Compare and contrast the following:
Clinton Defense Department spending bill for the year 2000 (last year of Clinton Presidency – covered Fiscal year 2001 DOD budget): $288 Billion Dollars
Bush Defense Department spending bill for the year 2008 (last year of Bush Presidency – covers Fiscal year 2009 DOD budget): $488 Billion Dollars, which doesn’t include a $70 Billion dollars of spending previously approved in a supplemental defense spending bill for 2009 operations in Iraq and Afghanistan passed this summer. That adds up to Total Approved DOD spending for Fiscal Year 2009 of $558 Billion Dollars.
And our top general in Afghanistan says he doesn’t have enough troops or other aid, and wants more sent to him as soon as possible.
Do any of you still wonder why things are so messed up in this country?
The “whys” are too numerous to calculate without the aid of more computing power than I have.
Military spending is the only sector that gets absolutely no real scrutiny of what it spends. In this country, that would bring on the same kind of outrage that auditing the Pope would bring on at the Vatican. Military-worship seems to correlate pretty well as a symptom of dying empire. The less benefit a bloated military brings, the more impunity they are offered by the pols, the media, and the citizens who believe them.
Even Obama (or any other Dem this side of Kucinich) leaves cuts in the military budget out of his equation for recovering from the current economic slide, which is itself in part a result of the administration’s useless military adventures. I guess the dynamic is that we’ve wrecked our own economy with Reaganomics and imperial adventure, so we cling even more desperately that we can kill our way out of the problem with even more global aggression. When you’ve made the military solution your only hope, military worship becomes a rational behavior.
It’s hard to see a door out of this particular padded cell.
“Even Obama…leaves cuts in the military budget out of his equation for recovering from the current economic slide…“
Well, of course, because, as Obama has clearly stated that if he makes it to the White House he intends to increase the size and budget of the military.
And what about Homeland Security outlaws? Aren’t many of those pseudo military expenditures?
Also, we have the unfunded promises we are making to veterans of our newest wars. I’ve seen some estimates that it could cost a couple of trillion for that.
Ther’s all kinds of military spending outside the DOD — the Energy Dept, DHS, the “security” agencies, NASA, and umpteen special appropriations that don’t show up on DOD’s books. Anybody know if the National Guard gets paid by DOD?
“Ther’s all kinds of military spending…”
Uh-oh. I’m starting to write like Palin talks. Time to contact the Hemlock Society.
Well considering the British are now sending panic button memos to us in regards to Afghanistan….
…yeah probably that one is a bit justified. Either we leave meaning we failed the Taliban takes over again and all that is for absolutely nothing or… well frankly I don’t know.
Don’t feel bad — nobody knows. That’s the whole idea. To my mind the Afghanistan war has turned out to be as misguided and pointless as Iraq. But it was America’s stupid response to terrorism, so there’s no stopping it now. It will be the gift that keeps on giving to the terrorists for at least a generation.
As many of us (including Andrew Bacevich) said right from the beginning, 9/11 was not an act of war, it was a crime, and the correct response to it was not to attack Afghanistan. And Afghans, and now to a much lesser degree, Americans, are paying the price.
‘So we should start doing our wars on the cheap,’ thinks Rumsfeld..
Pre-War, the GAO put the high end cost for invading Iraq at 1.3 Trillion. Despite the credible source, next no one would believe it or use it in arguments against the War (sound of tinfoil crunching). That high end number was generated through factoring ‘costs to the overall economy’. The idea that the fall of the Bush economy’s ‘House of Cards’ (Bush’s own term!!!!) was not part of longterm thinking or somehow snuck up on anyone is a lie. Just think if the whole plan had worked as intended from Day 1 of Bush’s Presidency:
Perhaps the “Plan” should indeed burn the system down to it’s core, just the right one: the people. Despite what McSame likes to say, he still believes the fundamentals of our economy refers to capital, not labor.
*Sends Mental message to Obama to bang on the collapse of the Washington Consensus meme..
“Clinton Defense Department spending bill for the year 2000 (last year of Clinton Presidency – covered Fiscal year 2001 DOD budget): $288 Billion Dollars
“Bush Defense Department spending bill…for Fiscal Year 2009 of $558 Billion Dollars.
“
And Obama wants to increase the military budget, and add some 100,000 troops to the Marines and the Army so he can keep up with Bush’s war commitments – and perhaps add a couple of his own?
these guys should be ashamed. Very.
less spending, and maybe we can win a war or two:
for example in Afghanistan
TPM provides a link to this leaked cable – British diplomat feels Afghan war being lost: report
Can we not buy something tangible with all that money, a $1,000 billion?
“less spending, and maybe we can win a war or two:
“for example in Afghanistan
“
Better yet, don’t start wars in response to criminal actions. Treating 9/11 as the crime it was instead of using as an excuse to launch the PNAC agenda of “multiple simultaneous major theater wars” would have been both less expensive and more effective.
that what snark
It’s been pointed out a number of times, but it bears repeating. In a guerrilla war, one cannot replace “boots on the ground” with technology! It can’t be done. Tanks and planes and fancy devices are next to useless when there are no front lines and where you can’t distinguish insurgents from civilians. Not only is the US spending huge amounts of money because we can’t get people to sign up to be infantrymen, but US forces are much less effective, precisely because they’re money & technology heavy and people power weak.
OH REALLY?
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=leggy-bigdog-robot