America: Hooked on War and Getting Poorer

[unhappycamper]

With record foreclosures and child poverty at a shameful level, can we really afford to stay in Afghanistan and Iraq for 10 years?


America: Hooked on War and Getting Poorer
The Guardian / By Clancy Sigal

July 15, 2010 | I hallucinate easily, a hangover from time spent in an acid-rock commune in London in the fevered 60s. Most evenings when I switch on the television 6.30 news with its now cliched pictures of deep sea oil spurting from BP's pipe rupture, I see not bleeding sludge but human blood surging up into the Gulf of Mexico.

I've learned to trust my visions as metaphors for reality. The same news programmes, often as a dutiful throwaway item, will show a jerky fragment of Afghan combat accompanied by the usual pulse-pounding handheld shots of snipers amid roadside bomb explosions, preferably in fiery balls. My delusional mind converts this footage into a phantasmagoria where our M60 machine guns are shooting ammunition belts full of $1,000 bills.

~snip~

Why is nobody talking about the Afghanistan adventure as a cause of our plunging recession? Or at least citing the 30-year-old endless war as a major contributory factor in wasting our money to "nation-build" in the Hindu Kush while our own country falls to pieces on food stamps, foreclosures and child poverty – one in five kids – that would put the world's poorest nations to shame?

Iraq was George Bush's war. But, as Republican party chairman Michael Steele correctly says, "Afghanistan is Obama's war of choice", and a losing proposition. Historically, Bush and Dick Cheney merely toyed with Afghanistan while visiting shock and awe on Iraq. But President Obama is really, really serious about it. He told us so on his campaign trail, but most of us refused to believe him. We told ourselves: oh, he's a closet pacifist, or he'll somehow find a way out of the impasse, thus sealing a devil's pact with our own consciences.

Obama's "way out" is to dig deeper in so that he'll be able to get out, it's said. Where have we heard that before? Exit strategy, my foot. Obama is a willing prisoner of his generals, the latest four-star foot-in-mouther being General George Casey, army chief of staff, who a few days ago confessed to CBS News that the US could face another "decade or so" of persistent conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. (He then fudged it, but the cat was out of the bag.)

[girl gone mad]

1. k & r

[xchrom]

2. Recommend

[KG]

3. don't you know the afghanistan is the only place on the planet al-q could possibly hide?

:eyes:

[RKP5637]

4. Few Americans feel the "pain" of war in their face each day. For most it's out

of sight out of mind. During the Vietnam war the threat of being drafted raised the anxiety level for many, as well as the nightly news which was "real' news then. Not this homogenized tabloid journalism we call news now. Hence, the wars drone on and on like a hidden cancer eating at the fabric of America. It is a fool's errand IMO. And the financial drain is masked by pointing fingers and blame at other targets. And many get quite wealthy with war. We are a foolish country with nebulous ideals anymore. The ship has lost its rudder.

[JohnyCanuck]

7. That's the key right there:

"And many get quite wealthy with war."

The country as a whole might suffer, but those close to the levers of power find war to be a very profitable enterprise.

The War Profiteers Card Deck exposes some of the real war criminals in the US’s endless War of Terror. This is no Sunday bridge club. These are individuals and institutions that stack the deck against democracy in the rigged game of global power. Exposing their place in the house of cards illuminates the links among corporations, institutions, and government officials that profit from endless war. The US War of Terror is not about liberation, democracy, or UN resolutions. Plainly put, the War of Terror--whether in Iraq, Colombia, Afghanistan, or the USA--is about subjugation, resource extraction, and opening markets: a practice once referred to more honestly as colonialism.

Each suit in this deck represents a category of war profiteers:

Spades: Oil, gas, and energy companies

Hearts: US government officials (because they love you)

Clubs: Military and defense contractors

Diamonds: Heads of industry, finance, media, policy, and hype

http://www.ruckus.org/warprofiteers/

[jeanpalmer]

11. Too many Democrats give Obama a blank check

on Afghanistan. It's a free pass they never gave Bush. When Bush killed, it was a big deal. Not much of one when Obama's doing the killing. How many times did Nancy Pelosi threaten to cut off funding when Bush was waging the war. Used to make a big deal out of it. Of course, she never came up with the votes, but it was great theatre. Now, she's quiet as a church mouse since it has become a Democratic war. And they wonder why their poll numbers are going down.

[RKP5637]

13. Yep, so true, we basically continue with the same inept strategy. n/t

[unhappycamper]

5. Thanks for the unrecs, guys!

:hi:

[KG]

9. you're just a taliban sympathizer!

:eyes:

[Hubert Flottz]

6. WE are on the same downhill slide we saw the USSR crumble on

Because our leaders acted about the same way the Russian leaders once acted. America gave up the defensive posture that had kept us safe for so long and became the invaders.

Japan and Nazi Germany became invaders because they wanted other country's natural resourses...America did the same thing in Iraq and probably if the truth be told, in the case of Afghanistan too.

I hoped Obama would deliver the changes he promised, but I'm still waiting for any proof of it. No act of good faith as far as punishing the criminal acts no boys coming home. The American blood still flowing and the money being lavishly and foolishly spent abroad, while our people suffer for the things we need to survive and have a decent quality of life but we can no longer afford. Build a bridge that we bomb flat in Iraq while American school buses cross bridges in America EVERY DAY that are unsafe any longer. We are on the same road to ruin that the USSR went down because we are being led buy greed.

[RKP5637]

10. So true, it's a well worn path and America just happily skips along it while

many wrap themselves in flags and read bibles, the fake patriots of this country, the fake religious, the REAL Americans. Meanwhile our country is crumbling and people whine to no avail.

There are more than amble examples of where this mentality takes a country, but America always knows everything. It is clear we are intent on colonization, American Imperialism and manifest destiny around the globe.

[ladjf]

8. The Empire crumbles as the U.S. bankrupts itself with unnecessary

military operations around the World. nt

[Owl]

12. End these stupid worthless wars of choice NOW. And slash the Pentagon's budget permanently too!

We can't afford this crap.

[Urban Prairie]

14. Defending externally what is rapidly being destroyed internally

The only thing that we have to fear is already here itself.

The ongoing economic elimination of the US middle class.