On April 17 the RAND Corporation released a study of service members and veterans back home from Iraq and Afghanistan. The 500-page study was titled Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery.

Here’s how the figures add up, just for Americans. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have thus far produced 300,000 psychological casualties, 320,000 brain injury casualties, plus 35,000 (probably understated) officially reported “normal” casualties. This adds up to 655,000 US casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, an average of just under 101,000 Americans killed or wounded every year since the wars began.

Er, the Democratic Candidates do not have plans to end the war, they have plans to try to manage it better, giving their team of policy wonks a chance to play with the toy soldiers.

Jeremy Scahill, correspondent for Democracy Now! says:

“I mean, this is actually a pretty sustained indefinite occupation that’s going to be on the table if either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama are in office and take power. “

then there is Thomas Powers in the New York Review of Books

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21431

“Iraq: Will We Ever Get Out?”

At an unmarked moment somewhere between the third and the sixth month a sea change occurs: Bush’s war becomes the new president’s war, and getting out means failure, means defeat, means rising opposition at home, means no second term. It’s not hard to see where this is going.

do you want to have to hang your head meekly as further massacres in Iraq are revealed under Commander in Chief Barack Obama?

then attempt to get a commitment for a real, total end to the illegal, immoral, continuing war crime that is the occupation.

Because how did it work out, backing John “reporting for duty” Kerry unconditionally?

We have been down this road before. In 2004, progressives lined up behind Senator Kerry, and progressive organizations made no demands upon him. The anti-war movement folded its tents. After this early and unconditional surrender on the part of the American left, Senator Kerry moved sharply to the right .The Democratic Convention was militaristic in form and corporate in policy. The candidate who had called himself “anti-war” wound up running against Bush’s war policy from the right, calling for tens of thousands more troops, and criticizing Bush for having pulled back from Falluja simply because of the massive civilian carnage. Yet for all of this appeasement of the right, Kerry lost the election.

from http://counterpunch.org/kafoury05272008.html

I know, Counterpunch is outside of the (D) pasture, but Democracy Now! and the New York Review of Books have status, so hopefully some tiny percentage can see past the messenger to the message.

Going to the movies these days and seeing the slick recruitment ads makes me want to puke.

Peace Love Light

and the WH has proposed cutting Brain Injury funding every year since 04.

…chop funding for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center from $14 million to $7 million. The center runs 10 facilities across the country, including one at Fort Bragg that has performed research and treated soldiers’ injuries since 1998.

link

pigs