THE WAR -- The Human Costs

“… And the appearance of the wounded, bereft of arms, of legs, eyes put out, flesh wounds in the face and body, and uniforms crimsoned with blood, proclaimed with equal force the savage horrors of human battling with weapons of war.”

This is how a New York World correspondent described the grim scene of July 21, 1861, as bloodied troops of the Union army struggled into Washington after the battle of Bull Run. Sometimes called the first battle of the first modern war, the horrors of the Civil War were sketched, photographed and written about in the truth of gruesome detail from the bombardment of Fort Sumter to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox courthouse.

Assaying the death and carnage of this massive blood-letting, historian Drew Gilpin Faust writes: “Soldiers struggled for the words to describe mangled corpses strewn across battlefields; families contemplated the significance of newspaper lists of wounds: “slightly, in the shoulder,” “severely, in the groin,” “mortally, in the breast.” … For the first time civilians directly confronted the reality of battlefield death rendered by the new art of photography. They found themselves transfixed by the paradoxically lifelike renderings of the slain of Antietam that Mathew Brady exhibited in his studio on Broadway.”

The public of Lincoln’s day could not have found refuge from the “patriotic gore” of the war had they wanted to do so. How things have changed.

As we know by now, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are being reported in ways that shade civilians from the heat of death and human suffering taking place in those violent worlds. The Iraq and Afghanistan nightmare toll rolls on in the far distance. We are familiar with roadside bombs and suicide bombers, but the death and destruction of lives and bodies, the work of war, all takes place in lands filled with place names we have quit trying to pronounce. And the dead and the wounded for life barely register on our consciousness, not quite visible, not quite real.

After accepting five-and one-half years of wars churning toward ever-changing objectives, we’ve become comfortable with our can’t see, don’t see, won’t see sensibility. Few at home clamor for wider, deeper, more detailed coverage and analysis of these ongoing wars. No one asks to see the images of the bloodbath we created. Only the exceptionally persistent and courageous search out and are willing to gaze at bodies blown to pieces by IEDs along roadways and human bombs delivered to market place crowds.

Over four thousand American troops have died in Iraq; last week the five-hundredth death was marked in Afghanistan. The military issues the names of the dead, their age, rank, unit and hometown. This spare accounting arrives on most days of our busy weeks, day in and day out.

In the early years of the wars, our dead heroes returned home in the cargo holds of commercial flights. Travelers on holiday and frequent flyers on important business trips might glance out the windows of planes and see a flag draped coffin preceding their suitcase up the luggage ramp into the space beneath where they were seated. Did this require them to think about what they were seeing? The military now uses private chartered jets.

The wounded come home in far greater numbers. They have sacrificed much and arrive unannounced. They are ignored as they depart from hospitals and rehab centers to take up the difficult strands left of their lives. The stories of the medical conditions, red tape encountered in their searches for help and lonely depression they face only occasionally break through the surface of non-stop news on Brett Favre, “American Idol,” whatever.

If we should decide to search out the price being paid by the heroes of these wars, the flesh, bone, blood and breath of their sacrifices, where would we look? Because most of us will be lucky enough to not lose a close loved one in these wars, and only a few will ever attend and support a grieving family who has suffered such a loss, I recommend the reading of Jim Sheeler’s magnificent book, Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives.

Sheeler wipes away the anonymity of those who made the ultimate sacrifice; he documents the courage of families left behind; he honors Marine Major Steve Beck who takes on the crushing, necessary task of notification and support of the families of the fallen. Major Beck is a hero who honors heroes. He works with a dedication that is deserving of medals and promotions not yet imagined by the military brass sitting behind polished desks.

Read this book to better understand the total and final loss exacted by these wars.

On the wounding of these brave women and men, there is now a book that should be in all libraries, public offices, and especially in the hands of every politician holding or running for office. Television newscasts should open and close with a shot, presented without comment, of a photo from this book. Newspapers need to regularly run excerpts and photos from this book.

War Surgery in Afghanistan and Iraq: A Series of Cases, 2003-2007 was written and designed to teach surgeons going into these war zones what they will see, what to expect, and what practices are effective. This book has been praised by the military medical establishment. This book has saved lives.

Before War Surgery was published (order from U.S. Government Printing Office), attempts were made to censor it and keep it from being made available to the public. Along with flag-draped coffins, our war government does not want American citizens to see the horrors of war.

War Surgery is filled with photos of the human damage coming from the wars we are a part of — burns, bleeding, limbs shredded, amputations, an unexploded rocket embedded in a soldier’s hip. This is not video game pixel violence or summer movie special effects and stunt man make believe.

