mercenary armies

What Will America Be Like When They Come Home?

Fri, 07/06/2007 - 11:57am — chicago dyke

Forgive me if this has already been posted, but I just noticed it and I'd like to talk about it a little. Woody notes a Truthout piece about the mercs in Iraq which now outnumber our troops.

The number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, newly released figures show, raising fresh questions about the privatization of the war effort and the government's capacity to carry out military and rebuilding campaigns.
More than 180,000 civilians - including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis - are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

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I support Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Per capita health care spending (2007):

United States: $7290
Switzerland: $4417
France: $3601
United Kingdom: $2992
Average of OECD developed nations: $2964
Italy: $2686
Japan: $2581

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The text of HR676 (Medicare For All) as PDF (30 pages). The FAQ. Compare HR3200 with HR676.

Medicare for All would save $350 billion a year (study in New England Journal of Medicine).

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11:47:14 lambert Happy Thanksgiving in chat, too!
18:12:59 lambert Simple answers to simple questions: Yes.
18:00:47 BDBlue That's true on healthcare, but I was talking about the Fed bill. When the WH surrogates try to water it down, will the blogs fall in line?
16:32:33 lambert They'll pass something, anything. They need to declare victory.
15:40:03 BDBlue Re VL's post on the A-list, it will be interesting to watch the discussion of the bill on the blogs as the WH inevitably tries to kill it via various surrogates. Will we see the veal pen in action? And I agree this bill is potentially huge.
13:36:52 lambert Agree on Ron Paul and the Fed.
13:23:52 brucedixon interesting.... Glen tells me that neither the fake "jobs summit" nor the familiar wailing of conyers about his being disappointed with the prez are the big story. the most important thing happening in DC right now is the Ron Paul bill which wd require the Fed to be audited.
13:57:03 brucedixon I think my colleague Glen Ford is writing on it this week in BAR so I will just co-sign whatever he says.
22:03:36 Valley Girl I'd sure like Bruce Dixon's take on the Conyers comments. Just emailed him.
21:03:43 lambert Thanks, Jeff.
18:16:03 Jeff W lambert, I wrote to NOW about that Elizabeth Warren video not playing and got a response of sorts back, which I sent to you as a private PM. Just FYI.
02:28:28 hipparchia the first thing they told us my volunteer training: humans are natural born rescuers.
00:18:34 lambert One more study... [url]
23:57:37 lambert Joe Bageant is god. [url]
01:00:54 lambert The actuary was a whistleblower under Bush, too. [url]
00:47:48 hipparchia that's ok, jason stands ready to help smear the actuary quoted in that wapo article [url]
23:16:16 lambert Elders under the bus on Medicare, naturally. [url]
20:11:01 lambert 19:49:09 +100
20:10:18 lambert Capitalism in a world where we will throw as many taxpayers under the bus as necessary....