Dhar Jamail: The US Occupation of Iraq - Casualties Not Counted

[Hissyspit]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100506J.shtml

The US Occupation of Iraq: Casualties Not Counted
By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Thursday 05 October 2006

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That changed when the Cheney administration took control of the government in 2000. War has now been privatized, and the shining examples of this privatization are Afghanistan and Iraq. As you read this there are approximately 100,000-125,000 American civilian contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their jobs range from providing security to desk work to interrogating prisoners to driving convoy trucks to clearing unexploded ordnance. A year back, in November 2005, the US Department of Labor listed 428 civilian contractors dead and 3,963 wounded in Iraq - none of which are ever counted in the official casualty counts.

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It turns out that while working in Iraq, a major stressor for Eysselinck was the persistent attempts by RONCO headquarters to disarm him and his team in Iraq with a view to avoid potential liability. This had become an ongoing struggle, even after other contractors who had been unarmed were killed, ambushed and severely beaten. Eysselinck had threatened to quit if they disarmed him.

Five minutes before Tim killed himself, while holding up the US military-issued Iraq's Most Wanted playing cards, he told his wife, "You get me professional help." Birgitt had said in her interview with Kelly: "He knew something was wrong. Three weeks before, he woke up and said to me, "Something is wrong with me, I'm feeling down." But what was I to do with that statement? Feeling down? I also blame myself in a way, because I don't have any knowledge of depression, I know nothing about the subject. I mean this was a clear and obvious symptom. And then he said it again a week later - that he couldn't sleep and was waking up three times a night." Around noon on the day of his death, in the presence of the housekeeper, Tim said he was depressed. Later the housekeeper recounted she had seen him marching through the house like a soldier.

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And one is left to wonder how many more Tim Eysselincks there are in Iraq? How many more of them have returned home not knowing about PTSD or how to treat it? How many of their families are currently unnecessarily at risk from the often volatile behavior caused by PTSD or are left in the bereft position that Birgitt finds herself in?

Civilian contractors in Iraq, though they are paid handsomely for their time there, are easily lost in a legal no-man's-land if tragedy strikes. Their families are then left in the lurch as well. With an estimated 100,000-125,000 American contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can safely assume there are thousands of stories similar to Tim's and still counting. To each story is attached an individual and a family.

And the occupation grinds on with no end in sight ...