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Fighting two wars under the dual myths of an all-volunteer force and a refusal to raise taxes to fund the conflicts is destroying our armed forces, our economy and the fabric of our society. Three recent news stories that on first glance appear unrelated share the common thread of being symptoms of waging unsustainable war.
First, there was the horrible mass murder at Fort Hood on November 4 when Nidal Hasan killed thirteen. Next, we heard yesterday that the Army has detained Spec. Alexis Hutchinson for over 10 days since she refused to deploy to Afghanistan and leave her infant child in foster care. Finally, the USDA announced yesterday that 17 million families in the US had difficulty finding enough food last year.
For the case of Hasan, he is illustrative of the very sad toll that multiple deployments of military forces, coupled with extreme shortages of mental health professionals, has exacted on our armed forces. From Scripps Howard News Service:
According to official Army figures, 308 military psychiatrists serve 1.4 million active-duty members. On average, 200 behavioral-health personnel – including psychiatrists and other mental-health counselors – are deployed in Iraq and about 30 in Afghanistan.
Couple that with the rate of PTSD:
A 2008 study by the Rand Corporation found that nearly 20 percent of service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, or 300,000 people, suffer symptoms of PTSD or major depression.
These stark figures drive home the "reasoning" for why Major Hasan was still in the military, still seeing patients and about to be deployed to Afghanistan even though he had applied for discharge and exhibited some danger signals. The mental toll of the wars on the military does not allow even marginal counselors to leave the military or to avoid deployment. The demand for their services is just too overwhelming in relation to the supply.
However, it is not just mental health professionals who are in short supply in the military. The number of people in the military is simply not high enough to support the two wars that continue in the Middle East. Here is a report from yesterday’s Washington Post on the situation for Spec. Alexis Hutchinson:
An Army cook and single mom may face criminal charges after she skipped her deployment flight to Afghanistan because, she said, no one was available to care for her infant son while she was overseas.
Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, 21, claims she had no choice but to refuse deployment orders because the only family she had to care for her 10-month-old son – her mother – was overwhelmed by the task, already caring for three other relatives with health problems.
Her civilian attorney, Rai Sue Sussman, said Monday that one of Hutchinson’s superiors told her she would have to deploy anyway and place the child in foster care.
Although the Army appears to be saying they wouldn’t do such a thing, it is clear that Spec. Hutchinson believed that she was being told to place her son in foster care so that she could be deployed. Why would such a situation develop? We were told in May of 2008 about how the need for troops in the Middle East was so strong, that many who deployed were unfit:
More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show.
This reliance on troops found medically "non-deployable" is another sign of stress placed on a military that has sent 1.6 million servicemembers to the war zones, soldier advocacy groups say.
"It is a consequence of the consistent churning of our troops," said Bobby Muller, president of Veterans For America. "They are repeatedly exposed to high-intensity combat with insufficient time at home to rest and heal before redeploying."
The stories of Spec. Hutchinson and Major Hasan are joined by the thread of multiple deployments of sometimes unfit personnel with insufficient recovery time between deployments. Personnel are deployed without regard to the family situation. They are re-deployed when they are not mentally fit. This increases the mental toll at a time when there is not sufficient mental health support.
Lest we think that the crisis is confined only to the military, I would argue that the toll of unsustainable wars is now beginning to show on American culture as a whole. The Bush administration insisted on waging these wars with the trillions of dollars spent coming in special Congressional allocations arranged to prevent any discussion of establishing a tax environment in which revenues would cover these huge expenses. With a helping hand from an unregulated financial industry, the economic toll of this deficit spending hit home very hard in the last year. As we learned from the USDA yesterday:
The US Agriculture Department on Monday released bleak figures on the state of hunger in the United States, showing that more American families are having difficulty feeding their members.
The annual Household Food Security report showed that in 2008, families in 17 million households — 14.6 percent of US homes — had difficulty putting enough food on the table at some point during the year, an 11 percent increase over 2007.
Deficit funding of unsustainable wars now means that one in seven US families has difficulty finding enough food. When will this madness end? Obama is still trying to decide on whether or how to escalate the war in Afghanistan and we learn from Gallup that "a total of 42% of Americans support a troop increase of some size. However, nearly the same percentage, 44%, would like to see the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan reduced." These figures appear to give Obama sufficient political cover to call for some level of escalation in Afghanistan. However, if Obama were to consider the true costs of such a decision on the state of our military and the state of our economy, escalation would never even be an option. The only question would be how quickly to withdraw our troops.
