War ain’t cheap. But it’s better for big business the longer it lasts. Defense contractors don’t care about death tolls and MIA lists, only dollars and cents. The colour of blood is green.
First, let’s start with
Bush’s pre-emptive declaration of victory
But, the withdrawal of American troops from
I remember President ‘W’ Bush standing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, behind a huge banner that read: ‘Mission Accomplished.’ [4]
And wait, didn’t we – the free world – actually win this war?
The U.S. Commander-in-chief told the nation later that night in May, 2003, that, "Major combat operations in
Of course, Bush also said, "The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done." (Five years after the May 1 declaration and for Bush’s departure, the White House did try and rewrite history by claiming the "Mission Accomplished" banner was meant to refer only to the sailors on that particular ship. No alterations to his speech have been made.)
But we still won, right? Right? We won somewhere back in 2003. All the terrorists are now safely locked away in Gitmo and all the IEDs are out of the ground? The
The economics of death
For a war that’s already ended and when the free world has already won, how come so many are still dying over there if the major combat operations have ended? Why is the supposed aftermath of a war causing more deaths than the war itself? Why does democracy look more like a war zone?
According to the casualty counter (yes, there is such a thing. It was last updated on February 9, 2009) on www.antiwar.com [6], 4243 American Forces deaths have been recorded since the war began on March 19, 2003, with 4104 of those deaths having occurred after the "Mission" was declared "Accomplished" on May 1, 2003. If the mission was so accomplished, why do two-thirds of Americans polled in the Washington Post article state they did not believe the war in
War for profit
If someone is making bullets, then someone is making money. This is true in regards to defense contractors working in the
A 2007 Rolling Stone magazine article, ‘The Great Iraq Swindle [7],’ by Matti Taibbi, outlines how Bush, "allowed an Army of for-profit contractors to invade the U.S. Treasury."
"What the Bush administration has created in
The Internet site, Business Pundit, has a July 22, 2008 list of the twenty-five most vicious war profiteers; including names the public has heard before, like Halliburton and Veritas Capital Fund/DynCorp. You can view the list here [8].
Which brings me to the next point, or man. Sad to say, even with
To Obama’s credit, he did come forward with a campaign promise to withdraw US Forces from Iraqi soil within sixteen months. Perhaps this will finally end the war that has already ended and the free world has already won?
From Bush to Obama
The ongoing-legacy of the
"In January, we lost more soldiers to suicide than to Al Qaeda," Paul Rieckhoff, the director of the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans of America [10], stated in a related press release.
In the Army’s annual report, it stated that soldiers were killing themselves at the highest rates on record in 2008. Yearly increases in suicide rates have been reported since 2004.
Turns out, the blood on Bush’s hands is also from his own soldiers, and in the handshake transference of power to Obama, he has inherited these spoils of war.
From
Obama, like his predecessor, has pledged to continue the fight against terrorism. Although he has declared his intentions to pull out of
Speaking at the annual Munich Security Conference last week [11]
This is the sendoff 30,000 U.S. troops received as they prepare — over the course of 2009 — to deploy to Afghanistan, ready to join the 32,500 NATO troops already stationed there as of December 1, 2008. An additional 17,000 troops were just announced, with 8,000 Marines going to southern
When Obama visited
Obama’s war
Every president needs a war. Bush Sr. and Jr. both had theirs. For Obama, he was against the war in
He has also chosen who will profit from this war. Just as with Bush’s legacy of war profiteering, it seems that the Obama that swore during the campaign he would not invite lobbyists to the White House has appointed former Raytheon (a Canadian missile systems corporation) lobbyist, William Lynn [12], as deputy defense secretary on Wednesday, February 11, 2009.
The total cost for Iraq is predicted at three trillion dollars [13]. How much money private contractors will make off the war, the public will never know. I guess victory ain’t cheap.
Those figures are only in dollars, not drops of blood. How much more does Obama expect his nation to pay? Let alone the rest of the world?
This whole war business just doesn’t add up.
Krystalline Kraus is a Toronto-based writer.
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