4,000 doesn't even begin to quantify the impact of the war

[Gentle Giant]

Why are we in Iraq again?


The battle-scarred caretakers
Relatives of disabled veterans say US support insufficient
By Anna Badkhen, Globe Staff | March 24, 2008

Since a Baghdad suicide bombing in 2003 shattered the right side of Ted Bittle's face, injuring his brain and lodging shards of shrapnel in the right side of his body, the life of his wife, flight attendant Denise Bittle, has revolved around his frequent hospitalizations, incessant pain, moodiness, forgetfulness, and bouts of anger.

Unable to combine work and caring for her husband, Bittle has lost three jobs. She has moved three times - twice to be closer to the military hospital where Ted was receiving treatment, and once to pursue a job she then had to quit so that she could care for Ted - ultimately squeezing her family of three into an East Boston loft she can barely afford. Her days are consumed by taking Ted to his appointments with doctors and counselors, filing paperwork on his behalf so that he receives benefits accorded disabled veterans, and taking care of the couple's 5-year-old son, Ari.

Denise Bittle's story exemplifies the plight of thousands of relatives of veterans disabled in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have had to quit their jobs, uproot their families to be closer to hospitals, rebuild their homes to accommodate the needs of veterans with physical disabilities, and make taking care of their loved ones their full-time occupation.

"The families will be living with disabilities for the rest of their lives as well as the servicemen who were injured," said David Autry, spokesman for the Disabled Veterans of America, which is advocating for a better support system for families of disabled veterans.

More than 30,000 troops have been wounded in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the care they receive has been a subject of national scrutiny. But little attention has been paid to their families, many of whom now have to live with maimed or traumatized veterans. Injured veterans' families and advocates say the support that exists for such families is insufficient.

"It's still under the radar," said Paul Rieckhoff, an Iraq war veteran and director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a private advocacy organization. "This country is still getting its head around the scope of the difficulties facing veterans themselves."

Recognizing that family members of injured veterans need extra help, the federal Department of Veterans Affairs in December announced a $4.7 million package of services for the families of injured veterans that includes help with transportation, respite care, and emotional support. Congress this January expanded the Family and Medical Leave Act to stipulate that employers must allow caretakers to take off up to 26 weeks instead of 12 to care for severely injured service members.

But that is not enough, said Rieckhoff and other advocates. The injured veterans' relatives also need help navigating the bureaucracy of the benefits system; extra money to compensate for jobs they have given up in order to take care of their loved ones; counseling; help with child care and even with such basic things as doing the laundry and getting groceries.

"Programs are out there, but is it enough? No. Can we do better? Yes," said US Representative Michael Michaud, a Democrat from Maine, who held a hearing last month about improving access to mental health treatment for veterans' families.

Denise Bittle is 45, has worked her entire adult life, is used to a comfortable middle-class lifestyle, and had planned, until Ted's injury, to work until retirement as a New York-based flight attendant for United Airlines, her employer at the time. But the suicide bombing that shattered Ted's face destroyed those plans.

Bittle lost her job with United Airlines after she moved, first to Maryland and then to Pennsylvania, to be close to Ted during the 18 months he spent recovering from his injury at a military hospital in Bethesda, Md.

In 2005, she got a job with American Eagle Airlines out of Logan Airport and moved to Boston. A year later she had to quit because she could not juggle caring for Ted, raising Ari, and working full time.

She took a job at the North Suffolk Mental Health Association, Inc. in Charlestown, helping manage a group home for the mentally disabled. Two months later, Ted had to be hospitalized again, and she quit that job. She is unemployed now and hopes to start working for Northwest Airlines part time on March 31.

The last five years of her life have been steeped in frustration. She struggles to sustain her family and pay the mortgage on their $300,000 loft on the single income that comes from Ted Bittle's disability check and Social Security payments, which total about $5,000 a month.

His metamorphosis from a kind, intelligent, funny man who wooed her 10 years ago to an impatient, bitter man who dozes off unpredictably, sometimes even when standing at the stove cooking, wears on her. She feels as though her life is being neglected.

He tells her that she is living beyond her means. She tells him she feels unappreciated. They argue regularly.

In the Bittles' East Boston loft last week, Denise rummaged through Ted's paperwork, trying to find a particular X-ray of his face, which has been reconstructed with titanium plates. Ted, 36, doodled in a notepad, trying to perfect a drawing of Snoopy as part of his post-injury physical rehabilitation program.

