The sixth year of Bush's madness begins today.

[seafan]

Bush urges patience with Iraq as war enters 6th year



March 19, 2008
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Five years after launching the invasion of Iraq, President Bush strongly signaled Wednesday that he won't order troop withdrawals beyond those already planned because he refuses to "jeopardize the hard-fought gains" of the past year.
As anti-war activists demonstrated around downtown Washington, the president spoke at the Pentagon to mark the war anniversary. He gave a strong defense of his decision to go to war and continue it and linked the fighting there to the global battle against al-Qaida.

"The battle in Iraq is noble, it is necessary, and it is just. And with your courage the battle in Iraq will end in victory," he told an audience of Pentagon brass, soldiers and diplomats.

Bush made some of his most expansive claims of success in the fighting there. He said the increase of 30,000 troops that he ordered to Iraq last year has turned "the situation in Iraq around." He also said that "Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al Qaida out."
"The surge ... has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror," the president said. "We are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated."

.....

The U.S. has about 158,000 troops in Iraq. That number is expected to drop to 140,000 by summer in drawdowns meant to erase all but about 8,000 troops from last year's increase.

Faster and larger withdrawals could unravel recent progress, Bush said.

"Having come so far and achieved so much, we are not going to let this happen," he said.

So we will actually have MORE troops in Iraq this summer than were there before Bush's surge last year.

How many hoodwinked, sorry Congresspeople are there now? Twelve billion dollars a month down the rathole in Iraq. Halliburton/KBR still sucking at our tax money with those sweet "cost plus" contracts for monogrammed towels for our troops, for example?

And today, the UK papers are reporting that the Pentagon is balking at screening returning troops from Iraq for mild brain injuries, the signature injury of this war, from shock waves from roadside bombs. Why?

Because the Pentagon is afraid that the extent of the problem would be as widespread as the scale of Gulf War Syndrome, from another war by another Bush.



Pentagon admits postponing brain screenings

Ed Pilkington
March 18, 2008

The Pentagon has admitted that it delayed introducing a routine screening of troops returning from Iraq for mild brain injuries because it feared that the extent of the problem could mushroom to the scale of the Gulf War syndrome after the first Iraq war.
The head of the Pentagon's medical assessments division has told USA Today that he wanted to avoid another controversy as potentially huge as Gulf War syndrome.
He said the military feared announcing a screening programme would encourage troops to think they had a condition and make correct diagnosis more difficult.

"Some individuals will seek diagnosis from provider to provider to provider," Col Kenneth Cox said.

The first evidence of what is known as mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) was discovered among soldiers in Iraq just months after the invasion in March 2003.
By January 2006 federal scientists specialising in the condition were calling for immediate screening.
Yet the Pentagon is only now gearing up to implementing the screening process, which involves soldiers being asked a series of questions designed to indicate whether they are suffering symptoms.

Those symptoms include headaches, dizziness, memory loss, nausea and convulsions.

Over the five years of the Iraq war, the extent of the problem of TBI has become better understood, and it is now classed as a "signature injury" of the war. The injuries are caused largely by roadside bombs that can send concussion waves through the brain even at a distance.
An army survey of more than 2,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan suggested that about 11% showed signs of mild TBI, though some estimates have put it closer to 20%.

.....

The delay in the Pentagon's screening programme has been fiercely criticised by politicians of both main parties and by the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force.

What a catastrophic disgrace for America, caused by an arrogant, ignorant Caligula, who has never concerned himself with anyone's suffering except for his own privileged annoyance.



Does ANYONE in a position of power CARE about this enough to DO SOMETHING NOW??? Pelosi? Reid? Hoyer? Conyers? ANYONE??



The sixth year of Bush's madness begins today.

[champion-these-facts]

1. fact - it is not a war, it is a failed regime change

The "war" promotion is what has kept the ball rolling.
Without the constant threat of war, without the public believing that this is an ongoing war....they would be SOL.

For every 1 soldier there is something like 2 contractors. This is about maintaining a US presence. It is now an occupation and the Iraqi's know it.

The troops could, at the very least, be pulled back to the 14 Army Bases that have been built there (4 of which are "super-bases"). That would scale the troop level to about 50,000, just to man those 14 bases and keep the "occupation" alive.

Fact is...those troops are there more to retain the real dream that Iraq will westernize and that they will be on the "ground floor" of some lucrative businesses to follow. That is what our troops are dying for.....not just oil....BAD BUSINESS.

Fact is....we are trying to have signed an agreement to "lease" 63 of 80 oil wells for the next 20 or so years. Yes it is quite a bit about oil.

But the truth is..... this whole impetus is surrounded by new thinking within our military and how to keep our military industrial complex going at a lively pace, even though the iron curtain has fallen now for quite some time. It is about Dr. Thomas Barnett's dream to constantly entrench into the "gap" to provide a "miracle grow" of freedom through the careful insertion of special CIA operations and military bases in and around the Middle East.

HEY....LOOK....wherever US military bases reside (800 now worldwide) freedom reigns!!! (right?%$#@!)

The oil men in charge jumped on the bandwagon of this "inevitable" post-cold war philosophy, especially when it aligns with getting access to some of the biggest oil reserves on earth (and most easily accessible)

The neocons too have aligned themselves more and more philosophically with this more hawkish stance.

So yes, from that perspective, it has all come together for them.
Happy Birthday George.