With hunger continuing to rise, the question arises whether we are approaching such a breakdown in our society that food riots could occur. If you think that last sentence is hyperbole, then consider for a moment why USDA calls the report "Household Food Security". When families are hungry, it is indeed a security consideration.
71 Comments
as always, a great post jim
like we needed proof
I remember when the wing nuts laughed at how little the Iraq war would cost, I can’t remember the quote but they said more then a few billion was a rediculous claim
and here we are now
I also remember them saying “the oil would pay for the war” or something like that
what’s funny with that last statement is that it clearly said we were indeed going in for the oil
and everyone missed that point
Yes, I think Rumsfeld was trying to tell us it would only take a couple of weeks that we would recoup all costs from oil revenue.
I think his estimate missed by a bit…
Rummy, Cheney & Rove – that triumvirate of evil – pushed out the party line, which was, indeed, that the Iraq “feedom tour” would be el-cheapo, that we’d “make it up” by all the glorious freedom oil we would get, and that it would only take “a few weeks.”
The teabaggers-in-waiting all clapped and cheered on cue from Fake “news” sound bites. They all thought it was the greatest idea evah! Especially because their spawn didn’t have to get conscripted to fight. Even bettah: the scum and dregs could go get themselves killed and maimed (support the troops but don’t expect any medical help when you come back missing limbs, etc) to support the rich men’s dreams of oil.
It was the generals who protested this insane notion of the “war,” and the State Department who pointed out that, not only did the emperor have no clothes on, but there wasn’t any exit strategy. And those generals suddenly found themselves out of a job, along with many in the State Dept.
Hey: I’m no military strategist, but even I was pissed off that their lack of planning, the completely juvenile attitudes that they had, their cavalier thought that it would only take a few weeks, and their complete faith that our troops would be greeted as liberators and toss roses at their feet. What planet were they living on???? Planet Greed.
But don’t forget, citizens, that everything terrible only started on Jan 20, 2009. Before that, including 9/11/2001, everything was a bed of roses with romping unicorns spouting out all the goodness in life. The end.
Pulling out requires nearly as much planning as invading. None was done. The few weeks crap was a lie just like all of the rest.
I realize your comment is sarcastic and Clinton certainly harmed our civil liberties along the way toward stabilizing our economy with budget surpluses, which was a good thing BTW, but I don’t think anyone can reasonably dispute that 9/11 was one of those life changing events that tragically and dramatically changed all of our lives, in this case for the worse because I don’t think we’ll ever recover the freedoms stolen from us by our government under the guise of protecting us from terrorists. My biggest gripe about Obama is his ongoing commitment to institutionalizing the destruction of our freedoms and creating a two-tiered system of justice that allows the rich to violate our laws with impunity while the rest of us face fines and prison sentences even if we’re innocent of the crimes we’re charged with because cops lie and prosecutors regularly hide exculpatory evidence and suborn perjury without fear of facing consequences because they and the many corrupt judges who aid and abet them are absolutely immune from liability.
9/11 is another day that shall live in infamy, not because of what happened to us that day, but because of what our government did to us and what we did to ourselves in its aftermath. 9/11 signalled the end of our ongoing experiment in representative democracy that began on July 4, 1776, and our national commitment to preserve and protect individual freedom in the United States of America. On 9/11 we witnessed the unveiling of our corporate governed and military ruled empire that emasculated and eviscerated our freedoms to keep us free. The insanity Jim White writes about today will forever be linked to 9/11.
Onitgoes,
I’m sorry. I misread your 1/20/2009 date as 1/20/2000.
My bad, and a very bad at that.
Please forgive me!
You are correct, but it seems like you are taking some kind of defensive tack with Clinton, as if he was all good.
The consummate neoliberal gave us NAFTA, the contrived war in Serbia, Marine overthrow of Haiti, American Job outsourcing, and job export resulting in deindustrialization, dismantling of “entitlement programs”, private prisons and no tolerance drug laws (thanks for the blow, CIA!)
They are two sides of the same coin, both fill the coffers of the greedy few, the bourgeoisie elite and their gluttonous political protectors that are sharing the trough of the commonwealth.
9/11 was a might big shock for us, America was attacked and the curtain was pulled back, like you said, it leaves an indelible mark on all of our psyches. But this system was being dis/assembled for a long time before 9/11. That date just brought the pain home. Just like Obama was handed a mess (he hasn’t fixed) Bush was also handed a structure that wasn’t bankrupt, but it was ripe for the raping.
