While Congress continues to plan for hundreds of billions in cuts and states are closing parks and educational programs, we continue to gush billions on three wars. This fiscal year alone the cost of just Afghanistan will be $113 billion. Just this year. Just for Afghanistan.
We continue expend lives and billions in a country where polls show the majority of citizens want the United States out and are hostile to our presence. Afghan leaders repeatedly have called for us to leave the country. The corrupt president of the country has repeatedly called the West an enemy, stripped women of protections, expressed a desire to be with the Taliban, and sought to tax even the aid to his country and charge for war damage.
It is otherworldly that we are planning cuts in medicaid and other programs while continuing these wars. Even if we pull out next year, we would have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on this war alone with precious little to show for it except enriching some of the most corrupt leaders on Earth.
The American people want out of Afghanistan. Afghans want us out of Afghanistan. However, our leaders do not want to risk be called soft on the wars or responsible for a defeat. So we continue to spend money that we do not have and lose men and women who are irreplaceable. By latest count we are up to 1500 dead in Afghanistan — though it is the money that has finally gotten the Obama Administration to “focus” on reductions.
Source: USA Today
“It is otherworldly that we are planning cuts in medicaid and other programs while continuing these wars. Even if we pull out next year, we would have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on this war alone with precious little to show for it except enriching some of the most corrupt leaders on Earth.”
In a nutshell.
Cost of Afghanistan War This Year: $113 Billion
Don’t forget the billion to the Muslim Brotherhood and staffers for Libya. Remember days not weeks.
So the wingnuts in Congress say they won’t vote for a lifting of the debt limit without actual budget cuts. Here is an easy $113Billion that could be cut without hurting anybody.
As eniobob said, “In a nutshell.”
Al-Jazeera footage captures ‘western troops on the ground’ in Libya
Five of Gaddafi’s generals are among latest defectors to rebels as South African president seeks to broker ceasefire
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/30/western-troops-on-ground-libya
Here is an easy $113Billion that could be cut without hurting anybody.
“As America observes Memorial Day, U.S. casualties in Afghanistan top 1,500,” reported CNSNews. To be exact, the near-decade-long war has cost a total of 1,503 American lives. But unlike “Bush’s” Iraq war, the fatal war in Afghanistan does not seem to faze the mainstream media – even in a war that Americans overwhelmingly oppose.
President Obama ramped up U.S. troop placement in December 2009, sending over 30,000 more and bringing the total number of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan to about 100,000. But what happened to the Obama administration’s plan to pull out of the Middle East and reduce U.S. casualties?
http://brianekoenig.com/2011/05/u-s-casualties-in-afghanistan-top-1500/
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/05/31/afghanistan/index.html
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Afghanistan “sovereignty”
By Glenn Greenwald
excerpt:
A spate of horrific civilian killings by NATO in Afghanistan has led Afghan President Hamid Karzai to demand that NATO cease all air attacks on homes. That is likely to be exactly as significant you think it would be, as The Los Angeles Times makes clear:
“This should be the last attack on people’s houses,” the president told a news conference in Kabul. “Such attacks will no longer be allowed.”
The Taliban is widely unpopular among Afghans (though in the South, a majority oppose military operations against them); but whatever else is true, 8 out of 10 men, spread throughout all regions of that country, believe that NATO operations are bad for the Afghan people.
So the decisions of the Afghan President are totally irrelevant (when it conflicts with what we want). The views of the Afghan People are equally irrelevant. But we’re there to bring them Freedom and Democracy (while we decree their elected leaders’ decisions “merely symbolic”) and are fighting for their own good (even though virtually none of them recognize that). What a great war, now America’s longest and close to a decade old.
end excerpt
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55903.html Democratic moderates in congress along with the anti-war left want to accelerate the withdrawal.
Curse the bastards who gleefully cut socal and infrastructure programs that benefit the country, while
killing and maiming our troops and innocents in pointless wars.
