting a lawsuit brought by Iraqis wounded in the shooting and families of those killed, it will ask the U.S. Justice Department to review the criminal case, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Sunday.
“The government will facilitate a lawsuit from Iraqi citizens to sue the guards and the company in a U.S. court,” he said.
Iraq said Friday that it will file a lawsuit against five Blackwater security guards cleared of manslaughter charges in the 2007 killing of 17 Iraqi civilians, an act a government official called murder.
The Iraqi government also will ask the U.S. Justice Department to appeal a federal judge’s “unfair and unacceptable” dismissal of the charges Thursday, spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.
An Iraqi man wounded in the 2007 incident also voiced his anger Friday, saying U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina’s dismissal of the charges showed “disregard for Iraqi blood.”
The U.S. spends more for war annually than all state governments combined spend for the health, education, welfare, and safety of 308 million Americans.
Joseph Henchman, director of state projects for the Tax Foundation of Washington, D.C. says the states collected a total of $781 billion in taxes in 2008.
For a rough comparison, according to Wikipedia data, the total budget for defense in fiscal year 2010 will be at least $880 billion and could possibly top $1 trillion. That’s more than all the state governments collect.
Posted by Brian 
