Jeremy Scahill on MSNBC (h/t The Nation) pointing out that not only are another 30,000 troops being deployed to Afghanistan, but also 56,000 military contractors will join them. (h/t Juan Cole)
Whoever said America didn’t love war enough to pay billions of dollars for it while refusing Americans a public health care option? It’s OK if Americans die of preventable illnesses because they can’t afford health care, as long as we are keeping them safe by killing insurgents in a far-away country and spending billions to do that.
I don’t see how my country could possibly have its priorities more fucked up at the moment. No Democrat, that is a part of this “denying the public option/single payer” fiasco while voting to fund war deserves to be re-elected. Hopefully sane people will actively work against any Democrat that passes a bill that requires Americans to buy health insurance while denying them a public option and is also for the escalation of war in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and if that includes President Obama, then it does. At the moment, Obama seems to be in the process of screwing everything up.
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Afghanistan Escalation Ramps Up Contractor Presence
by MSNBC (MSNBC is now a writer?)
“As many as 56,000 military contractors will join the additional 30,000 troops being deployed to Afghanistan, meaning that by next year there could be 130,000 to 160,000 contractors deployed alongside 100,000 US soldiers. Appearing on MSNBC, Jeremy Scahill argues that as the Afghanistan escalation ramps up, President Obama is “surpassing Bush-era level of reliance on…for for-profit war corporations.”
Asked about problems with oversight, Scahill cited his recent reporting on The Nation that the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction has even outsourced oversight of corporations to a corporation, Deloitte and Touche. Calling military contractor activity an “accountability free zone,” Scahill argues that Obama has “paid lip service to oversight and cracking down” while he’s actually expanding the use of contractors. “Without the draft, these wars wouldn’t be possible but for hiring these private contractors,” says Scahill. “
I’m disgusted by recent developments, both with health care and war. Unless Obama pledges to reduce CO2 emissions by 40% by 2020 tomorrow in Copenhagen, I’m racking my brain for a major policy of his that I can support.
Join me at 
@Bugga: I think Obama used to be a lot of things before the corporations and the Neocons got to him, maybe threatened him. I don’t know what happened to him but he has changed from what I have read about him. His books are not exactly the guy he is now.
I loved Kucinich, and would have voted for Dean too. Think what a better place this country would be if either of them had gotten elected. Things would be different if Hillary were president too. She had her shit together far more than people gave her credit for. But the Obama magic was powerful.
Several people in the Repulican party who are serving in government claim to hear “god” talking to them, telling them to go to war, drill for oil, etc. It’s bizarre what they believe, most of them are probably certifiably insane. I know Michele Bachmann is.