Pentagon Report due: 1 in 5 soldiers returning from Iraq with brain injuries.
By John Amato Sunday Jan 20, 2008 1:01pm
On The Chris Matthews show, Richard Stengel, the managing editor of TIME gives us a chilling new report that the Pentagon is releasing about the serious head injuries our troops are sustaining in Iraq.
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Stengel: When we got into the Iraq war we didn't know how long it would last. When we got into the Iraq war we didn't know how much it would cost. It's lasted longer, it's cost more than we ever expected. The real toll is coming out now. The Pentagon is releasing a report saying, one in five American serviceman and women who have been in Iraq are coming back with brain injuries. Mild, traumatic brain injuries. More than 250,000 people. That legacy of that will last all of our life times and it's incalculable.
It is incalculable and unforgivable, but it would appear that Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney still sleep very well at night. Does Stengel really believe all the spin that BushCo. fed the public and the media before we attacked Iraq? I believe Cheney told us on Meet the Press that it wouldn't be very long at all and we'd be greeted as liberators. Andrew Natsios told us it would cost US taxpayers about 1.7 billion for reconstruction that was later scrubbed from the WH website. ...I believe we were told that it wouldn't cost all that much and Wolfowitz told us that Iraqi oil would pay for it anyway.
Enlisting countries to help to pay for this war and its aftermath would take more time, he said. "I expect we will get a lot of mitigation, but it will be easier after the fact than before the fact," Mr. Wolfowitz said. Mr. Wolfowitz spent much of the hearing knocking down published estimates of the costs of war and rebuilding, saying the upper range of $95 billion was too high, and that the estimates were almost meaningless because of the variables. Moreover, he said such estimates, and speculation that postwar reconstruction costs could climb even higher, ignored the fact that Iraq is a wealthy country, with annual oil exports worth $15 billion to $20 billion. "To assume we're going to pay for it all is just wrong," he said. (h/t Heather)
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Traumatic brain injuries cost a bloody (sorry) fortune over a lifetime, and occurrence of a TBI highly increases the likelihood of an additional TBI (because your system is unstable, you are more likely to fall, e.g.).
Let alone the psychological toll on the soldier and his/her family...
Are they sure about that number? Is it 1 in 5 of those who have served in Iraq or 1 in 5 of those who are wounded that served in Iraq?
"surge is working!"-MSM
Anybody got the link to the clip where, when Rumsfeld is confronted with a figure in the billions, he says, "That's baloney."
He was right. The figure was substantially greater.
That's a great question; I'm guessing the former is correct though, as the number of wounded who have traumatic brain injuries is likely higher due to the nature of the attacks (roadside bombs more so than gunfire)
All of this makes no sense until you ask "What if a few of the most powerful families in America are simply exploiting it to steal as much money as possible without regard for whether or not the nation survives?" Then everything that's happening in our government makes sense.
I'd like to see Wolfowitz tossed in the cage with a vet or two, brain damaged or no.
Ya mean they're going to vote Republican?
Homeless vets up to 200,000 in the past year. Over one hundred people murdered by Iraq vets. 250,000 vets with TBI. Heckuva job, dumya, death cheney, rummy, gates, kristol, kagans and of course, betrayus. Y'all must be very proud of yourselves. Burn in hell forever and a day, you rat bast****.
This will be unpopular BUT, my opinion is, anyone who joins any nation's military, knows that his JOB is to KILL and must already have some kind of brain damage.
I know for a fact that if they are diagnose with concussion, they're sent right back out. My newphew and 2-3 guys in his Humvee were all concussed to varying degrees in an explosion (One guy was killed in a nearby vehicle) and it was business as usual the next day. Now if these guys had the same injuries playing sports at school or professionally, they'dve been sidelined for quite awhile. To avoid reinjury to an already injured brain. The effects of brain injury are cumulative.
But I guess if they're just dime a dozen grunts, what does it matter? there's more where they came from....
ysbaddaden @ 8:
I'm sure a large percentage will. We have become a nation of people that do not act in their own best interest.
Now excuse me while I go to MacD's for lunch.
one in five American serviceman and women who have been in Iraq are coming back with brain injuries-
"thats just coincidence" -O'Reilly
Not their kids, so they sleep like babies, I'm sure.
Anyone going to ask our candiadtes about this?
One of the most important aspects to the presidential candidates....
We need to know WHO will be their nominees for Attorney General and Department of Veterans Affairs.