This govt. isn’t leaving Afghanistan because its too profitable to stay there. It arms all sides of the war. It is buying and selling drugs whose profits go to the black budget and “leaders” in Afghanistan and the US. The govt. has more mercenaries than US troops in that nation. Mecenaries even partake of profits from “humanitarian” assistance. The govt. is building an occupying embassy just like the one in Iraq. Don’t forget the mineral wealth and oil pipeline.
This isn’t about looking like a soft peacenik. In fact, Obama relishes being a killer– just look at the mileage he’s taken from OBL. This is solely about obscene profits for the MIC, mercenaries, the financial industry and the “security” services. It’s a deliberate draining of taxpayer funds into private hands.
Life means nothing to these people. I have never seen more depraved indifference towards human life than the people who run this govt. display. They are thugs and criminals and they will increase the police state to keep their criminal enterprise intact for as long as possible.
Little wonder that the cost of food is going to double in a few short years, while at the same time the land needed to provide resources must double in the same amount of time.
Our wars are supremely idiotic.
And in Texas…..the War on Education goes on….slash the schools by 4 billion….yes….so they can save 6 billion for the rainy day fund….
They had a budget deal in Texas but it did not meet tea party standards. A tea bagger threatened to filibuster it and killed the deal.
And she is from FT Worth so a Special Session is called and alls they need is a simple majority….to screw the rest of Texas….
AY –
screw
the rest ofTexasThe nation would be so much better off without them.
What would it cost to get you a half-hour audience with Mr. President? I’d be happy to throw in twenty bucks.
BN – my guess is you are on the right track but way too small. I have not heard about this White House but the last one managed private audiences for its “Pioneer” group. These were people who generated in excess of $100,000 in donations just to the Bush campaign.
Given this administrations deep desire to not undo the legacy Boy George established I would guess you need to start ‘bundling’. If you can find 4,999 like minded individuals we may be able to work something out.
frank @ BN,
The problem in meeting with the President, or any other people in power is that they really believe “THEY’VE” got the inside info and insight, when the truth is they are so inside the box that they can’t understand most problems, or solutions.
True, that. But BN was only looking for an ear. If you want to influence outcome for certain you need billions. Start by buying a couple of Congresscritters . . .
Mike S.
The problem in meeting with the President, or any other people in power is that they really believe “THEY’VE” got the inside info and insight, when the truth is they are so inside the box that they can’t understand most problems, or solutions.
“Obama Came In And He Said He Was Gonna Help Everybody
That’s a Lie!”
“Tell Obama Shirley said it and she lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama”
Off topic
Kloppenburg Holds Press Conference – Concedes To Prosser
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/122872838.html
Also off topic has anyone heard about WeinerGate ?
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/weiner_cops_out_hires_att_ryMdOPVo56421qf3QZW2NJ?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4de4bc9898ba16ae%2C0
Bdaman, head over to the brad blog (if you haven’t been following it) and read what a farce the recount was: altered seals on the paper ballot bags, open ballot bags, etc. The recount was set to be a farce when the Kloppenburg lawyer asked that the ballots in contest as having a failed chain of custody and obvious flawed handling be kept separate from other ballots for recount and all attendant paperwork regarding those ballots be provided and that motion was denied.
There is a very real possibility (probability?) that the 24 hours between the initial results being announced and the second announcement being made was spent for ballot construction and ‘stuffing’. Check it out, read through the articles and archive. That was a stolen election.
http://www.bradblog.com/
“Last Monday, May 23rd, Wisconsin’s Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.), the state’s top election agency, officially certified [PDF] the controversial results of the extraordinarily close April 5th statewide Supreme Court election and its subsequent “recount.”
However, as The BRAD BLOG has learned, the agency certified those results without reviewing hundreds of official exhibits documenting wholesale ballot irregularities, on-the-record objections from the attorneys of the candidate who filed for the “recount,” and thousands of pages of official transcripts and minutes documenting the entire “recount” process from the election’s most controversial county….”
