Why Are We Throwing Money Away On Useless Wars While Americans Suffer ?

(This chart is from the National Priorities Project website.)

The chart above shows the amount of United States money spent on the unnecessary and useless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- about one and a half trillion dollars so far (and no end in sight). I say no end in sight, because although President Obama has said he would withdraw the American troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, that is not really what the government wants to happen. They want to leave a few thousand troops in that country, supposedly to train the Afghani troops and also to "fight terrorism".

But those troops won't stay unless the Afghan government agrees that any American soldiers that break the law will stay under U.S. military control, and will be immune from prosecution by the Afghanis. President Hamid Karzai has been opposed to that and recently very critical of the U.S. involvement in his country, but it now looks like he has changed his mind. Maybe he suddenly realized that a complete U.S. withdrawal would mean an end to the money he has been getting (those suitcases full of U.S. dollars left outside his government office in the dead of night).

Government officials traveling with Secretary of State Kerry now say that Karzai has agreed to the U.S. demands -- both to leave troops in Afghanistan past the end of 2014 with no defined end date, and to make those soldiers that stay immune to Afghan law.

Fortunately, there is still some hope that the Afghanis will not agree to that unreasonable demand, and demand all troops leave by the end of 2014. Before the agreement becomes effective, it must be approved by both an assembly of tribal elders and the Afghan parliament. The question is whether these two groups will want to respect Afghan law and demand their sovereign rights be respected, or whether they too will give in to the huge payoffs from the CIA.

Frankly, I don't understand why we invaded Afghanistan in the first place, let alone staying past the 2014 deadline. We have accomplished nothing but to replace one corrupt government with another corrupt government, and caused enormous loss of life -- for both U.S. soldiers and innocent civilians. Yet we are no closer to eliminating the Taliban and their allies than we were years ago, and there is no logical reason to believe this is a war that is even possible to win (remember Vietnam?).

In this fiscal year alone, we will be spending over $90 billion dollars in Afghanistan. And with our own economy in trouble, and the government shut down because the GOP wants to cut more from our domestic budget (including cuts to Social Security and Medicare), it simply doesn't make sense to continue spending that kind of money on a useless war in Afghanistan. We need to get out of that country, and use that money to help hurting Americans (and fix the economy).

We've already thrown well over a trillion dollars down that bottomless pit of war. How much more money (and lives) will be wasted before we bring all of our troops home? And how many more Americans will have to suffer because we are not spending that money to help them?

12 Years Of War (And Waste)

I have always been amazed that our government can't find the money to help Americans, but they can easily find trillions to fight ridiculous and unnecessary wars. Why must we cut programs that help give Americans a hand up, but we continue throwing money down the rathole called the Afghan War (while accomplishing nothing)? We are being ruled by fear instead of love -- and that will always lead a nation astray.

Wars Cost Money - Lots Of Money !

What indeed! Any politician with even half a brain knows that wars cost money, a lot of money -- even wars that are justified (such as the war President Lincoln waged to save the union and end slavery). But evidently George Bush didn't have any functioning brain cells. He started two unnecessary wars, and then cut taxes instead of raising them to pay for the wars he started -- turning a budget surplus into a huge budget deficit. That is why we still have a huge budget deficit. And it'll probably take us many more years to pay for Bush's insanity. Taxes should have been raised 10 years ago to pay for those wars. Isn't it about time to do that -- at least on the rich and the corporations (both of which have not been paying their fair share for years now).

GOP Won't Learn From War Mistakes

It is now ten years after the ridiculous invasion and occupation of Iraq. Over 4,000 Americans were killed and many more thousands wounded (not to mention the untold numbers of innocent Iraqis killed, wounded, or driven out of their country). In addition, the war created about $1.6 trillion in debt (which could balloon to $6 trillion in coming years), because Bush/Cheney decided the war could be fought without paying for it.

