On May 30, 2010, at 10:06 a.m, the direct cost of occupying Iraq and Afghanistan will hit $1 trillion. And in a few weeks, the House of Representatives will be asked to vote for $33 billion of additional "emergency" supplemental spending to continue the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. There will be the pretense of debate -- speeches on the floor of both chambers, stern requests for timetables or metrics or benchmarks -- but this war money will get tossed in the wood chipper without difficulty, requested by a president who ran on an anti-war platform. Passing this legislation will mark the breaking of another promise to America, the promise that all war spending would be done through the regular budget process. Not through an off-budget swipe of our Chinese credit card.
The war money could be used for schools, bridges, or paying everyone's mortgage payments for a whole year. It could be used to end federal income taxes on every American's first $35,000 of income, as my bill, the War Is Making You Poor Act, does. It could be used to close the yawning deficit, supply health care to the unemployed, or for any other human and humane purpose.
Instead, it will be used for war. Because, as Orwell predicted in 1984, we've reached the point where everyone thinks that we've always been at war with Eastasia. Why?
Not because Al Qaeda was sheltered in Iraq. It wasn't. And not because Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan. It isn't. Bush could never explain why we went to war in Iraq, and Obama can't explain why we are 'escalating' in Afghanistan.
So, why? Why spend $1 trillion on a long, bloody nine-year campaign with no justifiable purpose?
Remember 9/11, the day that changed everything? That was almost a decade ago. Bush's response was to mire us in two bloody wars, wars in which we are still stuck today. Why?
I can't answer that question. But I do have an alternative vision of how the last 10 years could have played out.
Imagine if we had decided after 9/11 to wean ourselves off oil and other carbon-based fuels. We'd be almost ten years into that project by now.
Imagine if George W. Bush had somehow been able to summon the moral strength of Mahatma Gandhi, Helen Keller, or Martin Luther King Jr, and committed the American people to the pursuit of a common goal of a transformed society, a society which meets our own human needs rather than declaring "war" on an emotion, or, as John Quincy Adams put it, going "abroad, in search of monsters to destroy".
Imagine.
Imagine that we chose not to enslave ourselves to a massive military state whose stated goal is "stability" in countries that never have been "stable", and never will be.
Imagine.
"Imagine all the people, living life in peace."
Follow Rep. Alan Grayson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/alangrayson
I liked everything Rep. Grayson wrote here except the above line. While it's true that modern-day Iraq and Afghanistan have had more than their fair share of troubles over the last century, that doesn't mean they will never be stable. They were, in fact, relatively stable countries just 40 years ago. Baghdad was the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate for more than half a millennium. Kabul was the original seat of power of Babur, the first Indian Mughal Emperor. Don't underestimate the capacity of these cities to achieve stability and perhaps even greatness yet again.
There's an incredible double standard at work here. Why isn't there an equivalent of a "war resolution" against BP since they've just managed through incompetence, greed, or whatever, to destroy a gigantic swath of US (and international territory) that provided food, energy, ecological balance, and economic lifeblood. When it comes to corporate malfeasance, especially in the energy and military sectors, there's never an authoritarian, definitive response. This damage from the oil hemorrhage will do more to destroy our national security than even 911.
Possible fixes include removing the cap for FICA tax, raising the retirement age, implementing a needs test.
Medicare is nearly 10 times more efficient than the best performing private entity in terms of money in to money to health care. Several studies indicate the actual savings to society greatly exceed the cost to society without the plan
Health care is paid for.
Possible collective fixes for the issues you mentioned is to put tax rates back at the levels of the 70's -80's (when we had all sorts of growth).
As far as unsustainable, The Swiss, the Germans, Canada, etc...seem to be doing well with their programs.....I guess you just believe America can't do as well...
Regarding the wars, isn't there an old American saying that there's more than one way to skin a cat? The response to the 9/11 attacks could have been way different and way more successful.
Invading Iraq wasn't even close to the cat, no less skinning it; invading Afghanistan was one way to skin the cat; the least imaginative, the most brutal, the least effective, the slowest and the most costly in lives and treasure.
But, invading Iraq and Afghanistan has been good for the military-industrial complex and we know that what's good for the military-industrial complex is good for America. And who cares about skinning a cat, anyway.
Not sure using John Lennon as the architect of your national security strategy is such a great idea. I think it's time we asked, "Can you imagine what you'll be doing for a living after November, Mr. Grayson?"
A lot of very good comments here also.
I just want to add, one possible, very plausible interpretation of "Why we've always been at war with EastAsia":
Adam Curtis, The Power of Nightmares:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2798679275960015727#
(part 3 was the most eye-opening and tied everything in)
Also, "Why We Fight"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9219858826421983682#
I've posted these before, so apologies to those who saw them and may feel bombarded!
Just how many time do we have to invade a country without considering the consequence before you and your ilk learn to think before reacting?