Periodically, the former Navy corpsman dozed off, the way he often does nowadays, partly because of his traumatic brain injury, the signature wound of the war in Iraq, and partly because of the medications he takes to dull the excruciating pain in the right side of his face. He takes 600 milligrams of morphine daily, along with other medications.

"His condition is permanent," Denise Bittle said, looking at her husband across the living room. Asked if she were prepared to take care of her husband for the rest of his life, she responded: "I think at times I live in denial."

Ted Bittle looked up from the couch. "If it wasn't for me you would be doing things that you were doing before," he said, resentfully and slowly, searching for words that have eluded him often since his injury. "You still want to be the Denise of before."

"I was happy flying," she shot back. "I do quite a bit to make them [Ted and Ari] safe and healthy, and he criticizes me."

Denise Bittle glanced at a wall hung with certificates commemorating her husband's service in Iraq, and plaques that came with the Purple Heart he received for his injury. "Ted is the hero," she said. "I'm just the support system."

[Gary Sisco]

No, it doesn't. If only because still focussed on Americans.

Another similarity with Vietnam will emerge. The Iraq War will come to be seen as something that happened to America.

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

No, it doesn't. If only because still focussed on Americans.

Too true. Why is it we end up killing so many people we bring freedom and democracy to? Why should anyone want it?

[Gary Sisco]

Hey, ain't anyone can fuck with you in the grave, baby. You're free as hell there. Peaceful, too.

[Gary Sisco]

Reuters headline:

Bush mourns all 4,000 dead in Iraq: White House

[Al in NYC]

Support Our Troops!

I haven't enough nasty words to say for everyone involved, including us.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Reuters headline:

Bush mourns all 4,000 dead in Iraq: White House

Considering that they wouldn't be dead or grotesquely injured at all if he hadn't decided to launch his little war, he is either totally blind, or really is stupid.
YIKES!

[Gary Sisco]

Probably closer to 154,000 or so.

[tippy]

Last night I ran across Bill Moyers' Journal program and it was devoted to an upcoming documentary "Body of War" that follows intimately the life of one vet who had signed up on September 13, 2001 because he wanted to fight the enemy in Afghanistan. Instead he ends up in Iraq and within 5 days gets shot up and he will be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life with paralysis and other problems - like constantly getting lightheaded - that you can see from the excerpts shown.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03212008/watch.html

The most horrible thing I saw was this soldier watching coverage of a White House Correspondents dinner in Washington that included a short film whereby George W. Bush is seen parodying himself looking under draped tables for WOMD, etc. at which the audience composed of the huge and powerful in government and media and other celebs - laughed at this clever comedy. Meanwhile this guy who gave his able body for these schmucks' cause is watching them enjoy the levity of "ooops, where are they?" I cannot imagine what that feels like. I would feel murderous rage and despair inside watching these people who haven't had to shed a real tear whose lives go untouched making light of their decisions to send men and women over an ocean to kill and be killed by Iraqis.

I also want to recommend "In the Valley of Elah." It definitely gives one pause to at very least consider what our fellow citizens are having to go through over there.

[Gary Sisco]

Tippy, tales of hell all over, we too often forget.

Guy I buy shavings from to bed our horses is a VN vet, Army. His brother was a Marine, was badly wounded his first month in-country, been in a wheelchair, ever since.

So, he's at home one day a couple of years later. His wife answers the doorbell. There are two MPs, asking if her husband's there. There'd been a paperwork SNAFU and they'd come to arrest him as a deserter.

So, she lets them in and they're standing there in uniform, waiting on her husband to come out.

Which he does. In his wheelchair.

You can imagine their chagrin.

To make matters worse, he's not authorized to wear a combat badge because he wasn't in-country for 60 days or more.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

I read an article somewhere last week that drew parallels between the way we treat our troops to the way corporations treat their employees.

Let's face facts. Unless a soldier can provide a fully able body to the military he/she is basically useless to the organization. The same with a corporation.

Both organizations run on the profit principle. A business does not exist to provide, jobs, benefits, and security to its workers. It's there to make as much money as possible.

The "profit" of the military is war making ability. Anything that impedes that ability has no utility.

In a true, moral world, the military would bend over backwards to support folks who've sacrificed their bodies or minds (or both) fighting its wars. But like a corporation, it's a bottom line entity.

[Gary Sisco]

From TPM:

Today's Must Read
By Paul Kiel - March 24, 2008, 9:53AM
"We don't have any Thomas Jeffersons here."

That's a Marine captain in The Washington Post's front page story this morning on the state of affairs in Fallujah. You're not likely to ever read a more sobering narrative about Iraq -- or a more quotable one. The focus of the piece is the city's police chief, Col. Faisal Ismail al-Zobaie, a former member of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard, turned insurgent turned police chief. Zobaie, and the people around him, have a talent for putting things succinctly.

