More US Soldiers Committed Suicide Than Died in Combat
December 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment
For the second year (2010) in a row, more US soldiers killed themselves (468) than died in combat (462). “If you… know the one thing that causes people to commit suicide, please let us know,” General Peter Chiarelli told the Army Times, “because we don’t know.” 
Suicide is a tragic but predictable human reaction to being asked to kill – and watch your friends be killed – for a war based on lies. Perhaps being forced to bag the mangled flesh of fellow soldiers could be another reason why some are committing suicide.
Body Bagging… ever heard the term? Soldiers in the Marine Corps’ Mortuary Affairs unit at Camp Al Taqaddum, Iraq, are given this job… of collecting and cataloging the bodies of dead marines. They sift through the remains of the soldiers, from prom photos to suicide notes and love letters — and put their remains and effects into bags, metal boxes and refrigerators. (clarify please – are you talking about their physical remains/bodies and their effects – ie. photos, etc. or both?).
One soldier, Jess Goodell, recounts a marine brought into the unit still breathing. She frantically called to her superiors, to which they simply replied, “wait.” She watched while he died. When she returned to the US, Goodell like many others, was diagnosed with deep depression, substance abuse, PTSD and anxiety.
Six Trillion Dollars
November 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Immediately after the White House broadcasted news the death of Osama, the American peoples immediately took to the streets. feasts to celebrating the joy of a success by destroyed something that during the last teen years that haunts them. However, perhaps many Americans do not know anything about the works that had been done by their own government to arrive at the day of euphoria. 
The majority of Americans never know, and probably don’t know how many losses suffered by the Americans and the negative effects that makes their nation fallen disarray due to a “Osama Bin Laden”. In the last fifteen years Americans spends more than U.S. $ 9 trillion dollars for the cost of the domestic economy, war, and security that has been triggered by the attacks on 11 September 2001 ( 911 ).
Event 911 was one of the reasons the U.S. government to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, in order to combat “terrorism” and seek weapons of mass destruction, that has not been found till now. Two of these wars (Afghanistan and Iraq) and U.S. was forced to mobilize the 150,000 troops and spend a quarter of the U.S. defense budget. Not only that, the civil liberties of the American peoples should imprisoned because the fears of terrorism, the rising of global oil price caused by war they made and the U.S. national debt.
But the reality is actually about the number of U.S. troops and weapons in the Afghan war not as wow as well compares to the U.S. report on the sophistication of their weaponry. Keep in mind, a small number of U.S. rockets (stinger) went into Afghanistan after 10 years Russian occupation before the withdrawal of Russian warfare Facilities which rarely used in the important battles. It was rarely for anyone to know about these these tools. Some weapons were actually stolen by Pakistani intelligence. They were used to steal some relief funds and goods to the Afghan mujahideen, such as cars, various SAR equipment, logistics, ammunition, and weapons entering through Pakistan come to the Afghan mujahideen.
What was the role of these rockets in destroying more than 50 thousand Russian military equipment, killing more than 30 thousand Russian soldiers in that place, and killed more than 150 thousand Afghan militia of pro-Soviet communists. Even hundreds of thousands of operations for jihadist attacks that had implemented more than 15 years, started 5 years before the Russian invasion for 3 years and then through the capital Kabul in the hands of the mujahideen, namely from 1973 to 1992.
Afghanistan War, Iraq war, and war against the Mujahideen in essence did not bring any advantage for the U.S. This is different from what happened during the war against Joseph Stalin, who at least produce an important technological breakthroughs that revolutionized the U.S. economy. War against Osama at least for the U.S. to provide only one advantage, that is unmanned aircraft. Imagine it ! ! three billion U.S. dollars for unmanned aircraft projects? It seemed it was too excessive.
Linda Bilmes, a lecturer at Harvard University in a book she wrote with Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, says, “we have spent a large sum of money that has not influented much on strengthening our military, and even it has a very weak impact to our economy”. This is consistent with what is expected from Osama, in a video recording of he says, “we will continue to make Americans reach at the point of collapse”. And it’s really happened.
