The Afghanistan War costs American taxpayers more than $2 billion a week at a time when communities are falling apart, and our mayors are fed up. On Monday, the United States Conference of Mayors is expected to pass a resolution calling for a speedy end of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars so we can use those funds here at home. The mayors are exactly right.
You can put the New York Times' summary of the crises these cities are facing next to the National Priorities Project 's numbers and see how much these wars cost our hometowns.
And here's the big picture: "Local governments shed 28,000 jobs last month, the Department of Labor reported, and have lost 446,000 jobs since employment peaked in September 2008."
These wars are killing our people, they're killing our economy and they're killing our communities. They're not worth the costs. They've got to end.
The Defense Department is working overtime to stop any real drawdown from either country. They're trying to fool us into thinking they've started a "drawdown" already by shuffling troops from Afghanistan to Kuwait (read: Iraq). They're pushing for a fig-leaf withdrawal of a few thousand troops. That's unacceptable.
Next week, President Obama is expected to make an announcement about his intentions for a troop drawdown from Afghanistan. He needs to do the right thing by our troops and by our communities and end these wars for good, starting with a major, swift and sustained withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Enough is enough.
If you're one of the millions of Americans who want to end the Afghanistan War, join Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook and Twitter.
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Cost of War to the United States | COSTOFWAR.COM
The true cost of the Iraq war: $3 trillion and beyond
The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror ...
There is no reason to cut social services OR raise taxes. Just end the wars, and we can go back to pre-9/11 level of services.
But no, wars are profitable for the Military Industrial complex. We are being ripped-off, hundreds of thousands have died, and just what do we have to show for it. Ten years of war on "terror", and we are still be terrorized and ripped off by our own government.
There is little to fear if we mind our own business, but instead America is in service to corporate profits, not its citizens.
Want things to change? Then do something. Anonymously...
it is not over yet; that love affair with super power status and that american love affair with capitalism will go away very slowly. the capitalists are not going to go down without a fight and they have the money to make sure americans only hear their side of the story.
all the ingredients are there for our flight to third world status. end social programs but keep the wars intact. rome thing 1700 years later.
It's obscene that our military budget is greater than the rest of the world combined, while our people suffer and our nation declines - and humiliating that we can't accomplish anything in 10 years of war with primitive countries, but haven't the sense to get out. I doubt we will ever get over our infatuation with being the baddest of the bad. Too many WWII, cowboy, and action-hero movies.
And it is beyond my imagining that most of us will ever get over worship of unrestrained capitalism, in part because most don't understand what regulation does for them. All but the last generation grew up under "capitalism good," "communism very bad," (agreed), and associate socialism with communism. They just don't know their isms or that that no system is perfect and that hybrids might be worth considering.
They are so ignorant that they don't know that Medicare is a capitalist/free market-socialist hybrid and also our most successful and efficient medical system by far. Remember the Tea Party rally signs, too: Government, get your hands off my Medicare." So sadly ignorant.
3rd world, here we come, as our citizens become even more ignorant with all the Republican cutting of education.
But a serious effort at that will happen about the same time I'm elected president.
Besides, even if a serious effort were made, the Republicans would run a continuous loop of sound bite commercials on TV pointing out that it will cost billions, and the TP and friends will say it's a tax increase and rally the rabble to take to the streets protesting that we must " strangle big government."
How absurd is $1 billion? Heart-breakingly absurd. It is so disgusting I can hardly stand to think of it. How much better that money could be spent on things truly needed, at the same time avoiding buying a president. Or what if it could be just donated to a general election fund? But then few would contribute to it, because they aren't donating, they are buying services, access, etc.
Like we are all or almost all saying, the system must change. But how can we beat the corporations at this game? Without leadership and a concerned electorate and a mountain of money, it doesn't look good.
The fact this article appears on the same day the '$18 billion vanishes in Iraq'...was that deliberate irony or a coincidence?
THIS IS INSANITY! STOP THE INSANITY!
Funny how we changed the name of the Department of War...to The Department of Defense.
Additionally,these corporations fund think tanks, universities, etc....which then do studies and write reports that support the proposals of these corporations.