Will they nominate SOMEONE that will look into all of these crimes ...
OR will they will nominate someone who will cover them up.
What the hell happened to the regard for human life? Was that just a sick joke?
Having worked in health care with TBI's (traumatic brain injuries) I have personally seen the devastation it does to both the patient, family, and all those connected socially to the patient. This administration has talked out of "rose colored glasses" since day one. The truly sad fact of all of this, NOT ONE that continues to support this IIC (idiot in charge) will give the facts a second look. They don't want to hear it, read it, see it... It does not exist, so it's nothing but Left Wing fantasy. And the democratic leadership? What have they accomplished even after the Walter Reed "facts" were out. Hearings... they heard it and to what end? We are a sad nation if you stop to consider our priorities are to resolve we are a "Christian nation" while we snub the most needy in our country. We look down our noses at the unemployed, underemployed, homeless, sick, etc... We make sure corporations have enough money to make poor paying jobs but keep the top tier in fine lifestyles or they ship the headquarters off-shore. We make sure insurance companies and lawyers have more places at the table when trying to actually do something that will trickle down to the "least among us".
I'm sure God is not at all pleased.
End it N O W
Lyin', motherfuckin', blasphemous, bastards. To a man. All republicans and their enablers. Yeah, Lieberman, I'm lookin' at YOU. You too, Feinstein, and if Obama doesn't quit talkin' up Reagan for WHATEVER reason, him too.
Could be a blessing in disguise so in ten years they won't know the ravages of the cancers they contracted from D.U.
This American Republican party now stands a chance of going down in history with any other radical tyranny, regardless of basic ideology that spawned it. That's right, Goldberg, it's about BORG, not whether or not liberals are "fascists" by whatever stretch of logic you care to twist around the maypole.
I don't know what the problem is here. Many of these brain injured (pre-existing condition?) will at least be able to find jobs in law enforcement or with the Department of Fatherland Security making sure that the brain-uninjured 'do what they ought'a'.
Fineman's last mention of Edwards leads me to believe that he would not be opposed to a VP candidacy once again. Maybe I'm just speculating or wishful thinking.
With this and so many other things, tell me one thing that is "Christian" about our nation. Before mean jean and the rest get all excited about this being a Christian nation, they should have to show deeds of proof.
"Six days, six weeks, I doubt six months." - Rumsfeld
pissed off patricia @ 17:
I'm full of sick jokes
Along with Slim Jims and some black stuff.
And how many Iraqis have closed-head injuries? How many children?
Reason #446283 for not starting unnecessary wars.
Old Billy @ 29:
What kind of country starts an unnecessary war? There was a time that country would have been called dangerous and evil. But when our own country does it we call it an act of liberation. It still looks dangerous and evil to me. We have become what our country used to go to war to fight against. We are now the country that imprisons people and tortures them. We really have become the enemy. Fu*king sad state of affairs.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/1AFAD0257...
No cover-up. No crime.
It didn't matter what the costs of the illegal invasion was to them , because they never had to pay a penny or a drop of blood and it's inconceivable that they didn't know there would be a resistance , because they know the history of England in Mesopotamia and their brutal occupation . They had great teachers in Barbarism .
Winston Churchill -" I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas.
I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected.
And since these deviants are drunk with power(Bush,Rumsfeld;Franks;Cheney;Powell , they figured they could wipe out any resistance , they knew would oppose their plans for occupation and since IRAQIS pay the ultimate price and the American soldier pays with their blood , they can sit comfortably in their leather chairs , sipping their martinis and watch the carnage from a far .
I was taught all brain injuries were serious.
I never heard of mild traumatic anything before.
Yep. Criminal bushbaby gain sending people back with "mild"
brain injuries. Absolutely disgusting!!!
gain-gang
jr @ 3:
Go back to sleep America....."rock a bye baby, in the tree top;...."
"the surge is working, the surge is working, the surge is working...."
I saw that Pelosi again said she would not stand up to the Bush Crime Family under the rules of impeachment. She actually was joking about people coming up to her with Impeachment buttons like it's not serious business. I sent her the following e-mail and I think everyone should send something to tell this woman to step down...for being the first woman Speaker of the House she has not paved the way for another woman to be speaker any time soon.
anyway, here's the e-mail I sent:
I am sending this e-mail to say your are in violation of your oath of office. If you are not going to do your job, please have the decency and step down as speaker. If you are willing to let crimes go unchecked and you are not willing to defend our constitution then please step down as speaker. You are worse then the Republicans and you should be ashamed of yourself. But maybe serving America isn't in your interest.
