If

[ivan]

the middle word in life?

[j_b]

What did I miss, is Obama cutting back on military contractors or something traumatic like that?

 

You wish. On the contrary, the number of military contractors in Iraq is going up as the number of "combat troops" is coming down. Never ending war is alive and well.

 

Another False Ending: Contracting out the Iraq Occupation

 

by Bill Quigley and Laura Raymond

 

Another false ending to the Iraq war is being declared. Nearly seven years after George Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln, President Obama has just given a major address to mark the withdrawal of all but 50,000 combat troops from Iraq. But, while thousands of US troops are marching out, thousands of additional private military contractors (PMCs) are marching in. The number of armed security contractors in Iraq will more than double in the coming months.

 

While the mainstream media is debating whether Iraq can be declared a victory or not there is virtually no discussion regarding this surge in contractors. Meanwhile, serious questions about the accountability of private military contractors remain.

 

In the past decade the United States has dramatically shifted the way in which it wages war – fewer soldiers and more contractors.

 

Last month, the Congressional Research Service reported that the Department of Defense (DoD) workforce has 19% more contractors (207,600) than uniformed personnel (175,000) in Iraq and Afghanistan, making the wars in these two countries the most outsourced and privatized in U.S. history.

 

According to a recent State Department briefing to Congress’s Commission on Wartime Contracting, from now on, instead of soldiers, private military contractors will be disposing of improvised explosive devices, recovering killed and wounded personnel, downed aircraft and damaged vehicles, policing Baghdad’s International Zone, providing convoy security, and clearing travel routes, among other security-related duties.

 

Worse, the oversight of contractors will rest with other contractors. As has been the case in Afghanistan, contractors will be sought to provide “operations-center monitoring of private security contractors (PSCs)” as well as “PSC inspection and accountability services.”

 

more: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/01-0

[ivan]

at least all those guys leaving the military in a shit economy can find an employer looking for their skill-sets

 

the american sforzas!

[j_b]

Right, but this time no bitching by the usual hypocrites about contractors' inflated wages and benefits compared to that of public sector workers (the military). Go figure, there is a chance of reducing the deficit but the fuckwits don't want to take it.

[ivan]

dude, you won't be getting their amerikkkan empire from them unless you pull it out of their cold, bloody hands - good luck w/ that - on the positive side, i hear dancing w/ the stars has a new cast

[j_b]

Not only will they not let go of the empire but they'll make sure the profiteers cash in the process, all the while they spew propaganda about the needs to decrease the deficit. How about these $900 hammers (i.e. mercenaries costing several times what a soldier earns), reaganite jackasses?

[Nitrox]

You were hoping we'd lose weren't you?

[JosephH]

You were hoping we'd lose weren't you?

We did lose the day we invaded and, in case you haven't been following along, the real war in and for Iraq is only now about to begin.

[Nitrox]

You're wrong, we completed our objectives, whether you agree with them or not.

[ivan]

You were hoping we'd lose weren't you?

who doesn't love a shakespearian ending? for sure it's hard to concieve of that war as anything other than a tragedy.

[ivan]

You're wrong, we completed our objectives, whether you agree with them or not.

sure, after we changed them (and will continue to change them) a dozen times

 

heard we won in vietnam too!

[prole]

You're wrong, we completed our objectives, whether you agree with them or not.

 

Good thing that restoring electricity to Saddam-era levels of service was not one of those objectives.

[j_b]

Well, they did regain control of the 2nd largest oil reserve on the planet (and won't let go, for sure) but beside mercernaries and oil majors, I don't see many Americans who won anything. Sucker thinks he did.

[billcoe]

We did lose the day we invaded and, in case you haven't been following along, the real war in and for Iraq is only now about to begin.

 

You're wrong, we completed our objectives, whether you agree with them or not.

 

I suspect that once they sit down after the fact - do the math and divide what we spent into what we got, they'll realize that we f*ing overpaid X3 the going rate. In the end, we got off lucky in terms of American lives, not so much Iraqi life's. If one thinks regime change was a goal, a single Tomahawk missile to a Hussein family reunion would have been significantly more cost effective and the end game would have been very similar with much less innocent life and American treasure and world goodwill wasted. We could have sat back, let the international community work on them, and had the manpower, money and hardware to deal with the real threat just next door, a nuclear armed Iran.

 

What was our opportunity cost? Hard to calculate. Fortunately, jb has his oil to refuel his SUV now. Little pricey though.

[tvashtarkatena]

Well, we lost a trillion dollars, anyway. Whether or not we lost the war, or occupation, or whatever you want to call it, is kind of moot, considering the amazing damage the venture has done to this country.

 

Not to mention the folks now wandering around without arms, legs, faces....

[rob]

Not to mention the folks now wandering around without arms, legs, faces....

 

Haliburton thanks them for their sacrifice.