Was it worth it? Are we safer because we invaded and occupied Iraq? The American people don't think so (and neither do I). And that opinion is verified by two recent polls. The YouGov Poll (done on March 14th and 15th of 1,000 nationwide adults -- with a 3.4 point margin of error) shows that 54% of Americans now believe the Iraq War was not worth fighting. The ABC News/Washington Post Poll (conducted on March 7th through 10th of 1,001nationwide adults -- with a margin of error of 3.5 points) shows an even larger percent (58%) believe the war was not justified. And that ABC/WP poll shows that 56% of Americans also don't think the Afghan War was worth fighting.

Now a reasonable person would conclude that Americans are tired of foreign wars. They want what little money we have to be spent to rebuild this country -- a country that is still reeling from the Bush recession that has cost millions of jobs. But the Republicans can't seem to see that. They want to entangle the United States in more foreign wars -- wars that have the same propensity for a never-ending involvement. The neocons in the GOP are now ready to either bomb or invade Iran. And at least one Republican senator wants to invade Syria.

Senator Lindsay Graham (R-South Carolina) said yesterday that he wants the United States to send ground troops into Syria. His excuse is that they are needed there to secure weapons of mass destruction, and keep those weapons (if they exist) from falling into the hands of "extremists". What he doesn't seem to realize is that sending troops into another country to seize property, without that country's permission, is an ACT OF WAR.

If another country sent troops into the United States to seize property (regardless of what that property was), we would consider it an act of war and we would justifiably attack those soldiers. Could anyone expect the Syrian government to do anything less? And when the first bullets start to fly, we will be in another war. Even worse, the Syrian government has a powerful ally that has been supporting them in their civil war (and that's what that conflict is). What would Russia do if we invaded Syria? Frankly, invading Syria sounds like a great way to provoke an international crisis!

I don't think Senator Graham has thought this through. And he has also not bothered to tell us how he thinks we should pay for this new war. He and his fellow Republicans are busy trying to cut the budget and lower taxes for their rich friends -- and their sequestration cuts actually cut military funds. Now he wants to start a new war, and evidently like Bush/Cheney, he wants to do it on credit. Wouldn't this just balloon the deficit and debt they claim to be so worried about?

The GOP never seems to learn from their past mistakes -- either with ridiculous and unnecessary wars or with the country's economy. Returning them to power would be a disaster for this country.

The Human Costs Of Unnecessary Wars

Tomorrow will mark the 11th anniversary of the start of the United States invasion of Afghanistan -- one of two unnecessary wars started by the Bush administration (the other being the ridiculous invasion of Iraq, which posed no danger to this country). Supposedly, the reason for invading Afghanistan was to get Osama bin Laden, but it quickly devolved into a nation-building effort (showing we had learned nothing from our ill-fated incursion into Vietnam). Osama is now dead (and could have been brought to justice without any war), but we are still spinning our wheels in our effort to build a "democracy" there through military power.

The invasion of Iraq resulted in the deaths of 4,486 American soldiers, and the invasion of Afghanistan has cost the lives of 2,132 American soldiers (and that death toll is still growing). And that is just the beginning of the suffering these unnecessary wars have inflicted on our soldiers and their families. Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers have been injured -- either physically or psychologically, or both. Here is how the Associated Press puts it:

A staggering 45 percent of the 1.6 million veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now seeking compensation for injuries they say are service-related. That is more than double the estimate of 21 percent who filed such claims after the Gulf War in the early 1990s, top government officials told The Associated Press. . .

Of those who have sought VA care:

_More than 1,600 of them lost a limb; many others lost fingers or toes.

_At least 156 are blind, and thousands of others have impaired vision.

_More than 177,000 have hearing loss, and more than 350,000 report tinnitus – noise or ringing in the ears.

_Thousands are disfigured, as many as 200 of them so badly that they may need face transplants. One-quarter of battlefield injuries requiring evacuation included wounds to the face or jaw, one study found.

"The numbers are pretty staggering," said Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who has done four face transplants on non-military patients and expects to start doing them soon on veterans.

Others have invisible wounds. More than 400,000 of these new veterans have been treated by the VA for a mental health problem, most commonly, PTSD.