These statistics are completely ridiculous. Just because some guy spurts off some figures that suit your POV doesn't mean that you should spread them around. C&L is hereby encouraging liars on its own side and showing a lack of precision. Either this story was lazily reported or the editors simply don't respect the intelligence of their audience.
ConcernedCanuck @ 10:
I might agree if the ruling class didn't create an entire generation of kids so desperate to break out of poverty that the promise of cushy assignments and free college money would make them "volunteer" for the military.
1 in 5 soldiers returning from Iraq with brain injuries....
repugs response = SEE, 4 out of 5 are great ! No problems !! I must wonder out loud if
these 1 in 5 might be liberals.
I guess these aren't the same future homeless vets that Billo says aren't sleeping under bridges and, if they are, are either drug taking or mentally ill scum that the government can ignore and leave to their own devices.
Shock and awe indeed.
This war is a cancer. It was, and is immoral. Poorly planned and even more poorly executed. It has become a symbol of what has happened to this once proud and respected country. We have become a shadow of our former selves. We must forge on knowing that we have no money, no more respect, and try to pull this country back from the brink of disaster. We must demand to bring our soldiers home and give them the medical treatment they need and truly deserve.
TonyF @ 37:
See Comment 31
TonyF @ 37:
Please enlighten us
Suck it up girls. You don't see us whining.
-Field Marshall Bill Kristol and Commandante Jonah Gpldberg
Hell, a person with a mild concussion isn't supposeto fall asleep, but we're sending people back with traumatic brain injurie? Something stinks here, and you can't cover up the smell
Brain damage comes in many forms. All of these men and their neo-con friends are sociopaths: mentally ill.
Corporate America seated them; corporate America needs to pay for its crimes.
ysbaddaden @ 8:
That was the first thing I thought of when reading this.
ysbaddaden @ 8:
Now that would be some serious brain damage.
ConcernedCanuck @ 10:
I served in the Canadian Forces (right around the time The Enemy we were trained to fight against had the good sense to just collapse and not try to fight it out). I was quite upfront then, and now, that my primary responsibility and function was to kill people and break things if necessary. And since I was a military engineer, to kill people and break things with big bangs in creative ways.
I do not believe I am, or was, suffering any kind of brain damage. Any more than, as a volunteer firefighter and ambulance operator, that brain damage is the reason I elect to go into places where no rational person would and where I stand a reasonable chance of being injured, killer, or suffering effects that will emerge later in life.
I might, however, be inclined to think that those who believe that people who are trained to kill people and break things in order to protect other people are unnecessary are perhaps suffering a bit of cognitive impairment themselves.
I'm not saying that every use of military force is justified or right. Far from it. But to pretend that no such organization is required is to really live in la-la land. To believe that all those who voluntarily choose to accept that responsibility are mentally ill, allowing the morally and psychologically pure such as yourself to preen in your own superiority, is goddamn insulting.
Busholini is also brain-damaged, but it hasn't negatively affected his life.
Every official that come in
Cripples us leaves us maimed
Silent and tamed
And with our flesh and bones
He builds his homes
War Within a Breath/Rage Against The Machine
And these figures only reflect on the physical brain injuries.
How many have had their brains modified by mental trauma? That number will fill our parks and the shadows of our bridges and heater grates with homeless people for many years.
Yes, The bush Legacy is now coming into light.
(I always use lower case letters for bush and his family, that's all they deserve)
Stengel must have a mouse in his pocket.
Some of the "We" knew better.
Keith @ 49:
Uh huh. Whatever, like I said, so you wanna kill people and blow things up and then you say you aren't mentally ill? OK. If hired killers were not in a military "killing" for their government, they would be on trial for murder and EVERYONE would call them mentally insane.
HulksHeroes @ 35:
Yeah, and I see American Gladiators is back on, too. Here you go America. Don't worry! We're in control.
BUSH + ISRAEL + SAUDI ARABIA + PENTACON = DEATH-SUFFERING-DESTRUCTION
I LOOVVE this quote by the PENTACON:
"disclosing the results would put the lives of those fighting at risk."
