Day: July 1, 2021

Closing Thought–01Jul21

Did you know that suicide since 2001 are 6 times higher than those killed in action?

Yes about 6 times higher to the tune of 30,000+ as opposed to about 7,000 killed in action.

New research released Monday shows the post-9/11 wars launched by the U.S. military since 2001 have resulted in over 30,000 suicides by active duty American solders and veterans—over four times the number killed in combat operations.

According to Brown University’s Costs of War Project—established in 2010 to account for the loss of lives and taxpayer dollars spent on U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—an estimated 30,177 veterans and service members have killed themselves over the last nearly two decades, compared with 7,057 members of the military who have been killed in combat. 

The findings were compiled from interviews, government data, and secondary literature.

“The V.A. 2020 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report reveals the suicide rate of veterans overall and adjusted for age and sex is 1.5 times that of the general population,” the report reads. “This rate is likely a conservative one because, unlike earlier reports, the V.A. only counts veterans who were federally activated, leaving out Reservists and National Guardsmen who were not federally activated.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/06/21/over-30000-us-veterans-post-911-wars-have-killed-themselves-2001

This is a growing problem and the Pentagon has done little to help…..

But why is this a growing problem?

While the Department of Defense, Veterans’ Administration, and other organizations are trying to address this alarming trend, one component that must be further integrated and supported is the family. Depression and suicide do not happen in a vacuum, and these events have a profound impact on those in the service member or veteran’s life. 

Military service members, war veterans, and their families carry the costs of war daily. Most civilians in our country have been fortunate to not have experienced, at least directly, the horror of the Global War on Terror. But many U.S. servicemembers — especially those who have done multiple tours of duty — have. Traumatic events like IED blasts (with accompanying traumatic brain injury) carry significant impact even after a deployment ends and service members return to American soil. This can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The Rand Corporation, in a 2019 report entitled Improving the Quality of Mental Health Care for Veterans, identified that up to 20 percent of deployed individuals experience PTSD, up to 44 percent have a dependency on alcohol, and 48 percent of those who deployed experienced strains in family life

Why are tens of thousands of post-9/11 service members killing themselves?

We can find billions for new ways to kill but very little to help the veteran that is fighting inner battles because of those weapons.

Pathetic track record on veteran issues….the Pentagon treats veterans like broken tools…they discard them and find news one to screw up.

And yet our Congress throws their support behind veterans with every election and then soon forget them as quickly as they can in favor of more ‘popular’ issues…..and the voter allows this as well.

But the bigger question is….do Americans not involved in this situation actually care how many of our vets are taking their lives?

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“lego ergo scribo”

 

“Defund The Police”

Oh boy the GOP has a new slogan for the next election cycle….a slogan but NO policy to address the term…..or the problem (which is typical these days….lots of slogans and NO policies)

This is nothing new….as a matter of fact I have addressed the idea on several occasions……

https://lobotero.com/2020/07/21/is-it-police-reform-or-defund-or-abolition/
 
 
 
(Why I bother to offer background info is beyond me)
 
The basic fact is that police reform is a moot point…..the police cannot be reformed….
Why would I make such a statement?

The American police have more funding than any military besides our own or China’s. This certainly makes any sort of revolution, no matter the strength of organizing, extremely difficult. Despite this mismatch, we see a weak spot: the police themselves.

It they can’t even handle criticism, they likely will continue to roll over when class contradictions heighten. The American Right, while horrifying in their institutional power, extremism, militancy and stupidity, are above all a small and cowardly lot. They are overrepresented in the courts, the cops and in political office.

But without a whole lot of dark money and big guns behind them, they fold, and fold quickly. In some ways it may be surprising that the largest chunk of police abolition has been by the police being so snowflake they can’t hang with massive peaceful protests. Yet this is a sign that this approach is working. Noam Chomsky has recalled the unprecedented nature of the global protests following George Floyd. These protests worked to defund the police, even when politicians predictably opted mostly for symbolism.

The Police Can’t Be Reformed

I offered up possible ways to reform the police….sadly none will ever happen…..I mean look at Biden…..https://lobotero.com/2021/04/14/biden-and-police-reform/

A good start….but where will it go in this spineless Congress?

I am sorry but I do not see any thing actually changing in the policing of our streets in my lifetime…..of course that is not that long because I am an old fart.

I wish someone somehow could formulate a plan that would put more equity on our streets….but sadly all this is just a fart in a hurricane….all this rhetoric signifies nothing.
 
Turn The Page!
 
I Read, I Write, You Know
 
“lego ergo scribo”

CIA And Drugs

I do not know if Americans know of the CIA involvement in the drug trade….if they truly cared then why is this still going on.

This post was inspired by an article I read about the CIA involvement in the drug trade in Afghanistan (you remember than country right?)……..

This is a far cry from the 1970s, when poppy production was minimal, and largely for domestic consumption. But this changed in 1979 when the CIA launched Operation Cyclone, the widespread funding of Afghan Mujahideen militias in an attempt to bleed dry the then-recent Soviet invasion. Over the next decade, the CIA worked closely with its Pakistani counterpart, the ISI, to funnel $2 billion worth of arms and assistance to these groups, including the now infamous Osama Bin Laden and other warlords known for such atrocities as throwing acid in the faces of unveiled women.

“From statements by U.S. Ambassador [to Iran] Richard Helms, there was little heroin production in Central Asia by the mid 1970s,” Professor Alfred McCoy, author of “The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade,” told MintPress. But with the start of the CIA secret war, opium production along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border surged and refineries soon dotted the landscape. Trucks loaded with U.S. taxpayer-funded weapons would travel from Pakistan into its neighbor to the west, returning filled to the brim with opium for the new refineries, their deadly product ending up on streets worldwide. With the influx of Afghan opium in the 1980s — Jeffrey St. Clair, co-author of “Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press,” alleges — heroin addiction more than doubled in the United States.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2021/06/25/geopolitics-profit-and-poppies-how-the-cia-turned-afghanistan-into-a-failed-narco-state/

After reading this article….my first response is….DUH!

Of course the CIA is involved in drug trafficking….and has been since the 1970s……

Seriously!

But here is a look at the trade and CIA participation….

In August 1996, the San Jose Mercury News initiated an extended series of articles linking the CIA’s “contra” army to the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles. Based on a year-long investigation, reporter Gary Webb wrote that during the 1980s the CIA helped finance its covert war against Nicaragua’s leftist government through sales of cut-rate cocaine to South Central L.A. drug dealer, Ricky Ross. The series unleashed a storm of protest, spearheaded by black radio stations and the congressional Black Caucus, with demands for official inquiries. The Mercury News‘ Web page, with supporting documents and updates, received hundreds of thousands of “hits” a day.

While much of the CIA-contra-drug story had been revealed years ago in the press and in congressional hearings, the Mercury News series added a crucial missing link: It followed the cocaine trail to Ross and black L.A. gangs who became street-level distributors of crack, a cheap and powerful form of cocaine. The CIA’s drug network, wrote Webb, “opened the first pipeline between Colombia’s cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, a city now known as the ‘crack’ capital of the world.” Black gangs used their profits to buy automatic weapons, sometimes from one of the CIA-linked drug dealers.

https://ips-dc.org/the_cia_contras_gangs_and_crack/

Should not the government cease this involvement…..and what happened to this expensive War on Drugs?

When will the people realize just how dick deep the CIA is in the drug trade?

Here is an unique idea…..stop bitching about drugs and get off your ass and put a stop to the US involvement…..

Just a thought

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I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

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