Tens of thousands of veterans suffered traumatic brain injury, or TBI – mostly mild concussions from bomb blasts – and doctors don't know what's in store for them long-term. Cifu, of the VA, said that roughly 20 percent of active duty troops suffered concussions, but only one-third of them have symptoms lasting beyond a few months.

That's still a big number, and "it's very rare that someone has just a single concussion," said David Hovda, director of the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center. Suffering multiple concussions, or one soon after another, raises the risk of long-term problems. A brain injury also makes the brain more susceptible to PTSD, he said.

On a more mundane level, many new veterans have back, shoulder and knee problems, aggravated by carrying heavy packs and wearing the body armor that helped keep them alive. One recent study found that 19 percent required orthopedic surgery consultations and 4 percent needed surgery after returning from combat.

When he was campaigning for office in 2008, Barack Obama promised to end both of these wars -- and yet the war in Afghanistan drags on. As was the case in Vietnam, it has become readily apparent that our mission in Afghanistan is a failure -- and yet we continue it because our national pride (or at least the pride of our national politicians) won't let us admit it was a mistake and withdraw. A tentative date for withdrawal has been set at the end of 2014 (another two years), but no one will guarantee that date won't be set back again and the war extended.

Haven't our soldiers and their families suffered enough? How many more deaths and physical & psychological injuries must occur before we say enough and end this madness? Are we going to make this a truly endless war?

Bush Still To Blame For Massive Deficit

The Republicans have been very vocal in trying to place the blame for this nation's current deficit completely on the shoulders of President Obama. This is more than a little disingenuous. They ignore the fact that President Clinton left the country with a nice surplus, and it was President Bush that ran up a huge deficit -- a deficit that was dumped on President Obama in the middle of a serious recession (caused by Republican trickle-down economic policies).

And the legacy of the Bush administration is still the major factor that is ballooning the current deficit. Note the chart above. If the two wars had not happened and the Bush tax cuts not enacted, by next year the deficit would less than half of what it is projected to be (around $400 billion instead of more than $1 trillion) -- and the cause of that remaining deficit would be the recession, not Obama's efforts to stimulate the economy. And personally, I believe if a more substantial stimulus and jobs plan could have been passed even that part of the deficit could have been much lower.

Here's how Paul N. Van de Water, Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, puts it:

President Bush’s tax cuts, and the legacy of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan explain virtually the entire federal budget deficit projected for the rest of this decade (that is, through 2019).  That is, there would be practically no deficits over that period if the tax cuts, the wars, and the downturn had not occurred and other policies remained the same. . .

For the years ahead, CBPP found that the tax cuts (if policymakers extend them in full) and the wars, plus the lingering effects of the recent downturn, essentially account for the entire deficit between now and 2019.  Indeed, the tax cuts and the wars alone account for nearly half of the public debt by 2019.

U.S. Is Feeding Afghan Corruption

It's not bad enough that American soldiers (not to mention innocent civilians) keep dying unnecessarily in Afghanistan in a war that has been fought for nearly nine years and accomplished absolutely nothing, and there is little hope of anything constructive being accomplished in the future. Now we learn that it is costing the United States at least $1 million per soldier each year that we continue the war.

Part of this cost is the ridiculously high prices we are paying for the supplies to continue the war, such as the cost of gasoline to keep our war vehicles moving. While the American people whine at paying nearly $3 a gallon (and would be shocked if it went up to $4 a gallon), the American government is paying $400 a gallon for that gas in Afghanistan. There are some corporations that are truly making a killing off the war in Afghanistan (and the one in Iraq).

It gets even worse than that though. Did you ever wonder why we continue to send money to supply and train the Afghani military and police and yet they never seem to get any better at their jobs? Did you ever wonder why we continue to send money to prop up the puppet government in Afghanistan and yet it still has no real authority outside of Kabul (and can't even guarantee security inside the capital). The answer to both questions is clear -- corruption.

Americans have known for a while now that the Afghan government is a nest of corruption, but I don't think they understand the extent of that corruption (financed by United States taxpayer dollars). Listen to what the German-language newspaper Der Spiegel has learned:

"Huge amounts of money [are] regularly being secreted out of Afghanistan by plane in boxes and suitcases.