The Post's Sudarsan Raghavan writes that "American ideals that were among the justifications for the 2003 invasion, such as promoting democracy and human rights, are giving way to values drawn from Iraq's traditions and tribal culture, such as respect, fear and brutality." Or, as Zobaie puts it:

"I have realized that Americans love the strong guy."
And here's Zobaie's defense of his police force's treatment of prisoners -- a statement apparently made without irony:

"We never tortured anybody," he said. "Sometimes we beat them during the first hours of capture."
U.S. Army Maj. Mike Cava, a military judge advocate, on the deplorable standards in the jail run by Zobaie, where inmates are not given meals and sit in cells without air conditioning (last summer, six detainees died of heatstroke):

"It's a typical Iraqi jail. Their standards are different than ours. They just do things the Iraqi way."
Capt. Mohammed Yousef from Zobaie's police force:

"Since Saddam Hussein until now, Iraq obeys only the force," Yousef said. "We are practicing the same old procedures."
Sheik Abu Abdul Salman, an imam who calls Zobaie's control of Fallujah "worse than Saddam Hussein":

Salman, the imam, said Zobaie controls the city with "a fire fist."
"But to be honest, security is restored under this guy," he said. "We have a saying in Iraq: 'Fever is better than death.' We were dead. Life stopped at 2 p.m. Everybody was afraid of themselves, including me. If he didn't use the force, the security wouldn't be restored. We don't like the weak man."


And back to Zobaie:

"If you go through the history of Iraq, you will see that only the tough guy can control the country," he said. He rattled off the names of every leader since Iraq's monarchy ended in 1958 with a bloody coup. Hussein, he said, had lasted the longest in power....
What Zobaie wants is for the U.S. military to hand over full control of Fallujah. He believes Iraq's current leaders are not strong enough. Asked whether democracy could ever bloom here, he replied: "No democracy in Iraq. Ever."

"When the Americans leave the city," he said, "I'll be tougher with the people."

[hornplayer]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Reuters headline:

Bush mourns all 4,000 dead in Iraq: White House

but not too hard, nor for long. He and his buddy Cheney are too busy counting all the $$$ they are making from the war....

[patricia]

Originally Posted by tippy

I also want to recommend "In the Valley of Elah." It definitely gives one pause to at very least consider what our fellow citizens are having to go through over there.

Highly recommended by me too. Not the typical adrenalin-soaked shoot-em-up war movie, which is this film's power, IMO.
The aftermath is shown as devastating and that is the biggest wound on those who return's psyche.
See it.

[tippy]

Here's a link to foundation started by the parents of Richard Davis - whose story inspired "In the Valley of Elah." http://www.richarddavisforpeace.com/

[Gentle Giant]

Originally Posted by tippy

Last night I ran across Bill Moyers' Journal program and it was devoted to an upcoming documentary "Body of War" that follows intimately the life of one vet who had signed up on September 13, 2001 because he wanted to fight the enemy in Afghanistan. Instead he ends up in Iraq and within 5 days gets shot up and he will be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life with paralysis and other problems - like constantly getting lightheaded - that you can see from the excerpts shown.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03212008/watch.html

The most horrible thing I saw was this soldier watching coverage of a White House Correspondents dinner in Washington that included a short film whereby George W. Bush is seen parodying himself looking under draped tables for WOMD, etc. at which the audience composed of the huge and powerful in government and media and other celebs - laughed at this clever comedy. Meanwhile this guy who gave his able body for these schmucks' cause is watching them enjoy the levity of "ooops, where are they?" I cannot imagine what that feels like. I would feel murderous rage and despair inside watching these people who haven't had to shed a real tear whose lives go untouched making light of their decisions to send men and women over an ocean to kill and be killed by Iraqis.

My wife was telling me about this last night. War is the biggest scam there is. Murder, lunacy, and hypocrisy all rolled into one giant, enormously costly clusterfuck.

[patricia]

And it often kills what makes us all human, the soul. You don't have to be religious to believe that there is something within all of us that allows us to feel empathy. As far as I can see, that is, some say necessarily, trained out of the young people in the military in order that they can kill other human beings on orders from politicians who will never risk their lives.

People talk about how difficult it is to decide what obscenity is and have agreed that it's what offends the majority.
If this war didn't fall into that catagory I would be concerned about the lack of basic humanity in the population.
The worst thing is that although the majority want the killing to stop, didn't want it to begin, they are powerless to make that happen because of President Bush's concern for his Legacy.
So, the killing continues...

