President Obama is continuing the process of reinflating the Pentagon that began in late 1998-fully three years before the 9/11 attacks. The rise in national defense spending since 1998 is as large as the Kennedy-Johnson surge (43 percent) and the Reagan increases (57 percent) put together. The Department of Defense has been given about $7.2 trillion since 1998, which is when the post-cold war decline in defense spending ended. Current spending is above the peak years of the Vietnam War era and the Reagan years, and the Pentagon plans to remain there at this point. The radical increase in military spending now, compared to the cold war and World War II, is justified by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, even if today’s wars are taken out of the picture, there has still been a 54 percent increase since 1998.
This is happening while we already spend 7 times as much on the military as the next-biggest war economy (China), and almost as much as the entire rest of the world combined. What are we in the Home of the Brave afraid of, that we need to expend so much of our resources on war? Or are we just hell-bent on becoming the Arsenal of Plutocracy?
What is with the trailer in the island near Adams Park in Roslindale with “Homeland Security” emblazoned on it? Talk about a total waste of our tax dollars!
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p>Sincerely,
Wayne Wilson
Roslindale
This is absurd, aren’t we drawing down forces in Iraq?
…and the PM of Iraq told the Wall Street Journal that our commitment to get out of there by this time next year is non-negotiable.
If he proves troublesome, I’m sure we’ll just go out and find ourselves a new “prime minister of Iraq”.
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p>Sarcasm aside, there is no good reason to increase a bloated military budget.
We have no reason to be picking someone else’s PM, but I agree on the military budget point.
But if the current PM is told the American-paid security he and his family enjoy will be withdrawn unless he resigns, what will happen? If one tiny part of his fractious all-party coalition is enticed away by cuts or raises in American aid, what will happen?
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p>Iraq, as much as Bosnia, enjoys sovereignty in only a limited sense of the word. Which means not at all.
I get the sense the Iraqi PM will be just as happy to be shot of his American security along with the rest of our troops.
I don’t know about the ‘happy’ part, though.
To be shot of something is an expression meaning to be rid of it. By happy I got the sense that we wants all Americans gone, personal detail included.
‘Shot’ seems to be a Britishism. I’ve only ever heard ‘shut’ before now.
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that the US will do all that is possible to remain in Iraq as long as possible. This is the foot in the region that the US has long dreamed of.
If the excuse for nation building no longer holds, we’ll use containment of Iran or protecting vital strategic oil reserves.
I’m sure that an Iraqi PM that is more unpopular than Obama himself is not seen as a huge impediment to our mission. There’s simply no way that we pull out by the end of next year.
By the way a healthy bit of cynicism is well warranted in this case.
I don’t think the geography matters in the slightest.
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p>The important thing is to preserve the many corporate entitlement programs that benefit the defense industry. Afghanistan and Korea, together with perpetuating the bigger-than-life “terrorism” bogeyman, is more than enough — Iraq is yesterday’s “mature market”.
…aren’t we forgetting that we elected as President the one major candidate who supporters never tired of reminded us never wanted us in Iraq in the first place? Until I see evidence to the contrary I will presume that Obama is acting in good faith to get us out in a timely fashion.
Though I’m not as sure of that as I’d like to be. However, what counts as a “timely” fashion? Call me cynical if you like, but the Kurds have zero interest or reason to work out a political solution with an Iraqi “government”, and they’re the “reasonable” group in this whole process. If we wait for peace and unity, my grandson will serve in Iraq.
…as sticking to the timetable previously laid out.
Hi All:
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p>Tonight at 8, The History Channel is rebroadcasting, “The Crumbling of America”. If you have not seen it, it is well worth your time. It reiterates what is at stake if we do not start to rebuild what used to be the best infrastructure in the world.
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p>I do not want to live in a nation with a third world economy, do you?
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p>Respectfully Submitted,
Sincerely,
Wayne J. Wilson, Jr.
Roslindale
link
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p>Moral: You can pay now, or you can crumble later.
With Afghanistan, I have the sinking feeling that the Obama White House has decided it must “compromise” with the military top brass — just as they do with the Republicans. I have no information that confirms this, but then have you heard a good explanation for the incoherence of our Afghan project? The WikiLeaks revelations only makes matters more baffling.
