Everybody thought it was a big deal last spring when President Bush announced his "surge" of 20,000 troops in Iraq, which brings the total number to 160,000, four years after the invasion.
Meanwhile, with little public or Congressional scrutiny, the president has been eagerly shelling out billions to maintain an even larger private armed force in Iraq.
According to the journalist Jeremy Scahill -- without whose dogged reports in The Nation and on Democracy Now the story would be virtually unknown -- U.S. taxpayers are now supporting a private-security force of 180,000 in Iraq. That's larger than our formal military presence.
By contrast, in the 1991 Gulf War, "the ratio of troops to private soldiers was about 60 to 1," Scahill writes on Counterpunch.
Scahill reports that neither journalists nor elected officials have been able to ascertain exactly how much Bush is lavishing on this massive rent-a-cop force, which operates with much more impunity in Iraq than the formal army.
Some in Congress claim that the figure might be as high as 40 cents per dollar spent on the war.
Given that we're burning through $2 billion per week in Iraq, that means that a few secretive private-security firms -- a "coalition of the billing," to quote Scahill -- are shaking us down for some $800 million every week, or a cool $42 billion per year.
The opportunity costs of this boondoggle are monumental. I'm sure we can all think of more productive ways to spend $42 billion than to send a bunch of armed, little-supervised henchmen into a foreign country.
Here's mine: $42 billion represents about six times the annual budget for our dismal school lunch program.
City preps and countries posture ahead of Copenhagen talks
Is Bill McKibben right to be angry with Obama?
Rumors of Copenhagen’s demise have been greatly exaggerated
Comments
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sindark Posted 3:41 am
16 Aug 2007
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Delay And Deny Posted 5:07 am
16 Aug 2007
You can go to India Combo in Kent, WA and have all you can eat Indian food that is fresh, delicious and nutritious for $6.95
http://www.indiacombo.com/
If this model were scaled to high schools, and profit eliminated, I'm sure the costs could be cut in half. That means $3.50 per child...not much more than current spending.
No plastic. No boxes. Just hot tandoori chicken and saag paneer served fresh and hot.
John Bailo
Supratext:
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wiscidea Posted 5:11 am
16 Aug 2007
In the mean time, corporations and individuals want tax breaks and loosening of regulations protecting the environment just to remain economically viable. One often hears business folks complain that we cannot afford to protect the environment.
Well... if we can afford the war in Iraq, especially if we can pay contractors 5x what the averaged volunteer soldier gets paid, we can certainly afford to protect the environment.
Those wanting tax breaks and loosening of regulations protecting the environment can either shut up or demand an end to the war in Iraq.
Forward!
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wiscidea Posted 5:14 am
16 Aug 2007
There is no surge... just Americanization of the war.
Forward!
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wiscidea Posted 5:23 am
16 Aug 2007
The money could be invested in organic agriculture... better for the environment and the health of our citizens.
The money could be invested in national parks...
in...
replacing aging INFRASTRUCTURE!
providing national health care!
improving education system!
The last three would improve the nation's economy, creat more and better jobs, and generate revenue that could be used for protecting our environment!
Unnecessary and mismanaged wars ARE an environmental issue.
Forward!
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sindark Posted 7:12 am
16 Aug 2007
True, but mixing anti-war messages into a forum with an environmental story feeds the prejudice that environmentalism is exclusively a partisan left-wing undertaking.
If the environmental movement is to have any lasting success, the issue must become understood in non-partisan terms.
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wiscidea Posted 7:53 am
16 Aug 2007
"...mixing anti-war messages into a forum with an environmental story feeds the prejudice that environmentalism is exclusively a partisan left-wing undertaking."
Your comment suggests that opposition to war is exclusively a partisan left-wing undertaking. Or that opposition to one war -- the quagmire in Iraq -- is equal to opposition to all war. Neither is true. I am very concerned about the loss of lives in Iraq. I'm very concerned about the waste of money. It is undermining our national security, creating more enemies, destabilizing the Middle East and other parts of the world. I know "conservatives" who agree with me, which is probably why GW's approval ratings are belwo 30%.
Brave men and women responded to 9/11 by volunteering to fight those responsible. But instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan, our wacky President -- who apparently has a serious case of attention deficit disorder -- dropped the ball there and sent our forces to Iraq. Opposing the war in Iraq does not mean I oppose all war or can even be labeld a left-wing partisan. War is not pro-life. War is not pro-America. War is not a Christian value. War is not a family value. War is bad for MOST business. Instability in any region is bad for the global economy. War is bad for trade, bad for export markets.
and...
"If the environmental movement is to have any lasting success, the issue must become understood in non-partisan terms."
True, but the environmental movement should not be afraid to identify situations where money and lives being squandered when resources are needed to build a strong economy that can afford to restore and protect our environment. War is an environmental issue.
It is very common for corporations and aother business to complain that we cannot afford to protect the environment. At the moment corporations can respond to environmentalists who call for more money to clean up the environment or regulations to reduce harm to the environment by saying... "HEY! We can't afford that. Don't you know we're at war?! We can't afford luxuries like clean air and biodiversity. Forgot about 9/11?" Environmentalist must eliminate that excuse so they can move on to the next challenge.
And I'm just refering to the immediat effect on the United States. War in the developing countries makes it very difficult to address evironmental issues (as well as a host of other problems). When the United States contributes to conflicts, directly or indirectly, it harms what is left of natural ecosystems and biodiversity. War is an enormous drain on resources, and not at all a productive use of those resources.
Forward!
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Biodiversivist Posted 5:15 am
17 Aug 2007
It was a very informative article. I had no idea it was this bad. I know a guy who got hired by the government (simply because he had a bachelor's degree in biology) to ride around Iraq with a bunch of other people for a year looking for evidence of biological weapons (to justify the invasion). He got paid a thousand dollars a day, but was unable to come up with the goods.
But most importantly, this is an example of how incompetent the Bush side of government is. We should be getting ready for huge increases in the price of energy but instead we squander vast resources on a war that has no reason to exist. It is apalling that the American public is ignorant enough to elect an imbecile for a president, not once, but twice.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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