Lottakatz
That was a stolen election.
Business as usual in American politics. You would think that Judge Kloppenburg would challenge instead of conceding.
Bdaman, yea’ you’d think some of those early procedural decisions like merging the ballots etc. need to be challenged as far as they can be- this election is FUBAR but there needs to be clear precedent for the next one.
Srsly, the Justice Department is as useless as tits on a boar regarding voting rights. They should be the vanguard of challengers in a situation like this or challenging the new restrictive voter ID laws (aspects of which are probably in violation of Title VII) but where are they? I resent even paying their salary, we have no Justice Department, in fact what we do have is the Anti-Justice Department, so just stop sending them checks.
Srsly, the Justice Department is as useless as tits on a boar regarding voting rights.
and you should look at the record of the Justice Dept. in re to voting rights Bush admin verses Obama admin.
But after two years in power, the Obama administration has been pitifully inactive enforcing voting rights. Numbers don’t lie.
During his presidential campaign, Obama bewailed the number of vote-dilution lawsuits filed by the Bush DOJ under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to protect racial minorities. Yet how many lawsuits did his DOJ bring? Exactly one.
Even the investigation of that single case, which I personally filed in March 2009, was approved during the last year of the Bush administration.
The Perez-run division is hardly “open for business” when it comes to protecting racial minorities under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Instead they’ve been on a two-year coffee break.
The Bush administration, in contrast, aggressively brought Section 2 cases against the city council in Euclid, Ohio, the school board in Euclid, Georgetown, S.C., Osceola County, Fla, and Port Chester, N.Y., among many others.
The contrast between the Bush and Obama DOJ is more dramatic when enforcing the foreign language provisions of the Voting Rights Act. In some parts of the country, ballots must be in Spanish, Chinese or Vietnamese under federal law. The Bush administration brought 27 lawsuits to protect language minorities. They also entered into agreements in many other jurisdictions, including some cases that have strangely vanished from the DOJ Web site — such as a settlement I reached in Broward County, Fla. The Obama DOJ has brought only three foreign language voting lawsuits. And all three were started during the Bush DOJ.
The Bush administration filed 10 cases to enforce the very important voter assistance requirements of Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act. Only one such case had ever been filed by any prior administration and the Obama DOJ has filed nary a one.
False rhetoric and airbrushing the Justice Department Web site are the only ways you can make the Obama voting section look more productive than the Bush version.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2010/12/obamas-see-no-evil-do-nothing-justice-department-ignores-voting-rights#ixzz1Ny4hbQxq
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
9/11
9/11 who?
YOU SAID YOU’D NEVER FORGET!
Because 9/11 changed everything.
We declared war on a tactic and gerund form of a verb because they hate us for our freedoms.
We must never give up in this endless war without an objective!
The key behind the endless war is “they”– as in “they hate us for our freedoms…”
Yossarian: Those bastards are trying to kill us.
Dobbs: Who’s trying to kill you?
Yossarian: Everyone of them.
Dobbs: Everyone of who?
Yossarian: Everyone of who you think.
Dobbs: I haven’t any idea.
Yossarian: Ah…then how do you know they aren’t?
McWatt: What’s that called?
Aarfy: Sophistry.
Bob, Esq.:
You’ve pretty much summed it up.
Yep.
Bob and Heller about covered it.
Lets just kill our selves now (not that i am) but come on! Anything has got to be better than the position we are in now. Not only are we struggling economically but socially and politically! America has poor leaders, military/war problems, a horrible economy, diseases, a huge unemployment rate, pollution, illegal immigration, and religious and race intolerance! America is going to fall sooner or later. What we need is someone who can fix it. Where in the world are we going to get that! Proving my point, lets just jump off a cliff already! I’m tired of all this crap!