... Brain Injuries? What the Pentacon meant was, "80 times as many US casualties have resulted from a False-War on Iraq than resulted from the False-Flag of 911", and "if the Word got out even the naivest young-blood in the country would avoid signing up"... Better to be poor and alive, than making a living and dying or suffering the rest of your life for it.
But the Pentacon didn't do this all by their lonesome, it took the PNAC-Cabal years to get everyone into this, and it'll take decades for the rest of us to sort through it.
RICO PNAC and the Bush Cabal!
No one in the entire world is happy with Global Fascism except the Plundering Elite behind it all!
ConcernedCanuck @ 10:
Not necessarily. What about a Chaplain, or a Nurse or Doctor? They don't sign up to KILL and neither do a lot of other service people. Especially in the U.S. where joining the armed forces may be a way out of the dead end factory job in your small town. It may be a way to get an education and make a better living. The downside is that your country may start an illegal war and you will come home with a TBI. Or, not come home at all.
At the start, Huckabee to unveil a Reagan era brain trust of advisers, now he has my vote fo' shizzle. Why not get Cheney and Rummy too?
TonyF @ 37:
Where's your contradictory evidence? Talk about lazy...
Blue Lensman @ 7:
==================
Weird, I said almost exactly the same thing this morning over breakfast:
"Would justice be served by tossing Bush in a rubber room with about 20 severe PTSD sufferers and a bucket of knives...?"
Seriously, Bush will get off scott-free, just like all his cronies, because the people left in charge after he leaves will protect them...
Chris Matthews is a putz!!!!!!!
We've known this for years now, and finally it gets reported by the mainstream media.
I wonder what this new knowledge will do for the voters...they will still go out and vote for a candidate that has pledged only to start removing my brothers and sisters in harms way by 2013.
Where are the true Anti War candidates?
I can only hope for a Paul/Kucinich ticket.
There's a difference between wanting to something and and believing you need to do something.
You are standing in a room with a gun in your hand. On the other side of the room is a man who you've already seen kill one innocent person with a knife, and who is now approaching another who is in no position to protect themself, with the stated intent of killing again.
Do you pull the trigger?
Or suppose there's no second person. The killer is coming after you. Do you pull the trigger?
I have no desire to kill anyone. But if I feel it is necessary, yes, I will. No will most people. It's the idiots who can't tell the difference that are the problem. Both the idiots who kill when it isn't necessary and the idiots who think there's no difference.
Typo in that last one "So will most people." is the correct sentence in the last paragraph.
ConcernedCanuck @ 10:
Wow! What world do you come from? To suggest that anyone who joins their nation's military is brain damaged, is just plain stupid. For one thing, only a small number of troops are combat. The vast majority of them are not trained combat troops. To use a broad brush to paint everyone as brain damaged is something I would expect a 2 year old to say, not someone who thinks of himself a thinking rational adult.
In what's sure to be on ongoing description of the trauma of Traumatic Brain Injuries that are being inflicted on our troops, for the rest of this week. to start, Doonesbury will be showing its impact on the newest member of the family.
Glad to see that both you and Ray are alive, Toggle.
~Nyc
diamondmc @ 65:
Well, here's another way to look at it that's perhaps not as inflammatory.
Since there is no Draft, there can be no such thing as "Serving Your Country" or being a "Troop", that the reality is is that anyone that contracts with the Federal US Government's Military to wear a Uniform and carry a rifle is not a "Soldier" per se, (that's just All-American, Flag waving PR spin and bullshit), but....
A contractor.
All of them.
Every last one of them.
The difference being that the ones that sign on directly, instead of going through a 3rd party mercenary organization, like Blackwater, get paid like shit. They only one tenth of what those guys get for doing the same job, with a lot more rules governing what they can and can not do.
Sounds like they took a dumb deal to me, considering the other options that are available out there to them. If this is the kind of job they're looking to do, don't smart people try to get paid as much as the market will bear?
But, ultimately, the bottom line here....?
They're all contractors, ALL of them, and nothing more, and maybe it's time to start using that language in describing what they do.
Or not.
~Nyc
then waht happened to bush
bob @ 20:
That's how angry I feel too. And the congress is pushing for a rebate of a few hundred for each family. What a bunch of shit. How about give it to the va hospitals. and then start making things right. tax the people who are profiting by this war, quit the entitlements the government hands out to the rich baseball stadiums, big box stores, etc. see David Cay Johnston on Democracy Now. That'll fry your giblets.
pissed off patricia @ 30:
Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you-Friedrich Nietzche.