Pretty soon the UN will be holding bake sales for us. There seems to be a rising anger over Afghanistan and Obama seems to be listening. Fingers crossed.
Jim, first let me stipulate that I’m against the Wars. They’re as ridiculous, needless, immoral, and detrimental to the interests and values of the American people as the War in Vietnam was. However, one of your main points above is that it’s the prosecution, costs, and funding of the wars that are causing food security problems. Perhaps that’s true, but I don’t think you’ve shown a causal connection or even a substantial influence in your argument.
I think instead that our return to pre-great depression economics and deficit hawkism over the last 30+ years are far more important factors in our inability to provide the jobs and welfare support that would end food security problems. See here, here, here, and here.
In brief, I think we can afford to both fight wars and feed our population if we need to. These particular wars have drained a lot less blood and treasure from this country than WWII, The Civil War, WWI, Korea, Vietnam, or the Revolutionary Wars did, if we adjust for the size of our population and the size of our economy.
Having said that I hasten to add that we shouldn’t be fighting these wars. They are unjust and terrible wars because they are killing people without accomplishing any legitimate purpose at all. We need to bring our people home immediately and quit killing Iraqis, Afghans, and our own people.
Great point ” if we need to”, we don’t.
My argument hinges on the fact that the wars are the primary contributing factor to the deficit. The deficit, at least to me, plays a huge role in the overall structural weakness of our economy, so I still see the wars and the economy being so weak people are going hungry as linked.
I understand. Your argument is: Wars -> Deficits -> structural weakness in our economy -> people going hungry. There’s nothing to this. Deficits are not necessarily associated with Wars. They can occur with them or without them. In addition, in some years of War the US has run either small deficits as a percentage of GDP or even small surpluses.
Nor are deficits necessarily associated with, structural weaknesses. We’ve had surpluses during times of structural weakness and deficits during times when no one thought we had structural weaknesses. In general deficits and structural weakness have only a complex if any relationship and there’s no evidence to suggest that eliminating deficits would cure structural problems or prevent new ones from developing.
In addition, most economists agree that deficits generally have an expansive impact on the economy. The conservative ones worry about inflation. The progressive ones say there’s no need to worry about that as long as demand is weak. But both agree that deficits are stimulative.
The connection between structural weaknesses and going hungry is also very weak, because even if there were no structural weaknesses business cycles can still cause unemployment, and unemployment, poverty. Even then the connection between poverty and food security isn’t strong. During the 1960s, we passed safety net legislation to end hunger in the United States. That legislation was largely successful. But in recent years, it hasn’t been working well and a political environment that is very unfriendly to the poor has prevented us from reforming the safety net to fix things. That’s a much more important factor if declining food security than our wars.
Finally, in implying that avoiding deficits is omehow very important in fighting hunger, I think you’re spreading a very damaging view that can be used to oppose the kind of Government investments we badly need in creating jobs, transitioning to a green economy, reforming health care, and creating an effective educational system. To get good results in each of these years it will healp tremendously if people can reject deficit hawkism. That ideology has no place in progressivism, and has weakened the progressive movement since the days of Jimmy Carter.
I don’t know when progressives rejected Keynesian economics and once again embraced Hooverism, but, more than anything else, I think these attitudes have prevented us from accomplishing progressive goals in the above four areas for a very long time. We have to firmly reject balanced budget notions and not let that kind of false economy stand in the way of formulating Government programs that will help us solve our problems. We need to re-orient CBO so that what it scores is not the impact of legislation on the Federal Budget, but its overall impact on American society in both economic and non-economic terms.
Your point about wars (or even defense buildups in Cold Wars) being stimulative is correct in the short term. But while wars stimulate demand, the production of war goods in a protracted war diverts production from useful infrastructure to production-sapping infrastructure that soaks up a greater and greater share of income. How much of the US military budget goes to facilities that are no longer needed but are being kept running because of local politics or international agreements with the host country? And how many of these facilities are essentially providing makework jobs to prevent further unemployment? Defense spending only tangentially lowers the cost of doing business generally; one can make the argument that post-Cold War defense spending and wars have largely been a subsidy to the oil industry, one which understates the real cost of oil as a source of energy.
Deficits are bad in the long term only if they do not result in increased production that in fact lowers the cost of doing business or if the government does not have the mechanisms for recapturing a part of that surplus to pay down the deficit.
