Blowing Billions on War While American Workers Go Under

When asked by USA Today's pollsters last week, sixty-eight percent of Americans said we worry that the cost of the Afghanistan War hurts our ability to fix problems here in the U.S. This week, we learned just how right we were about that. Friday's terrible jobs report shows that a crushing 9.8 percent of us are unemployed. And, millions of us are about to lose our lifeline because Congress refuses to extend unemployment insurance benefits. We're spending $2 billion per week -- per week! -- in Afghanistan while millions of people face going hungry during the holidays.

Do our elected officials not get it? We're drowning out here, and the administration is throwing money that could put Americans back to work at a failed war on the other side of the planet. In fact, that's where the president was when the jobs report came out this morning -- in Afghanistan, talking about "progress" again.

Now, it's great that the president met with wounded troops. Goodness knows they deserve our attention. Their pictures ought to be on the cover of every newspaper until this war ends. But it would be better if the president stopped sending them to get wounded for no good reason, and it would be even better if the hundreds of billions of dollars we're wasting each year over there were putting people back to work in the U.S.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-greenwald-and-derrick-crowe/blowing-billions-on-war-w_b_792041.html

Failing war and tax cuts for the rich while people starve. Ain't America wonderful?

...subsidize tobacco, return transfats to food, and stop wasting money painting dividing lines on our highways

:cry:

K&R

He OWES them a visit.

But he continues this war because he knows that his own daughters will never have to enlist and fight in it.

Those who start, perpetuate and benefit from war are not the ones who suffer in war. If they were, there would be far fewer wars.

Obama gets to give orders that kill other people's children. His, he knows, are safe.

Safe, warm, well fed, with their kids secure...what war?

for daring to propose a return to the draft so that the human costs of war are distributed a little more equitably.

This will work only if there are no exemptions from service for reasons other than significant disabilities.

Unemployed young people provide willing recruits.

"Economically-induced patriotism."

Our cynical "leaders" refer to our soldiers as "our best and our brightest" because they can't call them what they really are--disposable citizens--the children of the poor and working class--fodder for corrupt foreign policy.

All war will ever beget is loss.
Life, limb, land, loot. Lucidity precedes them all as reason falls first.

I don't know how long ago our DOD morphed into the church of aggression, I just know that it wasn't supposed to.

The rule of law is a distant dream and I hope people realize that this massive bulk of wealth is reflected by little more than numbers stored in banks of computers. Stuff is stuff, and it is or it isn't; ownership in a lawless land is subject to the whim of the moment.

Nice find L2. :hi:

when they renamed the old War Department the DOD. I think that was immediately after WWII, in a revamping of terminology to conceal our planned entry into a state of permanent war (which is exactly what the Cold War was).

from their war with Afghanistan.

Just institute a 20% "War Tax" on the top 1%. If US soldiers are deployed overseas, the War Tax automatically goes into effect. That might very well end all wars.

of the aisle would not vote for such a tax as long as they are receiving such liberal bribes from war profiteers, IMHO.

Maybe a little better option, in these balanced-budget times, is a pay-as-you-fight war bonds program. Say you want to invade North Korea, the banks (?, whomever) issue bonds to finance it (- and this is the requirement- only USA individuals may purchase the war bonds), and if not sold, then no war. Might just end wars of aggression, since the UN seems helpless to stop it.

Both parties can be tax dollar prudent and look good too to many voters in supporting it.

Let me say upfront that I want to see our military adventurism and the mercenaries that fester off of it ended as soon as safely possible and then to scale back the billions being squandered on the "war on terror". Somehow we now declare war on words not countries or people...an endless and destructive game...and we'll never win.

That said...the shit sandwich is how dependent our economy is on these wars. Yes, they cost billions but they also make billions. Most congresscritters have a defense contractor in their district who they can't please enough (keep those checks coming in) or to be framed as "weak on defense". It's providing jobs to millions in factories that make the tools of the trade and they can't fill the orders fast enough. Then there are the 250,000 or so troops...not including the shadow mercenary army...that's putting upwards of another million people on the streets in the worst economy in 80 years. It's the ultimate corporate welfare...wrapped in a flag and sold to the American people as "keeping us safe".

It's like we been invaded by heartless alien financiers.

"The bad news is that the Martians have landed in Manhattan, and have checked into the Waldorf-Astoria. The good news is that they only eat homeless people of all colors and pee gasoline."
-Kurt Vonnegut