According to some estimates, since 2007, at least $3 billion (€2.4 billion) in cash has left the country in this way. The preferred destination for these funds is Dubai, the tax haven in the Persian Gulf. And, given the fact that Afghanistan’s total GDP amounts to the equivalent of $13.5 billion, there is no way that the funds involved in this exodus are merely the proceeds of legal business transactions…

It is clear that much more money is making its way out of Afghanistan through Kabul’s airport than is being officially declared and logged. For example, important politicians and businesspeople can often board planes from the airport’s special VIP area without being searched. And if customs officials do conduct a search and find a suitcase stuffed with millions of dollars in cash, people with powerful connections often step in to make sure that the luggage makes it out of the country with its owner — no questions asked. 'A couple phone calls are made,' General Jabarkhel says with frustration in his voice, 'and the person can carry on.'

A number of Afghan businesspeople have purchased expensive villas in Dubai, once only attractive as a golfer’s paradise. These include a brother and a cousin of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, one of Karzai’s former vice presidents and the brother of Mohammad Qasim Fahim, one of the country’s two current vice presidents. Asking prices for the stylish, Roman-style houses built along the beaches of the man-made island Palm Jumeirah, for example, start at $2 million. Until just a few years ago, many of their current inhabitants were far from wealthy.

As the Washington Post has discovered, these properties are often only registered under the names of the individuals issuing the loans, such as Sherkhan Farnood, the founder and chairman of Kabul Bank, Afghanistan’s largest private bank, who was also a key supporter of President Karzai during his 2009 re-election campaign. Like many of his clients, Farnood now spends the majority of his time in Dubai. And among the 16 shareholders in his bank are Mahmoud Karzai, the president’s business-minded older brother, and Haseen Fahim, the brother of Afghan Vice President Mohammad Qasim Fahim.

Most financial transactions in Afghanistan continue to be conducted through so-called “hawalas,” traditional Islamic money-transferring outfits based more on honor and good faith than receipts, a fact that makes it more or less impossible for Western corruption investigators to trace the flow of money."

If that doesn't make you mad, I don't know what will. While we think we're trying to save and rebuild a nation, these corrupt politicians and their families are building multi-million dollar bank accounts and hideaways in Dubai. They know they will be tossed out when we eventually leave someday, so instead of rebuilding their country and it's security forces they are stealing as much money as they can as fast as they can.

How long are we going to let American soldiers die to protect these thieves? When is enough going to be enough?

(The picture above is of the corrupt Afghan leader -- Hamid Karzai.)

Republicans Worried About War Costs ?

This is just too ridiculous. It seems that after spending over a trillion dollars on the unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Republicans are suddenly worried about the amount of money being spent on the two wars. They spent money on these two wars during the Bush administration like it was going out of style -- and derided anyone who tried to stop them as being unpatriotic or not wanting "to support the troops".

But now that there's a Democrat in the White House, they have all of a sudden discovered fiscal restraint. Now they want to worry about where the money is coming from. Here is what Senator John Thune (R-North Dakota) had to say about the war funding:

"Republicans are increasingly, I think, dug in on the issue of making sure that new spending is offset. … Frankly, I think that there is even a growing consensus among Republicans that we need to start budgeting for this, we need to start figuring out how to pay for it. And I think that’s kind of the majority view among Republicans now."

If these Republicans, in their newly discovered fiscal conservatism, really want to stop the ridiculous war spending then I have a suggestion for them -- STOP APPROPRIATING MONEY FOR THE WARS AND BRING OUR SOLDIERS HOME. Then they won't have to worry about where all the money is coming from (and we can stop the unnecessary deaths of American soldiers and innocent civilians).

But we all know they would never support that. They are still war hawks and want to go on funding these unending wars (especially now that there are corporate profits to be made in Afghanistan). This is simply a Republican ploy to oppose Democratic programs.

