While millions of Americans are out of work or struggling to pay their bills, our government is spending billions of dollars a week on a war we don't support in Afghanistan. At no time is this more apparent than on Tax Day, which is coming up on April 18.
Oliver Wendell Holmes once famously said, "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society." But unfortunately, they're also what we pay when our elected officials make huge, expensive mistakes, and in this case, use lots of expensive weapons to kill people. According to our friends at the National Priorities Project, 27.4 percent of our income taxes will go to pay for the Afghanistan War and other military spending. Already the taxpayer is on the hook for $107.3 billion just for this year, and just for the hugely expensive Afghanistan War. Those billions of dollars are supposed to help us build up our community and lay the groundwork for a brighter future for our children but, instead, they're being used to fight a war the American people don't support.
President Obama likes to talk about "winning the future" these days, but the U.S. is in a losing situation in Afghanistan. We're bleeding wealth and lives at an unacceptable rate, and things are only expected to get worse this year as fighting season resumes in the spring. Meanwhile, the Pentagon and their political allies want the president to ignore the clear will of the American people, who want troops out within a year. The military reportedly is pushing the president to pull out only an "insignificant" number of troops, despite the fact that it will cost us $1 million per troop to keep forces in Afghanistan this year. Bleeding that many resources on a war that's not making us safer all the way until 2014 is losing, regardless of what General Petraeus' spin shop tells us. We're losing the future in Afghanistan.
So what would "winning the future" look like in Afghanistan?
At bare minimum, winning the future would mean recapturing the resources meant to be spent on war and putting them to use rebuilding our battered communities. Winning the future would mean unhooking our country from a decade-long war and being more free to pursue objectives that are actually in our national interest, instead of going with the inertia of a 10-year-long mistake. In short, winning the future means getting our troops out of Afghanistan.
Many of us are about to write checks to the IRS, and we're about to do it at a time when, frankly, we don't have a lot of money to spare. That's why it's important that we take a good, hard look at where our dollars are going and make sure our elected officials hear from us when they make bad decisions that waste scarce resources. Please take a minute to use the new Afghanistan War Tax Calculator to find out how much you paid in taxes for war, and use our tool to forward it on to your member of Congress. It's time Congress got the message that we want this wasteful war stopped, now.
If you're tired of this war that's not worth the costs, join Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook and Twitter, and find others in your hometown who oppose this war at your local Rethink the Afghanistan War Meetup.
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Follow Robert Greenwald on Twitter: www.twitter.com/robertgreenwald
I have actively opposed this war for over a year have http://www.change.org/petitions/eliminate-capitalistic-military-regime working to eliminate the cause behind it, the "Treasonous" leaders of our nation. Remove them and we can end the wars, stop our troops from protecting other nations, stop our troops and and bases from supporting other nations' economies, stop spraying chemicals in the atmosphere hurting farming potential world wide, stop testing the space shuttle for the rich, the government's spying on US citizens and a whole lots more.
I shall have to look into Rethink Afghanistan.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. "
Dwight Eisenhower
Robert Fisk: 'Terrorists' were in Soviet sights; now they are in the Americans'.
Like automated birds, the kites swoop over the rooftops. Yes, the kite-runners of Kabul, minus Hollywood. At night, the thump of American Sikorsky helicopters and the whisper of high-altitude F-18s invade my room. The United States of America is settling George Bush's scores with the "terrorists" trying to overthrow Hamid Karzai's corrupt government.
Now rewind almost 29 years, and I am on the balcony of the Intercontinental Hotel on the other side of this great, cold, fuggy city. Impeccable staff, frozen Polish beer in the bar, secret policemen in the front lobby, Russian troops parked in the forecourt. The Bala Hissar fort glimmers through the smoke. The kites – green seems a favourite colour – move beyond the trees. At night, the thump of Hind choppers and the whisper of high-altitude MiGs invade my room. The Soviet Union is settling Leonid Brezhnev's scores with the "terrorists" trying to overthrow Barbrak Karmal's corrupt government.
balance of excellent read
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/kabul-30-years-ago-and-kabul-today-have-we-learned-nothing-1029920.html
If we have to give up on Obama, then we need to force the dems to find someone else for 2012 and tell Obama to pull an LBJ.
I'm not going back to Republicans and I don't want to vote for Obama again.....
I think most Americans want all the wars to end, to bring home ALL foreign stationed troops back to the US, and cut the military by at least 70%.
I think all Americans want the tax rates to be restored to their pre-Reagan structure and levels - NOW.
Then, let's see how that does on balancing the budget....if more is needed, then we can talk about the programs that benefit the American common people.
Really?
Or do they just try to keep ahead of the fundamental problem of our economy? - Overproduction! War literally burns off excess production, allowing the economy a breathing space to produce more useless goods..
Look at the cost of war at the following site. You can see the overall cost, and then enter your state, city, county, and congressional district to get an idea of costs. I doubt that it is accurate but provides a way of comparing the costs without entering personal information.
http://costofwar.com/en/
Hundreds of billions of dollars go into this war and our GIs are lacking these simple items?
All the money is going to defense contractors.
It is all so corrupt.
USA is currently waring it's way into oblivion. But what I find even more funny is that the right wingers have absolutely no problems paying taxes going to war but have only problems with taxes benefiting the citizens - it's an insane idea!