I have often used these pages to complain about the billions of dollars and countless lives that we continue to lose in Afghanistan and Iraq – while our states and schools shutdown vital programs for lack of funds. This is particularly annoying with a president of Afghanistan who has repeatedly stated that he wished he had gone with the Taliban and views the United States as an equal threat to his country. Now, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has actually begged the United States to halt all further operations on its soil. One would have thought that U.S. officials would have expressed relief and ordered a rapid pullout. Instead, we are saying that the desire of the Afghan people to have us stop operations is of no import — we will continue to protect them whether they want protection or not.
In his latest statement, Karzai pleaded “I ask NATO and US, with honor and humbleness and not with arrogance, to stop its operations on our soil.” That is somehow too ambiguous for the Obama Administration, which will not allow the Afghans to determine whether they continue to need our help.
According to polls, the only populace as opposed to our operations as the Afghan people is the American people. Of course, that appears to matter even less than the Afghan people’s will.
Source: Washington Post
Jonathan Turley
I have always believed that NPR is highly biased.
I also enjoy their programs immensely; have learned more than I can say; and believe we are a far better nation because of them.
We NEED to hear strong voice, and it needs to be loud and clear. And the sheer fact that so many of the programs are steep in “real people” with real people consequence – is, I think a treasure.
It is my opinion that they royally screwed up in the Juan Williams affair.
But the upside is, Juan Williams is now highly visible on Fox News, and I suspect, a quiet voice of reason on many, many issues.
I found this to be quite interesting …
Ending The Afghan War Would Save Taxpayers 40,000 Times More Money Than Defunding NPR
Today, two deficit-cutting bills will be voted on in the House of Representatives. One bill, introduced by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) and fellow Republicans, would end all federal funding to National Public Radio (NPR). The other bill, sponsored by Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Walter Jones (R-NC) and being pushed largely by progressive Democrats, calls for setting a strict timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan that would mandate the end of combat operations in that country by the end of 2011.
Conservatives claim that defunding NPR would save taxpayers a great deal of money; former NPR employee Juan Williams even argued that NPR funding was taking away from “school breakfast programs [and] college scholarships.” Yet NPR receives only around 2 percent of its annual $161 million budget from federal grants, totaling approximately $3.2 million. Meanwhile, the FY2011 cost of the Afghan war has hit $113 billion.
Assuming that the costs of both the NPR funding and Afghan war would be the same for next year, that means that ending the Afghan war would save approximately 40,000 times more taxpayer dollars than defunding NPR’s grants from agencies such as the National Endowment for the Arts and Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Additionally, as the National Priorities Project shows, ending the war could help free up money for countless domestic priorities, like hiring millions of teachers or funding health care for tens of millions of poor children. Here are just some of the alternatives that could be funded for the cost of one year of the Afghan war:
– Health Care For 55 Million Low Income Children
– 1.6 million Elementary School Teachers for One Year
– 1.9 million Firefighters for One Year
– 14.1 million Head Start Slots for Children for One Year
– 13.8 million Military Veterans Receiving VA Medical Care for One Year
– 1.6 million Police or Sheriff’s Patrol Officers for One Year
– 19.3 million Students receiving Pell Grants of $5550
– 13.6 million Scholarships for University Students for One Year
Americans recognize these truths about the relative costs of the Afghan war versus NPR. That’s why polling shows that only a quarter of Americans want to see cuts to funding for public broadcasting, while the vast majority of Americans no longer support the Afghan war and want a clear exit from that country. If Republicans really want to “listen to the American people,” as they pledged to do last fall during their campaign, they would support ending the war in Afghanistan and really saving taxpayers money, not endorsing gimmicks to please the more extreme members of their base.
Update During the floor debate on the Afghanistan issue, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) blasted his colleagues for attacking NPR but supporting the war. “The fiscal conservatives are going to be overwhelmingly in support of slashing NPR and go home and brag about how they’re such great fiscal conservatives…At the same time, they won’t consider for a minute cutting a real significant amount of money!”
Update The House just voted 228-192 to cut off funding to NPR and 93-321 against the resolution calling for an end to the war in Afghanistan this year. Numerous Republicans defected to vote against defunding NPR and to vote for ending the war in Afghanistan. No Democrats voted to defund NPR but more voted against ending the war in Afghanistan than voted for ending it
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/17/gop-npr-afghan-war/
Patric,
I agree!
In order to restore a check on the Executive, we need to get rid of the state secrets magic get out of court free card!
Lottakatz –
I’m certainly no expert on the Founding Fathers, but I have to wonder what they would say, with regards to how much of the power system’s “checks & Balances” has shifted to the Executive branch. What exists today would be almost unrecognizable. I suspect they would despise what we’ve become.
To my way of thinking, no single man ought have the current power of the President. It strikes me as pure insanity.
Patric, forget sending Congress’ children, I’d just like our country to be in an actual war our Congress declared. When was the last one? Korea? We seem to have Congress passing the buck and letting the President send our troops off to foreign lands to kill people, and get killed, on vaguely worded resolutions that are never upgraded to actual declarations of war. It’s part of the political culture of deniability: ‘we didn’t intend’, ‘the language was subject to interpretation’, ad nauseam.
Rafflaw –
Now, if we could just start a grass-roots campaign of a few million others, speaking with one voice.
Personally, I think it would be damned effective.
Spent 5 enlisted years in the Navy as a photographer – wanted to see the world.
Never could understand how people that passed through the military would ever use it except for the most dire straits, and could easily understand how those that didn’t would.
Hated hated hated every moment of it, but in retrospect it was one of the most valuable experiences of my life. How can one know the world without knowing the military and war? And how can one command the commanders without having suffered through both good and bad commands?
Where has wisdom gone?
Patric,
I like your idea with a couple of small changes. Make that 75% of Congress childrenb or Grandchildren, and they must go to the front line of action.