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Good timing. The country is enthralled/disgusted at the current negotiations taking place between the Republican Party leadership and President Obama over how to reduce the budget and/or increase revenues over the next ten years, and a new study comes out detailing the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars the last ten years. Symmetry.
http://costsofwar.org/article/who-we-are
A just released study, which took more than a year to complete, called the “Costs of War” is calling attention to the horrendous costs of the two wars in human, economic, social/political and environmental terms. The study was completed under the auspices of the Eisenhower Study Group, led by Prof. Neta Crawford of Boston University and Prof Catherine Lutz from Brown University with contributions from a significant number of noted economists, anthropologists, lawyers and political scientists.
The costs of the wars the last ten years (monetarily) – $4 trillion
Possible budget cuts to non-defense programs including to entitlement programs for the next ten years - $4 trillion
Costs of wars the next ten years: priceless
Amazing. The company line is all of that is to keep us safe. Still believe it?
That’s not counting of course the other costs of the wars which are detailed in the study. Even after a year of study the authors admit that they’ve yet to examine the total costs.
We’re talking about the ILLEGAL Iraq war that is now in it’s ninth year with the administration working like hell to extend past the 12/31/11 withdrawal date as agreed upon by the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) signed by President Bush . And the Afghanistan war, the longest official war in U.S. history which was attacked after the 9/11 attack under the premise that the Taliban aided Al Qaeda with it’s evil deed.
The utter absurdity of the current deficit/debt “negotiations” is no better illustrated than by comparing the costs of war over the last ten years versus the austerity measures being proposed for the next ten years. Couple that with the FACT, and it is going to be a FACT, that the next ten years will cost even more to maintain the Global Imperial Military War Machine, shows we had better stop it now.
10 Comments
Van Jones has finally begun talking about these wars as part of his Dream theme. People should push for peace to be at the very top of the agenda for the Reclaim the Dream movement since Jones says he wants input. Obviously people have pushed Jones to include the need to end the wars as part of his agenda since he had only mentioned the need to reduce military spending before.
Now Jones is talking about “responsibly winding down the wars” whatever this means since every single minute these wars continue is irresponsible not to mention immoral and illegal.
Don’t know alot about Jones but after Obama and the hopey changey thing I can’t get very excited about another slogany Dream thing. It seems there are some good ideas and proposals coming out of it but there was when Obama was gearing up too. I think changing things is going to take direct action from millions of citizens.
$4T in cuts balanced against $4T in war costs over the past ten years. Hmmmm. Thank you. Hadn’t seen that simple equation pointed out previously. Kind of distills it down to below any further need to expound upon it, huh?
Thanks Big Al.
We know Obama is a war monger. So lets look at the declared Republican candidates and see who will end the wars.
hmmmmmmm
Ron Paul. Ron Paul is the ONLY declared Democrat or Republican candidate that will end the wars. What has been the cost of the war on drugs Big Al? Ron Paul is the ONLY declared Democrat or Republican candidate that will end the war on drugs.
Why is it only Ron Paul? Because Ron Paul is the ONLY declared Democrat or Republican candidate who is not for sale.
I’m with you. I’ve had quite enough of the slogans.
Ugh, “responsibly winding down the wars”.
I’ve heard enough of that over the last eight years to last the rest of my life, which the wars probably will.
Great.
And how do we know this? Because he says so? And we should take his word?
And then of course if it’s true, we end the wars, … and bring back segregation?
We end the war on drugs? And we no longer have the EPA, the FDA, the … basically all govt. depts that protect us, even if they are in bed with those they “police” and are wholly corrupt and do a piss poor job. But without them …?
A president R.P. could end the wars all by himself. The EPA and the FDA will require a majority in congress. I’m not sure how Ron Paul would bring back segregation. Or Steamboats. Where do people get these ideas?
I think it’s disingenuous of you to say that.
“could end the wars”
Could being the operative word. And why would you, or I, or anyone believe someone who thinks it should be legal for a business to discriminate for any reason or no reason at all?
I know you know this. There’s no way you don’t. You post so much information here so there’s no way you don’t know this info.
As commander in chief he could end the wars. Just like that. He says it over and over and over again. End the wars. He is the least lying politician I know of. Check his voting record against his rhetoric and see for yourself. He has been known to bring home some pork. As far as I know that’s the worst thing in his record.
Ron Paul believes the powers of the federal government are limited. You might say he is a “tenther”. Here is a link to a site where you can check out the thethers. Be warned. This is not a progressive site. I suggest you scroll down to “thether 101″
http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/
The short of it is – you can have all the government you want. You just cant have it at the federal level unless you change the constitution and or reverse some supreme court rulings. If Ron Paul had a magic wand he would wave it and 150 years of case law (since the civil war) would disappear and the original language of the constitution would be restored. Don’t worry. He doesn’t have a wand.
So when Paul says he is against civil rights legislation for example he is saying that the federal government lacks the constitutional power to regulate race relations. He will grant, however, that State governments do have that power.
I am not a Libertarian. My political values are similar to Dennis Kucinich. But I am much more afraid of the Fascists now in control than I am of a Libertarian Ron Paul. My greatest concern is that he is a rigid ideologue and I would not like to see him with veto power.
Paul’s proper role in Washington would be Treasury Secretary. You may know that he wrote a book called End The Fed. If you are not familiar with the arguments against Central Banking you might start with “The Creature From Jekyll Island” There is a free PDF download here:
http://www.gibson2.com/econ135/fed.pdf
I hope you decide to look into the case against Central Banking and the controversy about the 10th amendment. You still might not like Ron Paul but at least you will know what he is about.
I’m sorry if I was short with you. I am familiar with your comments here and respect your point of view.