Dr. David E. Lounsbury, a retired Colonel and 1991 and 2003 Iraq vet and one of the three authors of War Surgery had this to say about the attempts to censor and restrict this book: “I’m ashamed to say that there were folks even in the medical department who said, Over my dead body will American civilians see this.”

The Civil War journalist quoted above offered this observation and prediction: “Most horrible were the sights presented to view, and never to be forgotten by those who witnessed them.”

As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq drone on: What have we seen? What will we remember?
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This piece was first published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, August 17, 2008.

THE WAR The Money [Part 32]

Reports of waste, deception and deviousness in Iraq pile up almost as fast as Bush administration resignations. No real surprises here for anyone who has been half awake. Yet we’ve seen Bush, Senate Republicans and McBush (when he's around to cast a vote) are ready to go to the veto and fillibuster mats to keep appropriations cuts for a war that never should have happened from coming to a vote. I guess that’s called “continuity” by those Republican rabbits who have no place to go but back into the same hole.

If you read this entire article you will find that, yes, Cheney’s old corporate parlor car, Haliburton, is still the first car on the bloody gravy train. Here’s a target quote: “When the war began, for example, Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, the company run by Dick Cheney before he was vice president, was the largest Pentagon contractor in Iraq. After years of criticism and scrutiny for its role in Iraq, Halliburton sold the unit, which is still the largest defense contractor in the war, and has 40,000 employees in Iraq.”

Right. 40,000!

And this brings us to the last paragraph in the excerpt below. It points out circumstances few recognize let alone think about.

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The New York Times
August 12, 2008
Use of Iraq Contractors Costs Billions, Report Says
By JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON — The United States this year will have spent $100 billion on contractors in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, a milestone that reflects the Bush administration’s unprecedented level of dependence on private firms for help in the war, according to a government report to be released Tuesday.

The report, by the Congressional Budget Office, according to people with knowledge of its contents, will say that one out of every five dollars spent on the war in Iraq has gone to contractors for the United States military and other government agencies, in a war zone where employees of private contractors now outnumber American troops. . . .

Contractors in Iraq now employ at least 180,000 people in the country, forming what amounts to a second, private, army, larger than the United States military force, and one whose roles and missions and even casualties among its work force have largely been hidden from public view. The widespread use of these employees as bodyguards, translators, drivers, construction workers and cooks and bottle washers has allowed the administration to hold down the number of military personnel sent to Iraq, helping to avoid a draft.

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THE WAR -- The Money [Part 31]

Barak Obama is finally linking the miserable war in Iraq to the fast deteriorating economy at home. To his credit, he’s never spouted nonsense like failure to defeat the terrorists in Iraq will mean those terrorists will climb into the trunks of our Humvees and “follow us home.” He seems well aware that what will follow us home from the ruins of five years in an unnecessary war, what will be tied around the necks of the American people for generations as a result of this disaster, is massive debt.

No one should be, and Barak Obama is not, so naive as to think terrorism ends in this world the day our last hero leaves Iraq. And no one should think for a minute that another terrorist attack cannot (or even will not) take place within the United States at some date in the future. But fear, however real, should not freeze us in place, force us to continue a policy that was wrong from the start and has cost us so much through all these years.

Who can seriously argue that involvement in Iraq is the best defense and preparation against fanatical assaults being planned, who knows where, right now? Resources being wasted in this war need to be used intelligently at home. Terrorism is global, not something corralled within the borders of a single nation.

McBush is throwing around heavily weighted but never defined words like “victory” and “defeat.” He will continue these going nowhere attacks right up until election day. (What else does he have to use?) But this campaign tactic only satisfies mindless emotions while ignoring hard facts. This is the stuff that has hurt us far too long. Enough.

I say: “Obama, 16 months is 16 months too long.” But given Bush’s mushy “horizon” time table (sic) and the slow ticking of McBush’s perpetual clock, Obama’s is the only option making sense..

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The New York Times July 22, 2008
News Analysis
For Obama, a First Step Is Not a Misstep
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and JEFF ZELENY

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi government on Monday left little doubt that it favors a withdrawal plan for American combat troops similar to what Senator Barack Obama has proposed, providing Mr. Obama with a potentially powerful political boost on a day he spent in Iraq working to fortify his credibility as a wartime leader. . . .

He said his conversation with General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker focused on “what’s adequate for our security interests, factoring in the fact that not only do we have Afghanistan, which I believe is the central front on terror, but also the fact that if we’re spending $10 billion a month over the next two, four, five years, then that’s $10 billion a month that we’re not using to rebuild the United States or drawing down our national debt or making sure that families have health care.” . . .

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