And they are bad if they are financed by borrowing from folks that might use this debt as a tool of extortion, regardless if they are domestic financial institutions or foreign governments.
Finally, there are very good ways to reduce deficits to a manageable size; it’s called progressive taxation. It reduces the marginal utility of receiving exorbitantly high compensation as compared to the people who you employ.
In the midst of a recession, you want to increase demand for basics like food and shelter to levels that will reduce excess capacity in the industries that supply these needed goods and services. Thus Food Stamps, unemployment insurance, emergency housing assistance, emergency home energy assistance and other elements of the safety net. And you want to do them in such a way that they help people, not just subsidize an industry.
And you want to develop your infrastructure to give you a competitive advantage in high value goods and services that will return high wages (so as to raise the standard of living, pay of private debt, continue a reasonable level of demand, and pay down the deficit).
It worked for FDR. It can work again.
Where you get sacked by the fiscal scolds is if you don’t have a monetary policy that adjusts for increased production so that the money supply doesn’t outstrip production. That’s because fiscal scolds are primarily bean counters who never look at the real economy. Inflation can hurt the safety net as much as stinginess during recession.
What got the Carter administration hamstrung was Nixon’s wage and price controls (Nixon not being willing to raise taxes to reduce inflation), which advantaged increases in prices and disadvantaged increases in wages, and Gerald Ford’s “Whip Inflation Now”. Unfortunately for Carter his offhand comment that getting the economy back on track and reducing inflation was the “moral equivalent of war” got media play as the acronym MEOW. And what was going on was Hooverism in the midst of inflation. Anticipations of continuing inflation was causing businesses into pre-emptive layoffs even as their pricing to try to beat inflation was contributing to inflation. The policy that finally ended it was that of Paul Volcker, appointed by Carter as Fed chair.
Unfortunately, the Reagan administration, which now had only a recession to deal with, squandered the opportunity with massive defense buildups and what became a thirty-year religious project called the Strategic Defense Initiative. The transformation that Carter began toward an energy-efficient infrastructure could have been extended putting us far ahead of where we are now. Instead it was scuttled, even down to the symbolic solar panels on the roof of the White House. And to pay for this military increase, the fiscal scolds went after the “war on poverty”, welfare, and other elements of the social safety net. And they introduced a micromanaged fee-for-service system that did not substantially reduce medical costs but created a huge medical accounting infrastructure that require large medical systems to operate. And when the insurance industry adopted the same system in their effort to control costs, the era of precertifications and co-pays and all of the efforts to deny care began in earnest.
The economic view of how military demand affects the economy has remained simplistic and static. We have to get out of the mindset that the quick way to stimulate the economy is to have a war.
Hi TarheelDem. I never said anything like: “wars are stimulative.” What I said is that deficits are stimulative. In fact, I believe that deficits incurred for war spending are less stimulative than deficits incurred on domestic investments of various kinds, and generally speaking I’m in strong agreement with everything in your post, other than the point you made about what I think.
The point of my comments hasn’t been to defend military, but just to point out that Jim’s causal nexus doesn’t hold water, and that a neutral observer encountering Jim’s argument for the first time, would conclude that his argument for not continuing in Afghanistan is a fanciful invention without basis in fact.
One more thing:
While I agree with this as far as it goes. There’s no question in my mind that Carter prioritized bringing inflation under control over the interests of working people. He did nothing to lower unemployment and was the first Democratic President in a very long time who did very little for working people and unions. So, he prepared the way for Reagan and opened the way for the appearance of the Reagan Democrats, their logic being that since the Democrats wouldn’t do anything for them economically, why should they not vote their social conservativism by supporting Reagan.
This lesson has not been learned by Obama who is doing virtually the same thing as carter. He does nothing for Main Street; and everything for Wall Street. Working Americans will respond by voting for know-nothing nativist Republicans and eventually a Presidential candidate who will be no worse for them than Obama on the economy, but who will cater more to their anti-black, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-intellectual, and pro-gun sensibilities.
None of the wars you mention were as long at the 2-1/2 wars the U.S. is currently fighting (against Islam, I might add). They did not require the kind of multiple deployments of a “volunteer” military that is much more in the family mode than the fighting forces of the past.
IIR the stats accurately, 170,000 veterans have committed suicide, and the ongoing rate is 18/day. Also, the physical deformaties of those casualties who manage not to die are much more severe than in the past. I think you minimize the blood associated with these wars, because it is borne by such a small percent of the population.