[tippy]

I think we are still in because to leave would be admission of defeat. To ourselves, that is. Other nations have had another opinion all along. We stay in to somehow "make something of this" so that the sacrifice tastes less bitter. The people making decisions don't have anything personal to lose by continuing to wage this effort so there is no reason for them to put on the brakes. Our whole economy could go to hell in a handbasket and they will still be able to afford their way of life. They are untouchable. When you are untouchable you get to make up your own mind about things without having to be concerned about what the other guy thinks or the effect on his life. You are unaffected.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Here is why we're still in Iraq: Our political elite (politicians, punditocracy, and the national press) have come to the conclusion that to leave Iraq as fast as we can would lead to some enormous calamity.

It's not based on fact or empirical evidence but on a gut feeling. And because our political elite is so incestuous once the idea becomes ingrained it's hard to dislodge.

That's why I feel that if either Clinton or Obama are elected people will be disappointed by how fast (or slow) they are to get us out of Iraq. Unfortunately, I feel it's going to take a high number of American deaths before we pull out.

Iraqi deaths do not count. Which is ironic. If we were to pull out rapidly, and that pullout results in huge Iraqi loss of life, I have a feeling the American public wouldn't care that much. Just as much as they care about the genocide in Darfur, or the one that occurred in Rwanda. But the American wants and needs don't matter. Just like that Martha Raditz interview with Cheney. When asked about the polls that show the majority of Americans want us out of Iraq, Cheney's response was, "So?"

[patricia]

Do you think that that is what motivates some to support the candidacy of John McCain?
Do you think that they have cast him as the warrior who can snatch this defeat from the edge and turn it into some sort of victory??
I've never understood how his having been a POW for five years set him apart from all the other equally brave soldiers who were also captured by the enemy, held in prison and tortured.
What am I missing?
For example, although he sponsored an anti-torture bill, he doesn't seem too perturbed that it was swept aside by one of Bush's "signing statements."
What other experience has he had that would qualify him to be President?
His grasp of the nuances of the ongoing situation in the Middle East seems sketchy.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Patricia,

I believe that at the beginning of presidential campaigns little snapshots are created of the candidates by the press. In 2000 it was Gore the stiff and the liar versus Bush the plain spoken likable guy you'd want to have a beer with.

In this election McCain has been anointed as the wise, foreign policy expert. Plus, he's the only conservative left in the race. He's the only candidate conservatives can vote for.

Remember, it's not about what's good for the country, it's about whose part of your team.

[patricia]

And, it would seem, the good of the country be damned.
Being old doesn't necessarily mean that McCain is wise.
I'm not slamming his age, but rather his being seemingly out of touch with who the electorate is now. Thousands and thousands of voters who weren't even born when the events in Vietnam were taking place can vote now.
If they vote this time , instead of sitting on their hands, hoping that politicians will somehow know they're pissed off, they could be a giant force to which attention should be paid. Politicians only pay attention if their jobs are on the line. Otherwise, you're of no consequence. Your vote is the only voice you have because it makes the difference between whether the politicians have an office to sit in or not.

[Gary Sisco]

I don't support McCain and I wouldn't vote for him but he's not a scarier prospect to me than Clinton. Sorry. He just isn't. I may not like him but I don't think he's a pathological liar, or a sociopath, either. If he wins, it will be the dem party's own fault. No one else's.

No one else's.

[patricia]

You're right Gary. The danger is that the Dems will cannibalize themselves, leaving nothing to rally behind.
Obama has managed to interest thousands and thousands of people in their role in their country's future and in it's reputation globally.
Hillary Clinton has not done that, nor has McCain.
A new direction is not the same direction again in new shoes.

[tippy]

As an aside, I may be wrong, but I think Clinton views her lies as spin, as what is expedient to guarantee a victory - I think she is maybe the baddest would-be trial lawyer ever. That's what I take from her strategy - it's like some ridiculous desperate crap you float to a jury who can only make decisions according to specific jury instructions as set forth by law.

[Gary Sisco]

In other words, she's a liar.

Back to subject. One of the things that is too often forgotten is what the act of killing does to those who live. In some ways, those are the worst wounds, because longest lasting and the least obvious to others. There are an estimated six figures worth of walking wounded, now -- virtually guaranteed by the evidently limitless tours people are being forced into. On the practical level, what people are being told is that they will continue to be rotated back to Iraq for another tour until someone finally kills them or maims them seriously enough that they are rendered permanently unfit for duty. A wound in itself is not enough. Wounds heal. Back to your unit, you go.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Here's something to think about. I get the print edition of the Washington Post delivered to my house everyday. The 4000 dead "milestone" was on (I think) page A9.