The endless war is a useful fixture for a government that wants to engineer the society. The impact of war spending eventually becomes a driver in every other arena of government spending. We have the legacy of a bailout and ongoing lending to Wall Street sucking money out of the economy and the burden of a defense budget that accounts for half of government spending. Those things as well as no new taxes on the wealthy and corporations is off the budget negotiation table.
I had hoped that the death of OBL would be the wedge that Obama could use to lever a quick end to to our wars and reinfuse that money saved into the budget to maintain and expand social spending. That would have been a way around the budget battles with Republicans that would have had a chance at at success IMO; once the wars are out of the way real budget decisions an be made. Doesn’t look like that was part of the OBL mission though.
“There has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.” – Sun Tzu
The cost of war is non-existant for some:
“High court rules out damage claim against Ashcroft
(AP) – 12 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out damage claims against former Attorney General John Ashcroft over an American Muslim’s arrest, but four justices said the case raises serious questions about post-9/11 detentions under a federal law intended to make sure witnesses testify.
The justices were unanimous, 8-0, in holding that Ashcroft cannot be personally sued over his role in the arrest of Abdullah al-Kidd in 2003. The court sets a high bar for suing high-ranking officials, and all the justices agreed al-Kidd did not meet it, even though he was never charged with a crime or called to testify in the terrorism-related trial for which he ostensibly was needed. …”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ii1PnSh2HWuVOWrpEJodEyj78Hgw?docId=0d6926703b9d42a39ed4dcd8d9186ca8
The cost of the war in Afghanistan is the one economic stimulus package that the Teapublicans will agree with. The problem is that it is only stimulating death and deficits.
Where is that boi that knows everything about everything? Its Hurricane season, but the boi blows more wind than a gulf whirl.
Yet.
I don’t know everything about everything, but knowing more than you is not that difficult, troll. I’d say you’re dumber than a hammer, but that would be an insult to hammers. While there may be some superficial similarities, such as a hard head and a stick up your butt, hammers at least provide the utility of a functional tool with a purpose whereas you are simply a useless little tool without any discernible function or utility. At least that’s what your wife told me between squeals of ecstasy today. So please, next time you think you’re either smarter than me or better at insults, do come on back so it can be demonstrated that you are neither. It’s no trouble. Really.
Now don’t be talking about your momma that way boi. Did it feel as good this time with the strap on as did last time?
Your momma told me you were a complainer an that is why she preferred the real men.
Sure, the poor American taxpayers are spending 113 billion a year in the Afpak war, but other people are benefiting by receiving that 113 billion, and the latter are more important than dead soldiers and dead Afghans.
Understand the US does not want to win in Afghanistan but to keep the war that is so profitable for the shareholders in armament makers and contractors to the US military going as long as possible. Every noncombatant Afghan killed by artillery or drone strike motivates relatives to join the Taliban insurgency which requires more countering. This is why the US is so efficient at losing Afghan hearts and minds rather than winning them.
“On Tuesday, the focus was on activities Pakistan’s spies are better known for domestically: punishing those who cross the influential military, the main locus of power in a nation with a weak civilian government.” -from the following article
Just like home…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistans-spy-agencies-are-suspected-of-ties-to-reporters-death/2011/05/31/AGhrMhFH_story.html?hpid=z1
Excerpt:
Syed Saleem Shahzad’s killing, other journalists and human rights activists said they suspected, was payback — not from militants, but from Pakistan’s fearsome spy agencies. Shahzad had written before about their dealings with Islamist insurgents, and he had said that intelligence officers had warned him.
“I am forwarding this email to you for your record only if in case something happens to me or my family in future,” Shahzad, 40, wrote in October to the Pakistan representative of Human Rights Watch, sharing details of a meeting he had just had with officers from the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI. Shahzad suggested that they had threatened him, an experience that Pakistani journalists, activists and politicians say is not uncommon.
But those threats rarely end in killing, and Shahzad’s death immediately sparked fresh criticism of Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus. The “agencies,” as they are known here, last month faced unusual public condemnation for their apparent failure to locate Osama bin Laden in a garrison city, as well as allegations that they had harbored him.