$ 10 billion a month, $ 10 a month, $ 10 billion a month can add up to some pocket change.
Of course that’s the visible up front costs.
An important post. Thank you Jim.
Going to war and concurrently cutting taxes has to be one of the stupidest and blatantly political incompetencies of all time.
Guns or Butter.
Of course the wars are unsustainable and unnecessary.
What would we do if presented with an actual threat that we had to go to war over? Where the hell would we get the troops, the money, the equipment? I worry at night about this shit.
The good news is that there are many good Americans in our country. In the face of a true threat, Americans would unite and we would have plenty of volunteers for the fight. We don’t have enough volunteers now because these wars are not seen as necessary by a large enough portion of the population of fighting age.
I don’t think I’d worry much about that.
Who in the world could pose an actual threat.
The US spends more on military than the rest of the world combined.
I think we’re safe.
Please try to limit your stress. There’s not a militarized country in the world unaffected by the current economic situation.
I think that we’re looking at a law enforcement approach to terra from now on simply due to cost differences in addition to personnel requirements. And thanks to modern communications, the more we talk with our international friends, the less we are inclined to destroy their homes.
I suspect that future mass mobilizations will involve natural disaster relief and ops before too many more years, and this will draw from a far greater pool of voluntary enrollees. You cannot hold back a flood with firearms.
We can’t see jobs programs which do not include military service too soon for me.
Well, we’d have to draft the people, print the money, and manufacture the equipment here in both new and now idle plants. In 1941, we were far poorer than we are now. Did that stop us from fighting and winning WWII?
We had factories that were already rolling out steel. We had more people who knew how to make things. We have idled factories and aged skilled workers. I am sure I’m missing a bunch but it’s a problem, it’s not quick to resolve imo.
Margot, it will take a few years as it did in WWII since our factories were idele during the depression too. But my point is that is that it can be done, and that it is a matter if the Federal Government “printing money” and distributing it, which these days all happens electronically. In short, there’s no shortage of American money and there’s no way the US can run short of that because we’re running a deficit. The idea that this can happen is just a dangerous myth.
As they say, “It’s where empires go to die.”
The more I let all this soak into my brain the more convinced I am of the need for a genuine revolution in values and life style if we are to survive.
In a bit of shameless self-promotion: See my diary, In Reversal, Panel Urges Mammograms at 50, Not 40, on another aspect of the money thing. It is on the latest recommendations regarding breast cancer screening. Among many other things I think this is a game changer even for the pending insurance legislation.
The mamogram thing is really making my blood boil, esp the crap about how self-checks are “useless.” I heard that on NPR yesterday (it’s no wonder that I rarely listen anymore, nor do I send them any money, but sadly, THAT is the exact goal of the corporations, and they’re winning, not you and me), and I just about had an accident.
Breast self-exams by themselves alone are not good enough, but self-exams make a difference. This wanton and cavalier indifference to women’s health is really pushing the Overton window, and it’s clear that Big Insurance (talk about death panels) just doesn’t want to pay the price for annual mamograms for women under 50.
Of course, it begs the question: then what? do you pay for mamograms, detect the cancer early, and hopefully have a positive outcome for much less money? Or just ignore it and then leave women to die painful, unnecessary deaths because they have pre-existing conditions??
Ugly thoughts? Truth? You decide. Nothing surprises me anymore, but hey: look over there! There’s shiney footage of Grifter Spice and her Grifter spawn on the teevee… let’s watch that and clap in joy.
I agree with the once every two years for mammograms. Too expensive and too much radiation. I don’t let my dentist take x-rays every time they want to either.
Also, think of allocating limited resources efficiently. I am not qualified to evaluate the actual studies, but let’s suppose that a lot of money paid for mammograms that don’t save a lot of lives, or a lot of money by catching some cancers early, might be better allocated toward other medical procedures that do a better job at preventing deaths or saving medical expenditures thru early diagnosis.
Please be careful with only once every 2 years. It could make a huge difference in your life. I have had a mammogram every year since I was 40. As a matter of fact, I am having one today. The peace of mind is worth it.
Men should self-examine, too.
I’m thinking like eCAHN. (apart from the risks of too much radiation) If one has breast cancer in the family history, I can sure see the benefit of yearly mammograms. Surely there are individual differences in the recommendations.
No expert here!
Meanwhile as the corporations keep dumping toxic shit into the environment, and toxic shit into our food, etc, cancer rates continue to rise.
