The Lies of the Longest War

[unhappycamper]

http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17658-the-lies-of-the-longest-war

The Lies of the Longest War
BRIAN J TRAUTMAN FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

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Since the 2001 invasion, 2,158 American troops have been killed, 294 this year alone. Over 18,000 soldiers have been wounded, many with permanent injuries. Thousands of combat veterans are suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). The Veterans Affairs (VA) Department is overwhelmed with returning soldiers in need of mental and other health services. Suicide is at epidemic levels among active-duty personnel and veterans. According to Gen. Raymond Odierno, the Army chief of staff, suicide has surpassed combat deaths and motor vehicle accidents as the most frequent cause of death among Army forces. The suicide rate within the Army doubled from 2004 to 2009. Today, suicide rates are at one a day among active-duty personnel and at 18 a day among veterans.

The war has had a particularly devastating impact on the Afghan civilian population. A New York Times article published in early 2010 reported that in video-conference with troops then senior military commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal admitted, “We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat.” By most estimates, more than 20,000 Afghan civilians have been killed or injured since the war began.

The financial cost of the war is approaching $600 billion. War spending for Afghanistan in FY2012 alone was $111 billion. This is an amount which, if spent domestically, could have provided low-income health care to 57 million children for one year OR one year’s worth of groceries for an individual to 53 million people.

The war in Afghanistan has produced tens of thousands of veterans in need of assistance to re-integrate into society. Yet, only 5 percent of all federal discretionary spending in the proposed FY2013 budget was dedicated to veterans’ benefits. Military spending, on the other hand, accounts for a whopping 57 percent of this spending. In 2011, only 4.4 cents of every tax dollar went to veterans’ benefits, while 27 cents went to the military. In September 2012, Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would have allocated $1 billion to create new job-training programs for veterans. These actions suggest that Congress is fast to throw money at a bloated military budget, which for FY2011 was almost as large as the next 14 countries’ combined, but considers it acceptable to devote comparatively few dollars to provide adequate care and compensation to veterans.