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p>Why military spending continues to increase likewise seems inexplicable without resort to cynicism.
POTUS is commander in chief. He just has to give orders without the advice and consent of the brass. He’s pretty much doing what he said he would in Afghanistan as far as I can tell.
This will be extended beyond the 2012 elections.
…but as I recall he dealt with McChrystal pretty swiftly after some critical remarks.
But why is Mr. Obama, who seems like a bright guy and who, as you point out, can be decisive, pursuing an incoherent and expensive Afghan strategy? Why?
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p>Lacking good explanations, I’m thrown back on his process preferences.
As I recall the West Point speech laid out pretty well the reasons and objectives of the campaign.
That as the lowest point of his presidency in my point, very wishy washy, let me stay in the middle, “I understand its a drain on resources and we want to get out, but we have a reponsibility to the people and to stop terrorism, its really important but we can’t send too many troops, can’t take em home either”. Idk on that point I think he played to the middle of his Generals, of the American public, and the Congress to craft a politically tenable short term strategy. It was a military strategy planned politically, not strategically. And I was very unimpressed. The Biden plan is the responsible one, leave a small AQ fighting force, and pull everyone else out. Because after all, beating AQ is what we were supposed to be fighting for. We cannot reconstruct Afghanistan in our on image, and everytime a major power has tried it has failed miserably. If it couldn’t be Hellenized, Mongolized, Russified, Anglicized, or totalitarian socialized, it can’t be liberal democratized either. Lets give up on the Wilsonian liberal/neocon fantasy that has misguided our foreign policy for so many decades and focus instead on a realistic campaign to protect vital American interests. The only interests I see, are those few hundred or so operatives still in Afghanistan, lets neutralize them and go home. Thats not hawkish or dovish, its smart.
Has since the late 1990s been considered a potential location for a natural gas pipeline leading from the Caspian region to Pakistan. A 2002 report from the Department of Energy stated:
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p>Do a general internet search on “gas pipeline Caspian Afghanistan” and you’ll get a lot of hits.
From a year 2000 op-ed in the Chicago Tribune:
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p>Another article here describes statements by the executive VP of Unocal about a proposed oil pipeline between Caspian oil fields and key markets in central Asia that would pass through Afghanistan. The Afghanistan route was considered the best of three alternatives.
I’m more leaning toward the position that we ought to wrap it up in Afghanistan, but I can’t stand this revisionist history that conveniently forgets that we invaded in the first place because the Taliban had harbored al-Qaeda and alone among nations refused to give them up after 9/11. We must not fall into the trap of letting our feelings about current circumstances cloud the very legitimate reasons for pursuing them nine years ago.
It’s not forgetting that the Taliban were harboring al-Qaeda, it’s recognizing that act as a excuse to occupy major parts of central Asia as a bulwark against Chinese energy needs.
right?
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p>The point I was making is that Afghanistan has great importance to oil companies, even though it lacks petroleum resources itself.
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p>At the beginning of the Afghanistan operation, in the wake of 9/11, I was all for it. Now I’m not so sure that a massive retaliation in Afghanistan was the most sensible response.
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p>After nine years and tens of thousands of troops we still can’t get the Taliban to cough up 50-100 dangerous people. Shouldn’t this be viewed as a huge error on someone’s part? Why hasn’t any top level general been replaced over this? If we are staying there for other, unstated reasons, the answers come easily.
It’s an incoherent country…
And here we are.
War is big business. The suppliers of weapons and other commodities and services for our military dictate the foreign policy that leads to endless war. They hold the taxpayer and the country’s youth cheap to their own bottom line. How many candidates did we see opposing the wars in the last elections? Republicans? Our own Democrats? Who takes a chunk of war profit and donates back to the people we call our representatives? Little wonder domestic spending loses to the military.
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p>I think Dennis Kucinich put it right a few years ago when he spoke of the TARP bailout. So, too for our death merchants. We have turned over our country to amoral corporations whose interests are only for their immediate stockholders. The rest of the nation be damned.
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p>“If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone, ‘America died from a delusion that she has moral leadership.'” — Will Rogers