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
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”
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 . . .
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.
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.
What would it cost to get you a half-hour audience with Mr. President? I’d be happy to throw in twenty bucks.
AY –
screw
the rest ofTexasThe nation would be so much better off without them.
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….
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 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….
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.
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.
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.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55903.html Democratic moderates in congress along with the anti-war left want to accelerate the withdrawal.
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
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/
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
As eniobob said, “In a nutshell.”
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.
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.
“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.