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Prolonging the War is a "Threat to Our National Security"
Congressman Kucinich said today:
America
is in the fight of its life and that fight is not in Afghanistan --
it's here ... We are deeply in debt. Our GDP is down. Our manufacturing
is down. Our savings are down. The value of the dollar is down. Our
trade deficit is up. Business failures are up. Bankruptcies are up.
The
war is a threat to our national security. We’ll spend over $100 billion
next year to bomb a nation of poor people while we reenergize the
Taliban, destabilize Pakistan, deplete our army and put more of our
soldiers’ lives on the line. Meanwhile, back here in the USA, 15
million people are out of work. People are losing their jobs, their
health care, their savings, their investments, and their retirement
security. $13 trillion in bailouts for Wall Street, trillions for war;
when are we going to start taking care of things here at home?
Is he right?
Well,
the director of U.S. national intelligence, retired Admiral Dennis
Blair, said in February that the economic crisis was the biggest
national security threat to the United States. See this and this.
And - contrary to common beliefs - economists say that prolonged wars increase unemployment, shrink the economy, and cause rather than solve recessions. See this, this and this. And to those who say that deficits don't matter, please read this.
As ABC notes:
U.S. intelligence officials have concluded there are only about 100 al Qaeda fighters in the entire country...
With
100,000 troops in Afghanistan at an estimated yearly cost of $30
billion, it means that for every one al Qaeda fighter, the U.S. will
commit 1,000 troops and $300 million a year.
And TalkingPointsMemo reported
yesterday that - in addition to the troops - the US now has more than
104,000 defense contractors in the country. So that drives up the cost
per al Qaeda fighter even higher.
Moreover, a leading advisor to the U.S. military - the very hawkish Rand Corporation - released a study in 2008 called "How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa'ida". The report confirms what experts have been saying for years: the war on terror is actually weakening national security.
As a press release about the study states:
"Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism."
As one blogger commented in response to a previous essay:
If
we continue to react as we did after 9-11 then al Qaeda will win. This
primarily being a financial site, everyone here should understand ROI
[return on investment]. They invested less than a million and made us
spend 1 trillion+. They could pass the collection plate around at the
average mosque in Pakistan and bankrupt us with 1 more operation. Even
if you are not convinced that we are creating more extremists than we
are killing, we simply cannot afford to "win the war on terrorism".
Fighting fire with fire just makes things burn faster...Keep in
mind as well that most empires that have been defeated were not
annihilated on the battlefield, but rather in the bank account.
Kucinich is right.
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Props: #147188
George, you've dropped about a million points in my book. Hope your future articles will be better than this trash. Then again, I'm not likely to read them.
Good. You'll be sparing us your hysterical posts then.
There wasn't exactly a pun there, Heat
Is that you, Colonel? Got a flashback to Josip Broz for a second there.
The "terrorists" have already won. They changed our way of life. Why we continue to let them do so even further is beyond me.
No question, that terrorists changed our way of life.
But it depends upon who you characterize as terrorists.
Sadly, yes. And they were also a great tool for getting us into wars.
This is a good essay. Anyone who doesn't recognize its truth needs to put some time into thinking about where the US is, why, and whether it's really a good thing.
He nailed it except that there are more than 15 million people out of work.
Well, what is 17.5% of however many people are employable?
George Washinton, blow me you liberal fuck.
Public defense is what the government is for, not universal healthcare.