U.S. Civil Wars
Meanwhile, despite the civil war spent expenditures amounting to 280 billion U.S. dollars, there were many positive impacts that can be learned by the Americans. Among them, the first railway standards grew from coast to coast, carrying goods across the State and textile mills began to migrate from the Northeast to the South looking for cheap labor, including former slaves who had joined the workforce. The fighting itself is accelerating mechanization of American agriculture: Because farmers flocked to the battlefield, the workers left their jobs and adopt new technologies in agriculture. Which also in World War II, the budget issued by the U.S. reached 4.4 trillion U.S. dollars. “It is a national mobilization that has never happened before” said Chris Hellman, defense budget analyst at the National Priorities Project. 
While the war that deals with Osama, made the U.S. too much in the acts. Bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa, causing Washington had to spend the funds four times larger than necessary to maintain diplomatic security worldwide in the year and next. And raised the expenditure of 172 billion dollars to 2.2 trillion dollars over the next decades.
Attacks of 11 September 2001 by Intelligence Drama was a disaster that must be paid with high price by the U.S. Economists estimate the losses from 50 billion up to 100 billion dollars. The stock market plummeted and continues to fall to 13 percent a year later.
Then the greater costs incurred by the U.S. to invade Afghanistan in order to reply to attack Al Qaeda. It’s also the U.S. invasion of Iraq that makes 911 event as their own reason related to Islamic extremism and weapons of mass destruction. The second war in top (Afghanistan and Iraq) costed 1.4 trillion dollars, and even the U.S. government is still borrowing hundreds of billions dollars more and increase the U.S. debt interest expensed amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars.
“So… Osama Bin Laden is The Greatest, he is not as bad as Hitler, or Mussolini, etc.” Even Bin Laden produces such great effects. War in Iraq and Afghanistan has created a world which non-war budget also been used.
6 trillion dollars for an Osama 
Based all the costs incurred, at least in the war against Osama, U.S. is forced had to spend the funds reach 3 trillion dollars. It was only approximate, because the war in Iraq has the cost more than that calculated. So.. the euphoria party of the death of Osama still needs to be rethought. Michael O’Hanlon, a national security analyst at the Brookings Institution said, “I do not take great of my satisfaction in his death because I’m still amazed at how high the destructions and losses he gave U.S.A”. That is just an Osama, one man. Many who has considered the U.S. to continue the “war on terrorism.” Osama has hundreds or even thousands of peoples who would replace him. But the American economy, domestic issues are increasingly complex, the costs to “help the spread of democracy” in other countries.
Everything takes a long time, and together with it all, America’s debt will rise to 9 trillion U.S. dollars with U.S. debts over the next decade. It means “three-Osama.” Although Osama is claimed to has been buried under the sea, there are extremely many Islamic fighters who are competing his position as a Mujahideen. In the same time, new enemies, both from within and abroad the U.S. has been waiting. So with what Americans would pay for all this?
Source: https://www.thosepeoples.tk/2011/11/six-trillion-dollars.html
War worldwide… Had enough yet?
November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In reviewing the news stories of these past few weeks, it becomes clear that the Western world’s addiction to war truly knows no bounds. Libya is reeling from NATO’s “humanitarian” intervention which has crippled a once prosperous nation, destroyed its infrastructure, robbed it of its ample resources and devastated its population. But for Western military powers, this is not enough. Iran, Syria, Yemen… The hit list is growing exponentially, and so are the stakes.
There is no end to greed until we stand up and say “enough is enough”. In fact, it’s too much. The drums of war are beating and it’s up to us to choose whether we march along, or we rewrite the score. 
In an era of media disinformation, our focus at Global Research has essentially been to center on the “unspoken truth”. Since its inception in 2001 we have established an extensive archive of news articles, in-depth reports and analysis on issues which are barely covered by the mainstream media. From modest beginnings, with virtually no resources, the Centre for Research on Globalization has evolved into a dynamic research and alternative media group.