And then same corporations have the gall to push that happy Think Pink bullshit with their little ribbons and teddy bears, which Barbara Ehrenreich quite rightly savages.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/10/11/enough_with_the_bright_side/
Right and if we try to pass some legislation ti stop this crap from happening, CBO will evaluate it from the point of view of whether it’s deficit neutral, rather than from the point of view of its impact on American society.
Sorry to miss the great conversation, but I have to leave for a previous appointment.
Sorry you have to leave, too. What an exceptional overview of this whole mess. Not only are there a lot of hungry Americans, but the military doesn’t have a corner on the Mental Market. When people are broke and hungry, they get dejected, depressed and angry. We all know what that leads to.
And, btw, how have the rules changed since Cheney got his parental deferments? Every child deserves to be raised by a loving parent.
wow, remember this;
check this out;
times sure have changed
those damn f’n hippies were (of course) right again
Larry Lindsey fired for suggesting Iraq war might cost $100 billion.
nicely done ecahn, as always
the article says, as of now, each man women and child is paying 8000 dollars for this war
could use that right about now me thinks
Our treasure down a rathole. Are we getting something out of this besides death and trauma?
There is no rationale for any of these wars that is comprehensible.
More racist skinheads with military training.
That’s what *I* worry about.
I don’t worry about them as long as they aren’t policing the mexican border or belong to an evangelical sect, and their beef is against the government. We need them to put the fear of doG into the pols, as method to triangulate – we being the good alternative, to a bad one..
We shouldn’t alienate the militia leaders, we should be making common cause with those that can still think using reason as a guide, and they in turn will control the crazy sheep.
We “Bleeding Heart Liberals” think for ourselves, but don’t have the killing/punishment gene for the most part. I think it would be a fair bet a lot of them do, but they still need their authoritarian leaders.
This is quite interesting if you haven’t heard it before. One woman mentions the fear the government had that there would be a revolution because of the poverty, especially after the Army marched on the bonus army. IMHO, I think things will have to get as bad as in the late 20′s again before the fear for their lives overcomes the pull of the greed. Are we less controllable now, or more?
This American Life: Who do you think you are?
Studs Terkel, a chicago reporter who recorded oral histories of ordinary Americans, assembled a collection of his work in which people talk about their experiences during the Depression—how everyone simultaneously became poor, regardless of their class.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1269
And, more candidates for Blackwater.
I almost forgot about that side benefit.
Shorter answer: NO!
Longer answer: citizens are not getting anything out of this other than death and trauma, but the corporations, plus the Cheney-Bush crime families, gleefully and joyfully made lotsa, lotsa big bucks. And that is what it was all about for them. Support the troops?? Don’t make me laugh.
We are living in a world where Milo Minderbender has been completely institutionalized by the government and the military.
(1) “myths of an all-volunteer force”
– a lie – it is an all volunteer force
(2) “destroying our armed forces”
– isn’t that a GOOD thing?
(3) “horrible mass murder at Fort Hood”
– that it was murder is an assumption based on nothing. It may have been an act of war.
(4) “she refused to deploy to Afghanistan and leave her infant child in foster care”
– serves her right for killing innocent people surely?
(5) “sad toll that multiple deployments of military forces”
– I have a job too. Life can be tough. I don’t kill people though.
(6) “Personnel are deployed without regard to the family situation”
– Then don’t sign up. Plenty of jobs are like that. e.g., long distance trucker. They don’t even kill people.
a lie – it is an all volunteer force
-Black Water
isn’t that a GOOD thing?
-No
that it was murder is an assumption based on nothing. It may have been an act of war.
-We’re really screwed if our own soldiers are now declaring war on us.
serves her right for killing innocent people surely?
-No, it doesn’t and she’s a cook.
I have a job too. Life can be tough. I don’t kill people though.
-I’m not so sure, clearly you’re a TeaBagger pretending to be a “Lefty”. Since it was you and your ilk that launched these useless wars, how can you now say you don’t kill people?
Then don’t sign up. Plenty of jobs are like that. e.g., long distance trucker. They don’t even kill people.
-Yep and you’re free to leave those other jobs at will, how about the military?
Good on yah: when you can’t respond to an argument, make things up!
Life can be tough, but one main thing is, don’t sign up for jobs that kill people for no good reason (there ain’t one for our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), or that keep the killers well-fed.