If Dante had known these f**kheads -- Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush, Wolfowitz, Perle, and all the rest of the sorry crew, they'd have shown up in a circle deeper than the Betrayers of Benefactors, everlastingly f**ked in the eye-sockets by Doberman-sized metallic cockroaches.
Albatross @ 6:
Roger that!
ConcernedCanuck @ 10:
I know what you're saying and won't say you're unpopular. BUT I think the idea behind a nations military is supposed to be to PREVENT killing. And that's why many join. It's just that corrupt criminal regimes recognize that they can use these forces as mercenaries to kill and get rich doing it.
pissed off patricia @ 25:
POP, by their works we already know them to be anything but Christian,
There is lot of stree in Iraq but i think we cannot agree with this data.
Check the other interesting story.
i think 100% of the ones injured in Iraq will sustain traumatic/brain injuries.............
The quote on which this story is based was transcribed wrong. It should not read "mild, traumatic brain injuries". It should read "mild traumatic brain injuries" - concussions. A 'mild traumatic brain injury' is an industry name for concussion.
Also, Stengal did not quote the Pentagon correctly. He said "one in five servicemen and women who were in Iraq" the actual data refers to soldiers who have seen combat. Indeed, it may be the case that 100% of soldiers see active combat at some point, but this is in no way addressed. The war is a hellish thing for legitimate reasons. We don't need misinformation fogging up the discourse.
America is on the brink of losing everything. this is the most important lecture you will ever hear:
Naomi Wolf - The End of America
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc&feature=related
please watch and share.
The two A's: Authenticity and accountability. It seems that we have some AA holes in Washington.
Even worse, The VA probably informed them they were not qualified to use their services. Better bring back the draft. Fight or go to jail.
Could the leadership of this country possibly get any worse. In the future our country will pay dearly for neglecting our vets? Pathetic, just pathetic.
Just classify the veterans as having non-qualifying (no) disorder and deny their veteran payments.
Isn't that the kind of object, not person, that bush is? (lower case intended to show disrespect for a name no one will carry in the future.)
Watch for legislation that seeks to take the right to own a gun away from returning
vets for being psychologically unsound. Then watch for that circle of widen.
ConcernedCanuck @ 10:
To be fair, a lot of the soldiers over there are National Guard - all they really signed up for was college $ and sand-bagging floods in their hometowns and such.
Ok, for people who have never been to Iraq or even served in the military, you guys sure do seem like big experts on events over there. I spent 3 years in the Army Infantry, did a fun little tour over in Iraq, and I've seen these cases of concussions and now Traumatic Brain Injuries after IED attacks. One was a real case, we had a Sgt. throwing up all over after having his truck get nailed by an IED. But then we had 2 pretenders who claimed something wrong with them. One was in the same truck as the before mentioned Sgt. but he even admitted when we talked to him back stateside, when he was drunk and at his most honest, that he faked the whole thing. The bastard still got a Purple Heart, for a fake injury. No shrapnel in the leg, not even a sliver. But hes still probably getting disability from the VA for it. Then after this SAME Ied attack, a Sgt. who was acting as my TC, Truck Commander, (I was driving this Humvee) which was about 50 meters (about 150 feet) from the blast started complaing about a ringing noise in his ear, and even went so far as to complain and complain about this so called ringing in his ears, to me and then the medics back on the FOB. They checked him out, and found ZERO signs of anything wrong, no concussion or anything. THey even asked me, at the Sgt.'s insistance, if I was ok. I told them I was fine, Completely fine. When you are as far away as I was to the IED it honestly just feels like standing next to a big speaker at a rock concert. This same Sgt. was a Fobbit, he only went outside the wire maybe 3 times, but he didn't hesitate to tell us how to do things out in big dangerous Iraq. His expertise lay more in the field of telling us what time midnight chow was.
Im sure their are people who really do have brain injuries, but what makes me sick is fakers like this. How do you diagnose these injuries? It so easy to fake a claim through the VA. Hell I can go over to the VA hospital and say I have PTSD, a chronic cough, and sand in the pussy and I'll probably come out with a nice disability check. Fakers bloat these percentages and the media jumps on them every chance they get, because it makes a good story and people love to hate the terrible injustice done to our ALL VOLUNTEER military.
For all those fakers out there cashing in on the suffering of our real wounded soldiers, I hope you choke on that Purple Heart.
Bullshi_!!
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