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It’s true that you will NEVER have to pay to access the information you need to understand what is happening in the world around you. Some things you can’t put a price on. However, maintaining our operations and supporting our contributors does present a financial challenge, and since we will always insist on remaining independent, we need the support of our readers to help us continue our battle against disinformation.
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Source: https://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27685
The children of Veterans are the innocent victims of Agent Orange
November 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The debate goes on and probably will until the end of time as to the effects of DIOXIN on dozens of health related issues. The Veteran on this Veteran’s Day does not have to be reminded of the long battle with the Veteran’s Administration, the Department of Defense, and 13 chemical manufacturing companies on the massive exposure to dioxin from the use of Agent Orange and other defoliants during the Vietnam War.
The same hold true for the public population , both in the United States and many other countries, where dioxin laced products were used in a effort to “improve our lives”, by limiting growth of weeds, vegetation, and disease carrying insects, only to learn that increase health issues would become a nightmare for many of those exposed. We now understand that we cannot rewind the clock and easily solve the problems caused by dioxin, but must learn how to deal with it in a fair and equitable manner to all who have health related issues, and find ways to prevent further exposure.
As I have written, the effects of dioxin should not have been a surprise to anyone with an ounce of sense. As early-on as 1945, when scientist first began experimenting with defoliants for clearing vegetation which provided concealment to enemy forces in jungle warfare, dioxin was described as one of the deadliest compounds to human life as could ever be imagined. Yet dioxin is found in nature and created by volcanic eruptions, and wild fires which have occurred since the beginning of time. The problem does not reside in the backyard of dioxin alone, and while it is far more toxic than many other compounds, it is just one of many chemicals that that the public can be exposed to, which have an accumulative effect leading to adverse health conditions, can lead to an early death, and wreck havoc on the off-spring of those who have been exposed.
There are several observations that must be learned when we take on the issue of dioxin and other toxic chemicals, particularly those that can and do occur naturally. The first is that we must do everything in our power to limit our exposure and find ways to minimize the combined effects of a whole litany of compounds that can further exacerbate the problems, without everyone having to wear haz-mat protective gear, completely shutting down industry, shutting off all commerce, and going back to the Stone Age.
Genetics holds the key to solving the long-term solution to Agent Orange exposure 
To the Veteran Dioxin leads the list of environmental-unfriendly chemicals which are extensively used in industry and commerce, such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and bisphenol A (BPA), and build-up in the human body, from the agricultural products we consume, and the meat, fish, and foul we eat during our life time. If you add purposely-driven exposure to products like Agent Orange to the mix it is like suicide. This is not just in the victim, but in the offspring for decades down the road from the genetic damage done to the one originally exposed.
The concept of genetically traced abnormalities is not new science here either. We have been teaching “evolution” for years (with most emphasis placed on naturally-occurring genetic changes) as species adapt to their environment, but now we see there can be man-made changes through pollutants as well.
What made me want to look into this phenomenon was being asked by the daughter of a retired Vietnam Veteran about her ADHA, and the autism affecting many of her special education students. I told her I had been writing articles regarding the Veteran and civilian exposure to Agent Orange, and how genetic damage could be the root cause, and nobody out here in the real world looking to “pin the tail on the donkey”, so to speak. 
The more one looks, the more frightening the realization is that we as a nation just can’t seem to man-up holding those who have manufactured many of these products accountable. Whether it is Dow, Monsanto, or any of the other dozen or so companies which raced to fill the lucrative government contracts for defoliants during the Vietnam War, their compensatory efforts have been miniscule compared to that of the taxpayer. Billions in profit continue to flow into the coffers of Big Chemical, while the taxpayer bares the reoccurring cost of dealing with the problem…and what a problem it has become.
Obama on Veterans Day: ‘The tide of war is receding’
November 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
ARLINGTON, Virginia (AFP) - President Barack Obama on Friday told the conflict-weary US public that looming withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq and Moamer Kadhafi’s ouster in Libya meant “the tide of war is receding.”