On Tuesday, the focus was on activities Pakistan’s spies are better known for domestically: punishing those who cross the influential military, the main locus of power in a nation with a weak civilian government. (End excerpt)
After nearly a century of war mongering and making, the Democratic Party (and other assorted and sundry leftists including George Bush) is still addicted to blood-shed and blood-lust. This is why you still see us waging war in the Middle East.
Still, what can you expect from a people who think snuffing out the lives of 50 million little human organisms in the womb, who are more sophisticated than the snail darter, is a good idea.
Oh I know all the logical justifications by cynics. It’s GOOD that dirt-bags too loathsome to reproduce should curtail their contributions to the genetic pool. And it is understandable (after having meeting proponents of abortion) why copulating leftists want to get rid of the evidence of it (they are so personally abhorrent they cannot even stand each other enough to care for what they have created together). But that doesn’t change the true essence of the matter. Its true brutality and evil nature.
Still, when combining together a century of leftist war-mongering and abortion, the Democratic Party and the leftists in America have shed just about more innocent blood and murdered more innocent people than Mao and Stalin put together.
But that makes sense. All three groups–Maoists,Ruskies, and “Democratics”–are adherents to Marxism. And Marxism steam-rolls over innocent life more effectively than a level five tornado.
So I am not surprised that the most evil group of people on the face of the earth (“Democratics”/Democrats/liberals/leftists/progressives) continue this war.
These Marxists under Obama were never REALLY opposed to “Bush’s War”. They were just opposed to war run by GOPers. And since Democrats (or “Democratics” to the simple-minded) are so experienced at murder and mayhem I suppose one could say with a reasonable amount of confidence that they DO have a point.
Oh, by the way. More soldiers were killed last year under Obama than under the last year of Bush.
Surprise!
And my software editing program doesn’t like the word Democratics. It always has a zigzag red line under it. Proof again that this nonsense about how to refer to the murderous crowd of thieves, liars, and perverts known as Democrats is a constantly changing shell game of attempting to cover up who these evil people really are. And the people trying to cover up who these evil doers are are Democrats.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Ah, one more thing.
The feds are authorized to spend money on war. They are not authorized to spend money on Medicaid.
Or Social Security. Or HHS. Or Labor. Or Education. Or everything else the commies want to rob people for.
Oh darn it. Did I say 50 million again? I meant ABOUT 50 million lives snuffed out in the womb.
Thank God we have a preeminent Constitutional scholar and lawyer here to explain the intricacies of the US Constitution to us.
Plus, we learn that Boy George was a ‘leftist’, which will come as a huge shock to sentient beings throughout the galaxy.
Now if it could only understand the difference between “Democrat” and “Democratic” the other sponges in its colony would elect it as ruler for life as it would certainly be the brightest sponge.
Troll,
“Your momma told me . . . that is why she preferred the real men.”
I guess you two have something in common then as evidenced by your preoccupation with me.
Ah, the voice of “compassionate conservatism”…
anon nurse,
“Ah, the shrill voice of ‘compassionate conservatism’…”
Just a suggestion.
lol, Buddha, regarding your appropriate revision…
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/tea-partying-sen-jim-demint-r-sc-weighing-presidential-run.php?ref=fpb Another replacement for Obama – DeMint is praying about a run.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/31/232182/rand-paul-criminalize-speech/ Rand Paul has been getting favorable reviews from some libertarians and liberals for his votes on the Patriot Act but he really is dangerous.
Budget cuts, tax cuts and spending freezes come with a price. In San Fransisco, first responders had to stand and watch a man drown because they did not have cold water rescue gear or training in cold water rescue.
This headline is misleading. It was not policy that handcuffed the first responders, it was the politician’s mentality of no new taxes, and tax cuts at any price.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43233984/ns/us_news-life/
It will be much more than $113 Billion. There are all sorts of off-the-book costs.
