Congress is making blood money off of our troops

There’s plenty good money to be made,
By supplying the Army with the tools of the trade.

— “I Feel Like I’m Fixing to Die Rag,” by Country Joe and the Fish

It remains curious that a Democratic Congress elected in November 2006 specifically to end the Iraq War, hasn’t. More U.S. troops are in Iraq now than before that election. So much for “democracy.”

Here’s the reason. AP reports:

Members of Congress have as much as $196 million collectively invested in companies doing business with the Defense Department, earning millions since the onset of the Iraq war, according to a study by a nonpartisan research group….

The study found that more Republicans than Democrats hold stock in defense companies, but that the Democrats who are invested had significantly more money at stake. In 2006, for example, Democrats held at least $3.7 million in military-related investments, compared to Republican investments of $577,500.

And Bush and Cheney, of course, are up to their necks in Halliburton and other firms that profit from war.

This war isn’t about exporting “democracy,” or stopping terrorism, or ousting Saddam, or finding WMD. It’s about war profits.

Patriots fight and die; chickenhawks stay home and collect the cash.

All the tears by the chickenhawk Bush administration and the just plain chicken Democratic Congress for our dead and wounded troops are crocodile tears.

As the character King (David Keith) says in the movie “Platoon” about the poor doing the fighting:

Ever’body know, the poor are always being [expletive deleted] over by the rich. Always have, always will.