While they support these silly wars, they oppose all Democratic efforts to provide health care for our citizens, put people back to work and provide unemployment benefits until that can happen, help our children get a proper education, and feed and house the poor and disadvantaged in this country. Republicans can always find the money for wars and to provide corporate welfare and to cut taxes for their rich (and under taxed) buddies, but can't seem to find a penny to help ordinary Americans who are hurting.

They want to use their new fiscal responsibility argument to cut programs that help ordinary Americans and kill any new programs that are introduced. They want to fund the wars and cut job and unemployment programs. They want to fund the wars and cut education programs. They want to fund the wars and cut health care benefits for Americans. They want to fund the wars and stop aid to the poor and disadvantaged.

During the last Republican administration they were willing to spend money like it was water, and turned a surplus left by Bill Clinton into a debt larger than all preceding administrations combined. Don't let their new concern for the deficit fool you. It is nothing more than a disingenuous tool to be used against Democratic efforts to get this nation back on its feet.

After their free-spending past and continuing support for the two wars, Republicans should be ashamed to even try and float this argument.

Trillion Dollars Wasted - How Much More ?

In October of 2001, President Bush invaded Afghanistan. About a year and a half later (March 2003), he did the same in Iraq. Now it is nearly nine years later, and the occupation of both countries continues. Sadly, nothing has been accomplished. Both wars were entered into on the promise that they would provide more security for America, but they have not done that. The same terrorist dangers that existed in 2001, continue to exist today. In fact, it may be worse because with each killing of innocent civilians we create more enemies.

Both wars quickly morphed from an attack on terrorists to an attempt at nation-building. We should have learned from Vietnam that democracy cannot be imposed by military power (especially when it involves installing and protecting corrupt regimes), but that evidently is a lesson we still have not learned. Our leaders still seem to think that we can force other countries to not only be like us, but to also be our friends.

In the 2008 election, the American people voted for change, and one of the changes they wanted was to extract America from these unnecessary and failed nation-building attempts. During the campaign, President Obama promised to end these wars and bring our troops home (which is what a majority of the population wants to see). But upon taking the oath of office, he seems to have forgotten his promises. All he has done is continue the tragically-failed Bush/Cheney policies in both countries.

According to the president, at the minimum we must continue both wars for at least another year and a half (until the end of 2011). And both wars could go much longer than that unless certain amorphous goals are met. In other words, we could be looking at a perpetual war presence in both countries, and that seems to be OK with both of our political parties.

On May 30th (just a few days away), the United States will have wasted over a trillion dollars on these two wars. While the Republicans (and far too many Democrats) whine over not having the money to help our own citizens in this terrible economy, there seems to be no end to the spending of money to continue the nation-building and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Congress is currently considering another emergency Defense Appropriation Bill to spend tens of billions more on these two unending wars. Will this new expenditure of tens of billions of dollars (which will be followed by spending even more billions) actually accomplish anything? Probably not, especially since I'm not at all sure the government (or anyone else) knows what we are trying to accomplish or whether these shifting goals are possible to accomplish.

Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) tried to inject some sanity into this continuing tragi-comedy. He offered an amendment to the new war appropriations bill which would have required President Obama to provide a flexible timetable for the withdrawal of troops -- a more than reasonable request.

Feingold said, "In light of our deficit and domestic needs and in light of rising casualty rates in Afghanistan and in light of the growing al-Queda threat around the world, an expensive troop-intensive nation-building campaign just doesn't add up for me. . .Frankly I am disappointed that we are about to pass a bill providing tens of billions of dollars to keep this war going with so little public debate about whether this approach makes any sense."

But the Feingold amendment failed on an 18 to 80 vote. The majority of both Republicans and Democrats seem happy to continue throwing huge amounts of money down the bottomless well of unending war, without knowing what we are trying to accomplish or whether anything at all can even be accomplished. And they don't seem to care how much longer they will have to do this.

One of the saddest things is that while Bush was president there was an active anti-war element in this country, but since the election of President Obama the anti-war element has virtually disappeared (even though he is continuing the same failed policy in both countries). Americans have turned their attention from the wars to the economy, the recession and the need for millions of new jobs. They don't seem to realize that if it were not for these wars, billions of dollars of money would be available to tackle these economic problems.