“After a decade of war, the nation we now need to build is our own,” Obama said in somber Veterans Day holiday remarks after placing a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns in the storied US military cemetery in Arlington.
The president paid tribute to US forces he said pulled Iraq from sectarian chaos and put it on track “to forge a better future,” “pushed back the Taliban, decimated Al-Qaeda” in Afghanistan, and “helped end Kadhafi’s brutal dictatorship and returned Libya to its people.”
And Obama praised the soldiers who killed Osama bin Laden in a daring US commando raid in May, saying they had delivered “the ultimate justice” to the Al-Qaeda mastermind a decade after the September 11 strikes. 
“Because of their incredible efforts, we can stand here today and say with confidence the tide of war is receding,” Obama said.
He noted that all US combat troops are due to leave Iraq by year’s end and quit Afghanistan come 2014, stressing: “My fellow Americans, our troops are coming home.”
Obama said the ranks of US armed forces veterans would swell by one million over the next five years on top of three million who had shed the uniform in the past decade, and he challenged the country to tap their potential.
US government statistics paint a glum picture for what Obama dubbed “9-11 generation” veterans, with 12.1 percent unemployment, far higher than the historically high national average of about nine percent.
“At a time when America needs all hands on deck, they have the skills and strength to help lead the way,” Obama said, adding that the brittle US economy “needs their tremendous talents and specialized skills.”
The US president, his November 2012 reelection sure to hinge on his handling of the economy, predicted that new veterans will “play a pivotal role in rebuilding America’s opportunity and prosperity in the 21st century.”
“We know it will be hard. We have to overcome new threats to our security and prosperity. And we’ve got to overcome the cynical voices warning that America’s best days are behind us,” he said.
“But if there is anything our veterans teach us, it’s that there is no threat we cannot meet. There is no challenge we cannot overcome. America’s best days are still ahead,” he promised
Source: https://www.activistpost.com/2011/11/obama-on-veterans-day-tide-of-war-is.html
Veterans Day Began as a Pledge to End All Wars
November 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Believe it or not, November 11th was not made a holiday in order to celebrate war, support troops, or cheer the 11th year of occupying Afghanistan.
This day was made a holiday in order to celebrate an armistice that ended what was up until that point, in 1918, one of the worst things our species had thus far done to itself, namely World War I. 
World War I, then known simply as the world war or the great war, had been marketed as a war to end war. Celebrating its end was also understood as celebrating the end of all wars. A ten-year campaign was launched in 1918 that in 1928 created the Kellogg-Briand Pact, legally banning all wars. That treaty is still on the books, which is why war making is a criminal act and how Nazis came to be prosecuted for it.
“[O]n November 11, 1918, there ended the most unnecessary, the most financially exhausting, and the most terribly fatal of all the wars that the world has ever known. Twenty millions of men and women, in that war, were killed outright, or died later from wounds. The Spanish influenza, admittedly caused by the War and nothing else, killed, in various lands, one hundred million persons more.” — Thomas Hall Shastid, 1927.
According to U.S. Socialist Victor Berger, all the United States had gained from participation in World War I was the flu and prohibition. It was not an uncommon view. Millions of Americans who had supported World War I came, during the years following its completion on November 11, 1918, to reject the idea that anything could ever be gained through warfare.
Sherwood Eddy, who coauthored “The Abolition of War” in 1924, wrote that he had been an early and enthusiastic supporter of U.S. entry into World War I and had abhorred pacifism. He had viewed the war as a religious crusade and had been reassured by the fact that the United States entered the war on a Good Friday. At the war front, as the battles raged, Eddy writes, “we told the soldiers that if they would win we would give them a new world.”