The front page did have a nice article about Georgetown losing in the NCAA basketball playoffs though.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The 4000th death as metaphor

The occasion of the 4000th American military death in Iraq has actually triggered something akin to a miracle on the home front, forcing people to focus anew (albeit briefly) on President Bush's historic misadventure - at the expense of ignoring (albeit briefly) the potential death spiral of the fractious Democrats.

I won't use this milestone to broadly recount how the "cakewalk" morphed into a catastrophe, or to lament on how Bush will be dropping his slop into the lap of his successor. I'll simply note the manner in which the 4000th soldier met his demise (in the company of three comrades), and suggest why the incident is a metaphor for the ill-begotten war.

The 4000th was killed by a roadside, makeshift bomb - in military parlance, an improvised explosive device (IED). How perversely fitting. According to the Pentagon, IEDs for the first time are now responsible for a majority of American military deaths. Twenty-one percent of the first 1000 deaths were caused by IEDs; 35 percent of the second 1000 deaths were caused by IEDs; 46 percent of the third 1000 deaths were caused by IEDs; for the fourth 1000 deaths, it's 54 percent.

Why the death toll? Because, as has been well documented, the Bush war planners in 2002 and 2003 did not anticipate that insurgents armed with IEDs would be an obstacle to the vaunted American military juggernaut - because they didn't forsee the possibility of an insurgency, despite CIUA prewar warnings. The Bush planners spoke instead of quick surrenders and citizens greeting us with flowers. They hinted at times of a two-week war. They never bothered to draft a plan to secure the thousands of Iraqi munitions caches, which reportedly contained as much as one million tons of explosives; as Gen. John P. Abizaid, the new chief of U.S. Central Command, confessed to Congress when the war was four months old, "I wish I could tell you that we had it all under control. We don't."

So explosives, reportedly by the tens of thousands, were spirited away from these ill-guarded munitions dumps, and, by the summer of 2003, IEDs were killing American soldiers, many of them traveling in lightly-armored Humvees that offered little defense from the blasts. Soldiers foraged on their own for scrap metal, in the hopes of shoring up their vehicles. The Pentagon set up a team to figure out how they could combat the IED epidemic; the task-force workers put up a sign on the wall that said "Stop the Bleeding."

The bleeding continued, but for several more years the Bush team didn't see the urgency. Military specialists and outside consults reportedly staged presentations on the IED issue for then-Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, the now-disbarred felon Lewis "Scooter" Libby. But the Bush team felt that training the Iraqi army was sufficient, and Cheney hewed to his belief that the insurgency was dying. These sentiments slowed Pentagon efforts to combat the IEDs by, among other things, investing in more solidly armored vehicles.

Result: In 2005, the Marines Corps' inspector general was still complaining that the 30,000 Marines in Iraq were traveling in vehicles that were no match for the IEDs. Part of the problem was that, faced with a weapon that nobody seemed to have anticipated during the runup to war, the government finally responded by flailing in all directions. At one point, 132 different government agencies were reportedly scrambling to address the IED issue, with minimal coordination among them.

The military during the past several years has become more adept at protecting the soldiers and tracking down IED bomb-makers - at a cost, during the Pentagon's current fiscal year, of at least $4.5 billion in off-budget "supplemental" funding - but, as recently as last May, the House Armed Services Committee still concluded that the anti-IED project had achieved only "marginal success."

And so the 4000th soldier died, yet another facet of the failed Bush legacy.

[Dr Dave]

Gary, to his everlasting credit, has often spoken of the impact of the war not just on Americans but on Iraqis. In a rare television moment, Charlie Rose interviewed two Iraqis to get their perspective on the fifth anniversary of the arrival of American troops in Iraq. Here's the link. You have to scroll down a bit to see it. After all the millions of cubic yards of bullshit that have been dumped on us about how we just have to be patient and fix this thing, the comments of Ali Fadhil and Sinan Antoon should be an eye-opener.

PS: One in five Americans still think invading Iraq was a good idea. Step up, now, fellas and gals, watch this video, and then tell us how these guys are puppets of the Liberal Elite, etc.

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by Dr Dave

In a rare television moment, Charlie Rose interviewed two Iraqis to get their perspective on the fifth anniversary of the arrival of American troops in Iraq. Here's the link. You have to scroll down a bit to see it.

I'm bumping this up again; fellas and gals, you really have to see this, and hear it, and maybe even think about it.