Even if these two wars were necessary and morally justifiable (which they are not), we simply cannot afford them any longer -- not in terms of the enormous amounts of money, the lost American lives, or the slaughter of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is long past the time when these tragic wars should have been stopped.

We must re-ignite the anti-war fervor and get these two wars stopped. It is not just morally right -- it's the only course of action that makes sense.

A War Tax Is Needed

The previous administration seemed to think that wars do not cost anything. They instituted tax cuts at the same time they started two wars -- Iraq and Afghanistan. The Republicans (and far too many Democrats) are in favor of waging these two wars, but they are opposed to raising any taxes to pay for those wars.

Well, wars cannot be fought for free. In fact, few things are as expensive as waging a war, and I'm just talking about the dollars that have to be spent. It gets far worse when you factor in the cost in human lives.

President Obama is now considering sending 34,000 new troops to the quagmire that is Afghanistan. That would boost the cost of that war to at least $100 billion a year, or $1 trillion over the next ten years (and there is no reason to think it won't drag on for that long).

And that doesn't even figure in any of the costs of the Iraq War, which now looks like it could drag on past 2011 since the Iraqis are not going to have their scheduled election in January (and no one can say when that election might be held).

The cost of either one of these wars is greater than the expected cost of the health care reform being considered. And the cost of both put together would more than cover the costs of health care reform and the economic stimulus. I am amazed that the same people who support both of these ridiculous wars, tell us we cannot afford to stimulate the economy or pass health care reform.

The past administration (and the present one to a certain extent) wanted to wage a war without cauing any pain for the American people -- and that just can't be done. All they have done is to throw our country deeply in debt. It is time to change that. If you support these two wars, then it is time to bite the bullet and pay for them (and if you don't support them, it's time to tell your government to stop them).

I am in favor of a special surcharge on income taxes (graduated for income levels) to pay for the wars. Actually, I would prefer that we bring all our troops back home. But since that doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon, we should pass a war tax to pay for them. Then maybe we'd have the money to do some things really needed here at home.

Fortunately, Speaker Pelosi now says she would consider a war tax. In addition, several important House committee chairmen have agreed to consider imposing the war tax, including Barney Frank (Financial Services), Charlie Rangel (Ways and Means), John Murtha (Defense Appropriations) and David Obey (House Appropriations).

Nothing the government does is free -- especially waging a foreign war. And all wars should involve some sacrifice from citizens. We either need to pay for these wars or stop them. Doing neither just pushes the war debt on to our grandchildren.

Cost Of War Keeps Spiraling Up

It's bad enough that Bush has invaded a country that was no threat to us, started a civil war with our troops in the middle, and placed those troops in a perpetual no-win situation. But now the costs of that war are spiraling out-of-control.

When he first invaded (after lying to us about weapons of mass destruction), Bush said the war would cost a few billion, including the reconstruction. The costs have gone far beyond that, and virtually no reconstruction has been done. By financing the war in bits and pieces -- $50 billion here and $90 billion there -- Bush has sort of hidden the total cost from the public.

Nobel laureate and economist Joseph Stiglitz has now written a book detailing the actual costs of the war. Stiglitz says the administration has been lowballing the total war cost. He puts the actual cost at around $3 TRILLION -- mostly in borrowed money that our children and grandchildren will have to pay.

Even worse, when you account for other costs such as (1) interest on the war debt, (2) Future war expenses, (3) a continued military presence in Iraq, and (4) lifetime healthcare and counseling for veterans, the cost jumps to $5-$7 trillion. These are staggering numbers.

The whole thing just infuriates me. Republicans are willing to throw away up to $7 trillion on an unnecessary and unwinnable war (not to mention thousands of American lives). But let Democrats talk about universal healthcare, extending unemployment benefits, increasing college and educational assistance, or helping the poor to break the cycle of poverty, and the Republicans scream about "wasting" money we cannot afford.

The Republican mantra -- it's OK to spend trillions on a useless war, but it's wrong to spend a fraction of that to actually help Americans. How anyone could even think of voting Republican this November is beyond me!