Eddy seems, in a typical manner, to have come to believe his own propaganda and to have resolved to make good on the promise. “But I can remember,” he writes, “that even during the war I began to be troubled by grave doubts and misgivings of conscience.” It took him 10 years to arrive at the position of complete Outlawry, that is to say, of wanting to legally outlaw all war. By 1924 Eddy believed that the campaign for Outlawry amounted, for him, to a noble and glorious cause worthy of sacrifice, or what U.S. philosopher William James had called “the moral equivalent of war.” Eddy now argued that war was “unchristian.” Many came to share that view who a decade earlier had believed Christianity required war. A major factor in this shift was direct experience with the hell of modern warfare, an experience captured for us by the British poet Wilfred Owen in these famous lines: 
If in some smothering dreams you too could paceBehind the wagon that we flung him in,And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;If you could hear, at every jolt, the bloodCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cudOf vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,My friend, you would not tell with such high zestTo children ardent for some desperate glory,The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum estPro patria mori.
The propaganda machinery invented by President Woodrow Wilson and his Committee on Public Information had drawn Americans into the war with exaggerated and fictional tales of German atrocities in Belgium, posters depicting Jesus Christ in khaki sighting down a gun barrel, and promises of selfless devotion to making the world safe for democracy. The extent of the casualties was hidden from the public as much as possible during the course of the war, but by the time it was over many had learned something of war’s reality. And many had come to resent the manipulation of noble emotions that had pulled an independent nation into overseas barbarity.
However, the propaganda that motivated the fighting was not immediately erased from people’s minds. A war to end wars and make the world safe for democracy cannot end without some lingering demand for peace and justice, or at least for something more valuable than the flu and prohibition. Even those rejecting the idea that the war could in any way help advance the cause of peace aligned with all those wanting to avoid all future wars — a group that probably encompassed most of the U.S. population.
As Wilson had talked up peace as the official reason for going to war, countless souls had taken him extremely seriously. “It is no exaggeration to say that where there had been relatively few peace schemes before the World War,” writes Robert Ferrell, “there now were hundreds and even thousands” in Europe and the United States. The decade following the war was a decade of searching for peace: “Peace echoed through so many sermons, speeches, and state papers that it drove itself into the consciousness of everyone. Never in world history was peace so great a desideratum, so much talked about, looked toward, and planned for, as in the decade after the 1918 Armistice.”
Let us try to revive some memory of that foreign world on the occasion of the latest “veterans day” this Friday in this brave new era of searching for more war.
Source: https://www.truth-out.org/fahrenheit-111111/1321022729#.Tr3Z3tlT8VQ.facebook
Dogs help veterans cope with psychological war scars
November 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
NORFOLK, Va (Reuters) - As the number of veterans grappling with the psychological scars of war mounts, a miniature Australian Shepherd named Jonas represents a newer breed of treatment for those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
Jonas, a peppy 2-year-old, is a legal service dog, trained to scan owner Ian Lord for signs of stress or anxiety and respond with licks, cuddles and demands for pats.
Lord, a 25-year-old Air Force veteran in Norfolk, Virginia, credits his specialized pet with helping him cope with the mental aftershocks of war. 
“He makes it a lot easier to recover from a trigger, like sounds of a helicopter overhead,” Lord said. “The difference is, instead of getting wound up about it the rest of the day, it’s like OK, go outside and throw a ball around, or just cuddle up to him a bit and kind of snap out of it.”
The number of veterans receiving PTSD treatment from theDepartment of Veterans Affairs rose from 254,930 in 2006 to 408,167 in 2010, an increase that could continue when 40,000 more U.S. troops return home from Iraq at year’s end.
Psychotherapy and cognitive processing therapy, which includes education and awareness about symptoms, are the department’s main treatment methods, said deputy chief consultant for specialty mental health Sonja Batten.
But other experimental treatments also are being used, including yoga, acupuncture, meditation and psychological service dogs like Jonas.
“There is an interest in the PTSD community in exploring a variety of different ways to approach the problem,” Batten said.
The department doesn’t know how many veterans are using service dogs as part of their treatment, and there is debate over whether the approach is beneficial.
PTSD dogs perform an exercise called “backing,” where the dog walks directly behind the veteran and provides a sense of protection from unknown, imagined and frightening things, said Lynette Nilan, the department’s strategic planning and measurement director.