As for you, if you consider yourself a progressive: enough of the soldier sympathy already! They’re way better off materially than almost all young Americans of similar backgrounds in this 10.2% unemployment economy. They’re way worse off morally, of course, which progressives and peace activists need to make them aware of (and need to make young people contemplating a military life aware of). They need to save their souls by getting out of the military and/or refusing illegal orders.
It is less about the deficit than a systemic misallocation of resources away from productive purposes. The human toll results from this. The wars just add to a bloated bill for the military in general. The Defense budget is about $700 billion dollars but the total cost of defense spending with the wars is closer to $1 trillion. Even this number is dwarfed by the trillions that have gone out to support corrupt and greedy bankers and their frauds. We can see it too in the attempts by the Obama Administration to cut Social Security and Medicare spending. The truth is that it is our system which is too corrupt to be sustainable. Our elites are essentially cannibalizing the country and its resources for their own, not our, ends.
Ain’t it cute how military spending has become the third rail of politics, and not social security? Especially acute as the baby boomers enter the social security years. What a trick they’ve pulled on us.
Thanks Hugh. Of course, that’s the problem, not that the Wars are causing people to go hungry.
The neo-con wars are coming home. There is a murder spree at Fort Carson Colorado.
OMG. So sad.
Who should be elected president given this diary and accompanying comments?
A Harvard-trained lawyer? An M.D.? A complete dummy?
Experience teaches it really doesn’t matter except on the margin.
And the American people are going to continue to get what they’ve got unless and until they tear down and rebuild the Democratic Party.
I’m very sympathetic to that, but your implication that it doesn’t matter who we elect isn’t true. I’m as disappointed with Obama as anyone. But, that’s due to Obama, not to the Party system, or the overall context of things, even though I agree that it all stinks, but Obama could have acted differently.
He could have taken the big banks into receivership and helped Main Street and consumers by getting lending going again, and restricting credit card interest rates to 5% above Federal Reserve Prime Rates. He could then have broken up the big banks and spun the resulting entities back off to the private sector. He could have passed a financial regulatory structure while the big banks were owned by the Government and therefore politically neutralized. He could have gone for and also passed a stimulus bill that was better targeted on jobs and twice as large.
Just after inauguration he could have passed anything he wanted in the way of a stimulus. Once a good stimulus bill that helped Main street was passed, along the changes to the financial system I outlined, he would have had a lot easier time with the rest of his program, including hcr, because now we’d be looking at a much healthier economy, much lower employment and renewed optimism. But he chose not to do any of that. he chose not to play hardball, but to deliver himself and his Administration to the interests and institutions that have failed us all.
It does not matter who is elected president.
McCain or Obama. Only differences on the margin.
Art45, I’ve already granted that Obama’s a disappointment. However, 1) there’s very reason to believe that McCain would have been even worse and 2) the way he’s behaving has nothing to do with whether our next choice will be bettr or worse. The key thing is that is that if Obama is behaving badly, we need to replace him, not just throw up out hands.
Unlike fish, which are said to rot from the head first, I wonder if empires rot from the center outward. If so, the effects you document might be those kinds of signs. Great argument Jim.
Well done, Jim.
Even Lyndon Johnson imposed a 10% surtax to (partially) pay for the Vietnam War. But Democrats in Congress have become so gunshy of Republicans’ “tax and spend Democrat” canard that they haven’t bothered to reply that the Republican policy was “cut, borrow, and squander”. And that taxing and spending is what governments do, while cutting, borrowing, and squandering is what financial institutions do. The tax structure needs to be returned to the rate structure of 1946, with almost no loopholes. I’m thinking that if the lower rates are low enough, eliminating the deduction for mortgage interest might be a wise move to reduce the possibility of asset bubbles. And eliminating the deduction for contributions to nonprofits would primary end a hidden subsidy that supports the preacher salaries and church buildings, and does little to provide charitable relief to those who need it.
Regarding Hassan, I have yet to see anyone curious to find out when he first asked to get out of the army and the relationship of that timing to the publicity surrounding Abu Graib. The only reference I have seen says that he sought a lawyer’s help in 2004. Abu Graib came to light in the first quarter of 2004, and the Bush administration tried their damnedest to keep that hidden.
Although these wars have cost us in blood and tresure way to much, and should have never been fought, we should consider the highest cost.
This Country has been made a complete fool of.
When the most powerful, best funded, well equiped, the most technological advanced, and most powerful weaponry can’t handle two little wars with two little countries, We are the altimate fools in the worlds eyes.
