Collateral Tragedies My Big Ole Butt

My friend CJ has a post up at A Soldiers Perspective, with pictures and everything.

It infuriates me when I read stories like the one in this week's Time Magazine called Collateral Tragedies. The article rails against our air campaign against the Taliban as responsible for killing more and more "innocent" civilians.
The tent stake holding the line on this story is the August 22nd airstrike in which the military claims only 7 civilians and 35 insurgents were killed. However, the Afghani government and a United Nations "inquiry" claim that up to 90 "civilians" were killed. These types of stories work wonders for enemy propaganda and they use it to their utmost ability in Afghanistan (and in Iraq).
The problem here, again, is that the Taliban does not abide by the rules of war or the Geneva Conventions. They use civilian buildings and locations to conduct and launch military operations. They use children as cover for their activities knowing that if a targeting gunship sees them, the airstrike will be called off.

Did you just hear what I said? We will NOT kill the enemy if there are visible civilians, especially children, at the target location!!

Thats Right I Have NO Shame

I stole this from CJ. Arrest me, if you can catch me.

The Iraq Money Pit

You know, I get tired of hearing about how much this war is costing us. I believe the going figure right now is about $600 billion since 2003. While not a small number by any calculation, let’s look at some other numbers for context.9/11 cost our country over $1 trillion dollars in damage and the resulting tax cuts to bring the nation back to its feet. In a few short days, Americans lost billions as the stock market plunged. Insurance companies paid out at least $19.6 billion in payments. Government payments total nearly $15.8 billion. In total, 9/11 victims and their survivors received over $38 Billion for what the terrorists did. Al Qaeda didn’t pay this bill.

It is estimated that the 9/11 attacks cost Al Qaeda approximately $500,000 to execute. Businesses in New York City, particularly in lower Manhattan near the World Trade Center, have received $23.3 billion in compensation for property damage, disrupted operations, and economic incentives, according to the Rand Institute.

Illegal immigration in this country costs over $338 billion per year. Since 2003, we’ve spent over $2 trillion on this money pit. $66 billion to $132 billion in six years on welfare for illegal aliens. Over $13 billion on food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. About $15 billion on Medicare for illegal aliens. Over $100 billion was spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. About $72 billion to send them to school even though they can’t speak or understand our language - add in the cost of hiring bilingual teachers and ESL programs.

According to CNN, over $3 million PER DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens (over $6 trillion in six years)!! $600 billion sounds like the least of our worries in this country.

Maybe we should recognize that figure for what it is - an investment in a secure future for millions of Americans and Middle Easterners!