“You kind of get into this (debate) of, is it in the patient’s best interests to deal with those unfounded fears …(or to) reinforce those fears by having a dog stand behind you to protect you from something that you really shouldn’t have to be protected from,” she said.
SERVICE DOGS FOR SERVICE MEMBERS
A new study is underway to determine whether psychological service dogs can help veterans overcome PTSD and, if they prove effective, to develop usage criteria and guidelines. The study will aim to pair at least 200 dogs with veterans in Florida and Colorado, Nilan said.
Carol Borden, executive director of Guardian Angels Medical Service Dogs, Inc. in Williston, Florida — one of the organizations taking part in the study — said dogs are specifically trained according to an individual’s needs.
“We talk to each veteran and find out exactly what their challenges are,” she said. “There are multitudes of things we can teach the dogs to do, depending on each individual’s circumstances.”
Lord, who now works part-time while applying for graduate school, saw four years of active duty as a loadmaster in the Air Force, flying missions carrying troops and cargo into Iraq, Afghanistan and surrounding countries.
He said he was diagnosed with PTSD after suffering “almost the stereotypical meltdown” in 2010, when a simulation-style training course stirred suppressed memories of getting shot at in Iraq. 
Lord was removed from flight status and later was honorably discharged from the service for unrelated reasons, he said.
Jonas came into his life thanks to his wife Megan, a 23-year-old medical student. She had been training Jonas as a therapy dog for hospital patients, but it wasn’t a good match, she said. Hospital dogs weren’t allowed to lick, and Jonas did a lot of licking.
The couple noticed Jonas would start cuddling and licking Ian whenever he exhibited PTSD symptoms, such as anxiety, depression and sleeping problems.
That sealed the pooch’s fate as a PTSD service dog. His service is prescribed by Lord’s psychiatrist, giving Jonas the same legal rights of entry to businesses and public spaces as guide dogs for the blind.
“As soon as people hear he’s a PTSD dog, the next thing out of their mouths is, ‘Oh, thank you for your service, sir,’” Lord said. “They connect the dots pretty quickly.”
Source: https://news.yahoo.com/dogs-help-veterans-cope-psychological-war-scars-193714083.html
Iraq Revisited
November 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Of all the deplorable things that the Right has done, none has been more loathsome and damaging than its incessant attempt to rewrite history. Throughout most of 2009 and 2010 Republicans desperately tried to convince the public that the Great Depression was brought about, not by a lack of government regulation and intervention, but by a plethora of wasteful and meddlesome government spending that prevented the private sector from doing what it does best: create jobs.
Only the advent of World War II got us out of the depths of that depression. It mattered not that not a single economist has gone on record to validate such hogwash, just saying it made it so, as far as the GOP was concerned. I don’t suppose it would do any good to remind conservatives that the build up to that War, whether they want to admit it or not, counts as government spending, meddlesome or otherwise. 
It was the same with the causes of the 2008 recession. Forget all you’ve heard about derivatives and sub-prime mortgages, according to conservatives, the real culprits were Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac forcing all those helpless bankers to loan money to poor black people who knew they couldn’t afford a mortgage in the first place. Not doing it for you? Well then how about all that nasty debt due to wasteful government spending? How about a combination of both? Facts? Why concern yourself with such trivial things as facts when it’s so much easier to pull nonsense out of your ass and peddle it as truth?
Well, as strange as it might sound to those of us who actually bother to fact-check such stupidity before falling for it, the electorate bought in lock, stock and barrel. Whether out of sheer frustration, a lack of commons sense, or a combination of the two, a majority of people polled now believe that the Great Recession of 2008 was due in large part to excessive government spending and needless regulation of an industry that was running just fine without a hitch. Go figure.