Any enemy would have thought twice in the past with messing with us. Now they see we as a great power bogged down by rag tag groups in two countries with no chance of really defeating their enemy.
We have a military that is total inept in the way it does things. This is not the way to convince the world we the most powerful.
The trillions we have spent on military, and all of it is basically useless in these wars, and would be useless in many others.
We proved this in Vietnam, by trying to blow it off the map, and killing all their vegetation, and still wound up leaving with our tail between our legs.
Our Aircraft carriers, nuclear subs, huge bombers and all the other stuff is little good against fighting men. It may be good if we want to wipe out countries, but does little to defend us, and can’t make the worlds despits change their ways.
These things can’t get rid of dictators, pirates, regimes, can’t change minds, or even scare people. Shock and Awh, was a complete bust, great TV, but didn’t make the Iraqies run into the streets and surrender.
We have become the worlds school yard bully, and some day just like with them, will be slapped down by a bigger bully.
The American people have not only fallen for what our military has fed us, but bought it hook line and sinker without question.
Most of the Country still believes that the Soviets, started the cold war because they wanted to take us over. We started it because they were affaid of us, and they had very good reason to be affraid. The way our military acted at the end of WWII would have scared anyone.
No shit, Sherlock? Next stop Rrrrrrocket Science.
Recommended. Thanks, Jim. I had a comment with refs but it disappeared. One report stated that each additional soldier sent to Afghanistan would cost $1 MILLION per year. [40,000 X 1,000,000 = $40,000,000,000] per year for the surge McChrystal wants.
But we can’t afford health care… or to feed our own hungry people.
Afghanistan was a worse bamboozle on us that Iraq. Troops were massed in the ‘stans’ and war plans were drawn before 9/11 for an attack in the Fall of 2001, probably October before the snows came. The plans were on Bush’s desk on September 10, 2001 ready for his signature when he returned from that infamous Crawford vacation that August. 9/11 happened before he got them signed.
It was all about possessing the land for the UNICAL pipeline. BTW, Karzai was an upper echelon employee of UNICAL. Anybody surprised? You think Bin Ladin might have gotten wind of these plans?
IMO, every day that passes puts Obama and Holder into the group of the guilty by covering up their war crimes. And crimes of sedition.
When you read a figure like that, and then do the multiplication you did, and come out with a totally absurd number like you did, doesn’t it ever get passed through the thought processes again and questions asked about its validity? It isn’t a matter of how one stands on what, or what issue it is, innumeracy is really a bit of a shock. Over on UT, there’s someone stating as pure fact that the military costs 1/3 of the U.S. GDP. Same straight face, same lack of introspection. Cases for various causes can be built just as well with reality, figures like this lead to dismissal of the whole argument because they are so far off.
Here is the link to just one website that published the numbers I quoted in my # 56. The same article quotes the NY Times which gives the same data.
snip>
Considering the cost of one drone, Hell-fire missile, jet, helicopter or, for that matter that of one mortar shell, I don’t think the estimated cost is inflated. I’d like to see the total cost of one year’s contract to mercenaries and for rake-offs by corrupt governmental officials at home and abroad.
First time in my long life I’ve ever been accused lacking introspection; it’s usually that I think too much.
What is your ‘reality’ about the cost of the additional troops, and what is the basis of it? Believe me, I’d surely like to see a soundly based lower cost estimate.
“Despite the fact that the Pentagon just announced last Friday that 133 active duty soldiers have committed suicide so far in 2009, today the Army admitted that there have actually been 211 possible soldier suicides so far this year.
Why the discrepancy? Last week’s announcement did not factor in soldiers who were not on active duty at the time of their death — that is, National Guard and Reserve soldiers.
As of November 16, 140 active duty U.S. soldiers are either confirmed or suspected to have committed suicide so far this year … AND another 71 Army National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers who were NOT deployed at the time of death are also possible or confirmed suicide victims. ”
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/11/17/2129711.aspx
Great post, Jim. I made some similar points yesterday, but I think you’ve put together even better what I was trying to say.
We live in an obscenity. If we stopped for a second and really considered the insanity of the wars the U.S. conducts, the many, many billions wasted that could have been used to feed the hungry and lift up the world from its ignorance and struggle for survival… instead, billions are sent to the bogus U.S. client states in Iraq and Afghanistan, which sit at or near the bottom in corruptibility for the whole world!
Thanks, Jeff.
That sums it up perfectly.