* Originally in: Friendly BBS General Chatter NO FLAMES!

 * Originally in: POL_INC


One third of all returning U.S. veterans have mental problems.
Attendant costs to the American taxpayer.

Ongoing and perhaps lifetime mental health care.
Government subsidized housing.
Food stamps.
Increased costs to the U.S. taxpayer due to 
costs attributable to crimes committed from returned troops
from subjected to the moral ambiguities presented and dealt with by 
U.S.. troops in Iraq.

I.E. Lack of a defined mission or enemy
Lack of a sure way of distinguishing the enemy from the Iraqi 
civilian population ( for the most part one and the same anyway ) 

Court costs to the U.S. taxpayer.
Prison costs.
Lives lost by those killed by returned U.S. troops mentally
unballance by a war lacking mission or clearly defined targets or
objectives.
Spousal abuse attributable to mental unbalance or induced moral
ambiguity ( moral turpitude) caused by extended 
exposure to unending living with the knowledge you may be killed
at any moment by seemingly civilian population member
or roadside innocent looking debris  or discards ( IED) 
Bearing in mind many of these U.S. troops will have been on extended
stop loss mission running into FOUR TOURS in combat in Iraq
each tour lasting a year.

For every U.S. serviceman or Woman killed in Iraq there are 14
wounded or maimed for life.
Of those wounded most are the result of traumatic brain injury from IEDs.

Of those suffering from IED induced traumatic brain injury
about one third will be slammed into nursing homes and hospices
essentially vegetables with no chances for anything close to what
any rational person would consider a life. ( think Terri Schiavo)

Basically the autonomous nervous system at the top of the brain stem
keeps them breathing and their heart beating but they will lack 
mental capacity.

So if you accept a figure of 3,000 American combat deaths x 14
you get 42,000.
Then,  the majority 51 percent per the pentagon wounded by IED,
that could be as little as 51 percent gives just under 21,000 

Now taking the Pentagon figure of 1/3 of those being essentially
living human vegitables you arrive at   7,000 human vegetables
the U.S. is responsible for taking care of with all attendent medical
procedures and housing costs for as long as they each should live.

This could add up to quite a tidy sum for the U.S taxpayers don't
you think folks?

Addendum to previous post.
Additional costs you may not have thought of.
Nurses.
Government subsidized in home health care workers.
Food stamps.
Various futile attempts at rehabilitation.
Potentially sucessful rehabilitation costs for the other two thirds IED
severe brain trauma injued U.S. veterans returned and 
continuing to return from Iraq. 
Success of course being measure against a yardstick of varying degrees
of a return to normalcy.

This for a war that sought to eliminate non-existent WMD
that posed no threat to America or Americans.

Think about it.
This public service message brought to you by Wayne Chirnside
using what publicly available Pentagon statistics to arrive
at the above conservative figures.

These figures do not take into account the cooked 
American casualty count.
The American civilian contracted dead.
Nor any non-American casualties of this war.
ITMT Osama bin Laden and the Antrax terrorists both remain free and at large.

Now the Republicans sold themselves as the party to protect and to keep 
us all safe.
Seems to be a bit of a problem with that.
Also just a bit of a problem with conservative fiscal financial
responsibility as regards to the national debt.

Just as a wild ass guess this is going to cost you the Republican U.S. 
working taxpayer and supporter of the war in Iraq some small coin 
don't you think?


... It is the best of all possible worlds said Dr. Pangloss to Candide
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