The USA"s defense budget does not include the welfare grants to corporations to develop and create and profit from weapons the military buys; neither does it include the $$$$$ necessary to care for the wounded, shocked and disabled its wars have created; nor the re-education of soldiers it exploited; nor the costs of inflation upon the population due to its energy-wasting wars; nor the continual propaganda advertising the military to unsuspecting youth; nor the costs to families and communities to deal with soul-ravaged returned soldiers; nor the weaponry "given" to nations around the world to keep their puppet-governments in control of their people and to create threats to neighboring nations; nor the costs of borrowing the money from banks to pursue the unnecessary wars; etc.

And the lies and misconceptions regarding Iraqi deaths continue.

Not that the body count wasn't bad enough.  IBC documents that over died from 2003 to date.  And the count continues.

But there are those propagandists who would have folks believe that the US is directly responsible for over 1 million deaths - based NOT on actual deaths - but on a door-to-door survey of a thousand Iraqi households.

IBC, an antiwar site, published an article of WHY such exaggerations discredit themselves.

... Such inflated, and all too carelessly adopted, estimates trivialise the already documented (and tragically high level of) deaths about which the world still knows far too little. Nor do they contribute, even in broad outline, to the work that lies ahead: the establishment of a comprehensive, locally-verifiable, detailed truth, painstakingly pieced together, death by death, name by name, recording each and every casualty of this conflict. The pressing need is for more truth rooted in real experience, not the manipulation of numbers disconnected from reality....

It's an old debate, but those who wish to reopen it, have at it...

Apr 28, 2013 -- 8:49PM, Mlyons619 wrote:

Iraq Government bans Sunni news agencies - including al-Jazeera

Iraq Bans Al-Jazeera Broadcasts

...A Sunni-Shiite war may be brewing in Iraq.  The governing body of the present government is Shiite, and has revoked the operating licenses of Al-Jazeera, 8 Sunni networks, and 1 Shiite.

Security has been deteriorating in the country due to Sunni unrest.  More than 180 people have been killed in the last week.

Al-Jazeera, based in the small, energy-rich Gulf nation of Qatar, said it was “astonished” by the move..."  (more)

Democracy in Iraq has always been on shakey ground, but banning freedom of the press?

Is al-Maliki showing his true colors? 

Not a good sign for Iraqi democracy at all

It is just the reverse of the problem in Egypt with Morsi and the Brotherhood where the opposition or possible opposition press is similarly being limited. It is autocrats with religious extremist leanings or would be autocrats with religious extremist leanings acting true to form.