[tvashtarkatena]

The Right is all about being Winners.

 

Ego-less reality doesn't enter into it.

[Nitrox]

You're wrong, we completed our objectives, whether you agree with them or not.

sure, after we changed them (and will continue to change them) a dozen times

 

heard we won in vietnam too!

 

Bullshit, with Cronkite leading the way Vietnam was declared a loss.

 

 

 

 

[Nitrox]

We did lose the day we invaded and, in case you haven't been following along, the real war in and for Iraq is only now about to begin.

 

You're wrong, we completed our objectives, whether you agree with them or not.

 

I suspect that once they sit down after the fact - do the math and divide what we spent into what we got, they'll realize that we f*ing overpaid X3 the going rate. In the end, we got off lucky in terms of American lives, not so much Iraqi life's. If one thinks regime change was a goal, a single Tomahawk missile to a Hussein family reunion would have been significantly more cost effective and the end game would have been very similar with much less innocent life and American treasure and world goodwill wasted. We could have sat back, let the international community work on them, and had the manpower, money and hardware to deal with the real threat just next door, a nuclear armed Iran.

 

What was our opportunity cost? Hard to calculate. Fortunately, jb has his oil to refuel his SUV now. Little pricey though.

 

Cost and justification are a separate issue.

 

 

[j_b]

Well, we lost a trillion dollars, anyway. Whether or not we lost the war, or occupation, or whatever you want to call it, is kind of moot, considering the amazing damage the venture has done to this country.

 

Not to mention the folks now wandering around without arms, legs, faces....

 

Taxpayers spent around a trillion so far, but it'll be at least twice as much once we are done paying the interest on the debt and done caring for those folks now wandering without arms, legs, faces, etc ..

 

Money we could have spent retooling the economy out of fossil fuels, but noooo, the dinos had to have their war.

[Fairweather]

Not to worry! OB's printed another $1.6Tn just this year alone--to take care of his political supporters and assorted union thugs.

[j_b]

Liar. TARP was a Bush program, and the stimulus was to alleviate the crisis of catastrophic proportion you guys engineered. Everyone but morons know Obama was handed a shit sandwich you confectioned with love. Cretin.

[billcoe]

Think of it as Obama just doubling down. Who hasn't ever gotten drunk at a casino and done this very thing?...... Come on....show of hands.......see! Everyone! Not to worry FW, tomorrow, dude wakes up hungover, maybe a little vomit on his chin, headache, feeling like a herd of Buff has run through his mouth and shit on his tongue....but then he puts on a new leaf on life and realizes that all that spending is tossing the country down a hell hole we won't be able to claw our way back out of in his kids life time. He turns fiscally conservative, trims the federal expenditure by firing JB and his tax and spend ilk, we get a slight tax increase but folks who really are in deep need still have it coming to them, but he tells the Chinese to piss off we won't keep borrowing. See, there's' still hope! Certainly the President is sharp enough to figure this out! That's why we wanted the smart one in there. (no sarcasm here, really) Relax.

 

Not to worry! OB's printed another $1.6Tn just this year alone--to take care of his political supporters and assorted union thugs.

 

Here:

[video:youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9K4BKkLaCI

[JosephH]

Well, let's tally it all up:

 

* Roughly a trillion in direct costs

 

* Throw in another trillion for on-going costs, re-capitalizing the military, and of course veteran benefits given the numbers of returning troops with 'survivable' brain damage from IEDs

 

* Deployed roughly a quarter to a third of the force level necessary to even begin to secure the country

 

* Perfected the IED as the weapon of choice in asymmetric warfare

 

* Exposed the logistical and operational limits of our military to the Chinese

 

* Exposed the limits of the collective will of the American people to the Chinese

 

* Allowed the Chinese unchallenged momentum in Africa and South America

 

* Destroyed the Iraqi infrastructure which the Chinese will now rebuild

 

* Destroyed a largely secular nation and government with the highest education levels (particularly for women) in the region and replaced it with an Iran-backed Shiite nation

 

* Set the stage for decades of turmoil in Iraq - IF Iraq survives as a nation

 

* Turned Iran into a regional heavyweight overnight

 

* Dramatically destabilized a significant portion of the MidEast

 

* Oh, and failed to bribe the Turks into letting our troops open a northern front in Iraq (somewhere between $6-26 billion was offered depending on who's counting in a master stroke of last ditch invasion diplomacy that exemplified pre-war planning as a whole)

 

In short, we spent two trillion dollars to aid and abet Iran and China's interests in the region in ways they themselves could only have dreamed of. Invading Iraq was the very definition of insanity in terms of attempting to use that action to restore and reassert America's superpower status.

 

[ivan]

on the positive side we did get a oscar winning movie about the war, even if it did really blow

 

creatively i think we really just didn't get our best foot forward on OIF, i mean really, operation iraqi freedom, that's as cool a name for a war as we could think up?