And now comes the greatest obscenity of all: the Iraq War. With this monstrosity of an endeavor now coming to a long overdue end, the final price tag has far exceeded the trillion-dollar mark, and that’s not counting the impact it had on the economy. In fact, according to Joseph Stiglitz, the total cost for both the Afghan and Iraqi Wars is over $3 trillion. Granting that our involvement in Afghanistan was just, given the 9/11 attacks, that still leaves the sixty-four thousand dollar question: why did we get involved in Iraq? If you thought the Right’s explanation of the causes of the Great Depression and Great Recession creative, you won’t believe what they have to say for themselves regarding Iraq.
Source: https://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/11/08/iraq-revisited/
Lest we forget the True Cost of War. The Plight of Britain’s War Veterans
November 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment
‘Lest We Forget’ - each year this message is pushed home in the media, on the streets, and particularly by politicians wearing their red poppies very visibly in Parliament and of course every time they appear on camera being interviewed. Pity the government doesn’t put its money where its mouth is. All it does is support the Poppy Appeal, run by the British Legion, getting us to feel guilty about how many servicemen and women have sacrificed themselves for Britain – and please put money in the Charity’s tin. 
The British Legion’s director general Chris Simpkins had strong words to say about this last Saturday. The Legion was founded 90 years ago in an effort to both recognise and support the veterans of WWI and their families, many of whom were trying to cope with shell shock, gassing and other injuries, as well as unemployment and homelessness. Since then, each year, they have been picking up the government’s tab. Because of the desire of political leaders to make themselves look powerful by sending armies off to war – and let’s not forget the desire of big business to make money thereby - the number of desperately needy veterans and military families requiring support rises by the year.
Nor is the British Legion the only charity that helps veterans, thus saving the government much unwanted expense. Combat Stress deals solely with the mental damage suffered by veterans and, because of the demand created by our interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan is inundated with pleas for help. Iraq and Afghanistan also created Help for Heroes. The British public is generous, rather more so than their leaders. All the charities are well supported (the British Legion’s income for 2009-10 was £115 million, about a third of that being raised by the Poppy Appeal), yet the demand always exceeds the supply because of the failure of government.
But, valuable though their work is, they shouldn’t have to supply what are essentially frontline services. Under the Military Covenant that should be the responsibility of the government. An unspoken pact dating back many years, it became codified into a covenant in 2000, setting out the mutual obligations between the Armed Forces who put their lives at risk, and the government, which has a ‘duty of care’ for the Forces. To the Legion, having to pick up the government’s pieces from Iraq and Afghanistan , it was obvious the government was failing in its duty. It campaigned vigorously and was promised that the Covenant would be ‘enshrined in law’. But earlier this year it became clear that the government was backing away from making its obligations a matter of law. After another month or two and a lot of pressure, and they said they would.
On 3 November it did finally become enshrined in law. But time will tell if the government actually honours its ‘commitment’ to the Forces. One can understand their reluctance. Here we are deep in a financial crisis, cuts being made and austerity the fashion of the day – how could we expect the government to find all the money needed to fulfil its obligations? Not that it (or any other government) has any difficulty finding the money to pay for the things it wants to do - like waging war for instance. The amount of money spent on war is scandalous.
In 2005 Iraq had already cost us £3.1 billion. By 2010 Afghanistan and Iraq combined had cost £20.34 billion. That didn’t include the annual defence budget of around £35 billion, or £280 billion for the eight years. Nor did it include the vast black hole of overspending by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), amounting to billions, mostly due to its utterly useless procurement of weapons and vehicles, getting worse each year. And I shan’t even mention the costs of renewing the Trident programme or half-building aircraft carriers, or the fact that, having got rid of the one aircraft carrier we did have, by the time we get a new one we won’t have any planes suitable to use it. But we’ll still wage war. And don’t let’s talk about Libya . Running a bath when you haven’t put the plug in doesn’t even go there.
But back to the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan : the £20.34 billion also doesn’t include the salaries of the soldiers, paying for their pensions when they’ve retired or been invalided out, compensation for injuries received or, and this is the total unknown, paying for their long-term injuries and mental health care.
