In addition to April being a particularly deadly month for U.S. (and Italian) troops in Iraq, some new statistics have appeared regarding the economic costs of the botched invasions.
I continue to believe that these invasions and occupations, in addition to be about control of oil reserves and flexing political muscle in the Middle East, are major components of the largely successful effort by the Neo-CONS to starve domestic social and environmental programs that they associate with socialism, progress and satan's spawn himself, F.D.R.
They are prying open the gap between the uber wealthy and everyone else despite the obvious signs of the damage being done and the real potential for revolt at least on the level of throwing the CON artists out of CONgress in November.
So, latest figures suggest that a minimum of 35,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
and 2408 American Soldiers have died, the majority of them (2271) since Bush's "Mission Accomplished" Photo Op. on May 1, 2003
US Military Deaths in Afghanistan are at 285 and at least 206 Other Coalition Troops have been killed.
http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
At least 300,00 people marched in New York last week and as usual were largely ignored by the corporate media much like Stephen Colberts flurry of sadly hilarious facts at the White House Press Correpsondents Dinner were ignored or condemned by the TeeVee pundits.
from the Here and Now radio program's site:
http://www.here-now.org/shows/2006/05/20060503_9.asp
News stories this week have focused on the high cost of reconstructing Iraq. For instance, we've learned that a $186 million project to build more than 100 health clinics in Iraq has produced only six so far.
But little has been written about the cost of the war itself.
Today (05/03/06) the Senate is expected to pass an emergency spending bill that would allocate $71 billion this year to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the research arm of Congress, the Congressional Research Service, has just released a report to assist lawmakers. It says the military burns through $2 billion a week in Iraq. And that it now costs approximately $361,000 a year per American soldier there.