The Cost of War and Apathy

A High Price for Looking the Other Way | CommonDreams.org

Retired U.S. Ambassador Charles Dunbar, speaking recently at Kent State University about the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, observed that "bombing civilians saves (our) soldiers' lives."

Just so: Bombing is cheaper than boots on the ground. Fairly small, safe crews can quickly dispatch numbers that it could take hundreds of ground troops days and casualties to kill.

Indeed, the Global War On Terror (GWOT) itself has been cheaper than diplomacy and treating our neighbors fairly and humanely. It's cheaper in terms of money, not least because the rich, smart and powerful can profit by financing and selling high-tech ordnance and equipment (not only to the United States and friends, but to enemies) The rich and powerful make money by brokering oil, services and mercenaries, and by selling consumer goods with infotainment of war, bombings mayhem, and torture.

The costs of the GWOT and most wars are borne by the poor, ignorant and powerless -- by poor people living in "enemy" territory who pay with their lives, by non-rich Americans, whose children serve in the Armed Forces and who pay with inadequate medical care, underfunded education, crumbling infrastructure and deregulation and privatization of basic community services.

The costs of this war are borne heavily by poor people and ecosystems in South America, Africa and Asia. Residents of our Gulf Coast have suffered "collateral damage" from storms of a planet overheating dangerously for the profit of international corporations.

More on Cost of War: 3 Trillion Dollars add up Fast!

The Hidden Cost of War: Watch How Fast $3 Trillion Adds Up | Video | AlterNet

Al-Maliki: US Cannot Afford to Stay

Informed Comment

Al-Maliki, who wants a timetable for US withdrawal by the end of 2010, ended the interview with a clever appeal over Bush's head to the American public:

' "If I had enough funds to assist the American economy, I would do all that I can. But unfortunately Iraq cannot solve America's economic problems.

"But what Iraq can do is take up more responsibility security-wise here inside Iraq. And I have told the Americans repeatedly that we are ready to take up responsibility here in Iraq so there are less losses, a decreased number of American lives lost, and I am prepared to present this case before the American people. ...'

Maybe al-Maliki has been reading John Gray, who writes, "The global financial crisis will see the US falter in the same way the Soviet Union did when the Berlin Wall came down. The era of American dominance is over . . ."

Al-Maliki is reminding an economically prostrate America that it cannot afford to buck him on the troop withdrawal timetable. Literally cannot afford! As in, best you go home now and let us take care of security, and save what little money you have left.

The Pentagon Bailout Fraud

TomDispatch

Let's start with the money the Bush administration has already thrown at the war in Iraq. According to the June congressional testimony of William Beach, director of the Center for Data Analysis, the war has cost $646 billion so far. The new defense budget for 2009 tacks on another $68.6 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming year. However, military expert Bill Hartung of the New America Foundation puts a conservative estimate of the costs of a single week of the Iraq War at approximately $3.5 billion (or about $180 billion a year).

In other words, the war in Iraq will cost far more in the next year than the Iraq portion of that $68.6 billion Congress is about to pony up in the defense budget, and so will be funded, as has long been true, through supplemental war bills submitted by the Bush administration (and then whatever administration follows). In other words, sometime in 2009 the direct costs of the war the Bush administration once predicted would cost perhaps $50-60 billion in total will stand at more than $800 billion, or $100 billion above the cost (if all goes well, which it won't) of the bailout of the financial system now being proposed in Washington.

YouTube - Rachel Maddow Show: War Crimes

YouTube - Rachel Maddow Show: War Crimes
Interview with director of Taxi for the Dark Side and hearings in congress on torture.


VFP Gainesville sponsored this film at our local Hippodrome theater.

YouTube - !!! WAR VETS OCCUPYING ARCHIVES 1 OF 4 !!!

YouTube - !!! WAR VETS OCCUPYING ARCHIVES 1 OF 4 !!!

Mr Fish: A Cartoonist Speaks For Us

Los Angeles - Blow out the buildings and make a wish - Catch of the Day - LA Weekly:
"by Mr. Fish
September 10, 2008 11:52 PM"
I discovered Mr Fish's cartoons in a mix of political cartoons this week and they just kept jumping out at me as being very powerful images and messages. Some of them are profane and political but many are like this image: a powerful message that resonates with the peace community.