And what kind of care will that require? Many of our soldiers have been injured by the dreaded IEDs (improvised explosive devices), the roadside bombs that have blown up their vehicles and destroyed them during their foot patrols. The most common injury inflicted by one of these devices if you’re on foot is a triple amputation – both legs and one arm (as you tend to swing your upper body and arms when walking, one arm is always at least partly protected by the body). Amazingly, because of the miracles of modern medicine, many survive these and other ghastly injuries, most of the survivors being very young and requiring high levels of care for their lifetimes.
But blast injuries cause more damage than lost limbs. According to Ronald Glasser in his book Broken Bodies, Shattered Minds anyone near a blast from an IED or other bomb, or of course engaged in firing big guns, can suffer brain trauma from the blast waves. There is also a possibility that this type of brain trauma can cause post traumatic stress, and at the very least add to its severity. So the young man who has lost his legs will also suffer from the long-term effects of brain injury as well as the psychological horrors of PTSD.
The US figures for this are staggering: their operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have now produced over “300,000 wounded, another 250,000 diagnosed with PTSD and over 300,000 with traumatic brain or concussive central nervous system injuries, along with amputees approaching levels not seen since the Civil War”. And bear in mind that in many cases the PTSD may not surface for another 15 years after the incident that caused it. Combat Stress knows only too well it will be seeing increasing numbers of veterans as the years go by. The MoD is far more cautious about releasing its figures. It says that there are ‘low incidence rates’ of probable PTSD (4%) for the UK Armed Forces - it must be our stiff upper lip. Actually, most of their study is based on interviews with soldiers and soldiers are notoriously wary of admitting to any mental problems.
Still, they have increased the compensation payments and Admiral Lord Boyce, the former chief of the defence staff proudly announced that a young soldier who was seriously injured would now get about £1.5m in financial support over a lifetime. But that young soldier may live, or rather, exist, for another 50-60 years. That works out at £30,000 a year. A young man can live on that (at today’s prices) but if he needs specialist care or special adaptations to his home or cannot work because of his injuries…. It suddenly doesn’t look that generous, does it?
And how many would this apply to? According to the MoD:
Iraq
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78 UK military personnel were categorised as Seriously Injured from all causes excluding disease.
· 40 UK personnel were categorised as Very Seriously Injured from all causes excluding disease
Afghanistan
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258 UK personnel were categorised as Very Seriously Injured from all causes excluding disease.
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272 UK personnel were categorised as Seriously Injured from all causes excluding disease.
That alone is a total of £972 million. Many soldiers, while not being injured, still have to be compensated for hearing impairment for instance, even total deafness. All injuries have some level of compensation attached. Then of course there are the pensions, and although the government is trying to up the contributions and down the payments, many more soldiers are retiring early (with full pension rights) because of injury/ill health. On top of that many will be made redundant - the Army alone being reduced from a total of 196,150 personnel in 2006 to no more than 82,000 by 2020. All of these will require pensions in due course. In the meantime many of them will be left unemployed and could well become homeless, and will certainly need benefits to live on. But hey, that will come out of another Ministry’s budget, so that’s okay then.
Government has fought its own battles over the years – against recognising the cancers caused by testing our nuclear weapons; against owning up to the damage depleted uranium has caused; against acknowledging the level of post traumatic stress disorder. It will do anything to avoid admitting its responsibilities and paying out what it owes. Just ask the Legion. Much of their support work for veterans involves helping them to get the money they’re entitled to.
The bottom line is that if this or any other British government took their obligations seriously and provided the care owing to veterans and their families, they really wouldn’t have the money available to pay for their mostly illegal military adventures that make them feel so important. We would still be able to afford to defend this country if it was attacked, the only legal condition under which we can wage war. But the UK could not afford to indulge in regime change, intervention or interference, particularly not the kind of intervention on ‘humanitarian ‘grounds, backed by a dodgy UN resolution, which created many more civilian casualties than it saved (but I wasn’t going to mention Libya - £300 million, by the way)
And future ceremonies at the Cenotaph wouldn’t have so many more names to add to its list of the dead..
Source: https://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27554
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