Glenn Greenwald, June 1, 2011:
“Last week, I delivered the keynote address to the ACLU in Massachusetts for their annual Bill of Rights dinner. The topic was the Bipartisan National Security State and President Obama’s continuation of it, and it relates to many of the topics discussed here. Those interested in listening to the 25-minute speech can do so here.”
http://aclum.org/sites/all/files/podcast/ACLU_greenwald_2011_boston.mp3
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-tech/post/google-hundreds-of-gmail-accounts-hacked-including-some-senior-us-government-officials/2011/06/01/AGgASgGH_blog.html?hpid=z1
Weiner: It’s Possible Lewd Photo Is of Him
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/06/01/weiner-its-possible-lewd-photo-is-of-him/
Rep. Anthony Weiner, embroiled in a bizarre controversy over a lewd photo of a man’s crotch sent to a young woman from his Twitter account, said Wednesday it’s possible the photo is of him – though he insisted he didn’t send it.
Mr. Obama and others in power are corrupt and they are prolonging the Global War on Terror for their enrichment and incumbent job security.
Nothing else makes any sense to any reasonable person…
anon nurse,
I just finished listening to Greenwald’s ACLU speech (36 minutes and not a dull second). Too bad those die-hard-no-matter-what-he-does Obama voters herein do not listen to the facts against their hero.
“Furthermore, people who think that the elimination of corporate influence from the public sphere will finally end the wars and graft will be encouraged to rethink their assumptions about the state: it is not, after all, an organization for the public good that has been hijacked by the rich and powerful, nor an engine of corporate control that can be reformed toward liberal ends. The state itself is and always will be the problem, and so long as it has a military arm, it will be influenced by some private interests or others toward opportunistic warring, and at a minimum manipulated by politicians, even the most supposedly humanitarian and egalitarian of whom have a murderous and diabolical record in deploying its forces and dropping its bombs. Even large business interests can come and go, but the political apparatus itself, the most inherently corrupting of all institutions given its unavoidably coercive and monopolistic nature, will continue to inflict misery and loot the disadvantaged on behalf of the powerful.”
http://mises.org/daily/5345/In-a-Relationship-and-Its-Complicated
FFLEO, I read Glenn Greenwald quite often but he is not the definitive, only voice in the world. Obama is not my hero but he is much better than the republican alternatives as I have said before.
ekeyra – reread that quote. It starts by saying its not the corporate interests controlling the government that causes war & then goes on to say it is the government itself because “it will be influenced by some private interests or others toward opportunistic warring”
How is that not the exact same thing as the corporate interests? Its not like the NCAA, PETA or the local Cub Scout pack influencing for war. The problem in a democratic republic such as the USA is when the people allow those influences to poison the government into war.
I hate gerunds and can’t stand sophistry.
“The endless war is a useful fixture for a government that wants to engineer the society.”
Lotta,
Remember “1984″?
Buddha is “take your pick.” You have proved yourself the most moronic troll ever to post here. The reason rests on your copious comments, rarely more than a line, that say nothing of interest, while falling flat on their face as attacks. One must acknowledge your persistence, however, persistence in the pursuit of stupidity is no virtue.
“I meant ABOUT 50 million lives snuffed out in the womb”
Tootie,
So you love those fetuses, but hate them when they get old?
“They are not authorized to spend money on Medicaid.
Or Social Security.”
Don’t you realize what a hypocrite that makes you? Some Christians really astound me as they reinterpret the “Golden Rule,” as you do, into the “Rule of Gold.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/03/bachmann-calls-planned-parenthood-a-criminal-enterprise/
Mike Spindell said:
“I hate gerunds . . . .”
Yeah, but Mike, you gotta love diphthongs.
to hear people have their voices heard is extremely refreshing to me
if only the “big shots” paid more attention to these conversations..
http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/06/06/larger-july-drawdown-than-expected-floated-for-afghanistan/