War - Iraq

From Raw Story comes this report by the Washington Post: The U.S. is using 127,000 private contractors to replace U.S. military functionality in Iraq.

Writes the Congressional Research Service in a recent report: "Iraq appears to be the first case where the U.S. government has used private contractors extensively for protecting persons and property in potentially hostile or hostile situations where host country security forces are absent or deficient."

Of these contractors said to perform "functions once carried by the U.S. military," recently gauged at 127,000, less than 20 percent were Americans.

The CRS report goes on to say that the increasing reliance on private contractors, of whom 1,001 have died as of June 30, 2007 in the Iraq offensive, saves resources that would otherwise be used to court volunteers for military service; it also appears to lessen the chance of a draft.

Good grief, people. We're outsourcing the war to mercenaries!

Meanwhile, to no one's surprise, author Tara McKelvey asserts in her book "Monstering: Inside Americas Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War" that the abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib was just the 'tip of the iceberg' and Raw Story notes that:

Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, 51, goes on trial on Monday on charges which include cruelty and mistreatment of detainees, making false statements, obstruction of justice and disobeying orders.

She adds that the trail of slime left by these injustices could lead all the way back to John Yoo, author of the infamous document that excused torture and adherence to Geneva Convention rules for the treatment of prisoners.

And the NYT (once again via Raw), publishes an opinion piece authored by real live actual soldiers on the ground in Iraq, discussing the abomination of the war in Iraq.

At DailyKos, someone has diaried about the rape and murder of Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi and the murder of her family. What nobody seems to be talking about, however, is the fact that Abeer Qasim is a member of the al-Janabi tribe. And, as Riverbed says at her popular blog, Baghdad Burning:

And the Janabat (the Al Janabis) are a force to be reckoned with.

As I posted earlier.

So when I hear that the U.S. is arming Sunni insurgents (who, not so long ago, were shooting American soldiers), I despair. Note: The al-Janabi have both Shia and Sunni members. And with good reason. Meanwhile, the feebwit Nouri al-Maliki continues to fiddle desparately, as his supposed "coalition" burns down around him.

Stumble It!