Say it ain’t so, Mr. O

[unhappycamper]

I read last week Mr. Gates is going to hit you up for another $86 billion to continue the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan thru the end of 2009.

Now I’m sure you are concentrating on fixing the economy. I even read this morning you are thinking about ‘fixing’ Social Security and Medicare. That should be interesting to watch.

As a good American citizen, let me toss a few low hanging fruit at you to pay for some this.

1. Don’t give Gates the $86 billion to continue the occupations. You can use that to bail out GM and Chrysler.
   
   
2. Cut the military budget by $500 billion or so. We’re spending a trillion dollars a year on the US military. Just to refresh your memory, when dubya took over in 2000 the military budget was $302 billion. So if you cut the budget to $500 billion, it’s still up by 66% from when dubya took over. The occupations are costing us at least $5,000 a second, so if you get out of both occupations you’ll have an extra $5,000 a second to help Americans.
   
   
3. I strongly recommend you read ‘War Is A Racket’ by Marine Corps Major General Smedley Darlington Butler. Save yourself $10 and read it online --> http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm . It's a small book you can finish over short plane ride and I'd be interested what you think of that book.
   
   

Lastly, I understand you are big on bipartisanship. The Republicans (and some Democrats) are going to scream murder if you try to halt the occupations or cut the military budget and will attack you. The occupations will not be ended on bipartisanship. They will be ended by running out of money or bodies to throw into the fray. Why not get ahead of the curve?

Are you going to continue the insane path dubya took?

Say it ain’t so, Mr. O.

[NJmaverick]

1. That's President O

[biopowertoday]

2. Nicely said. be sure to post it on the WH feedback website.

[unhappycamper]

3. Thanks!

I just did. I'll post the reply if I ever see one.

[biopowertoday]

11. :-)

[CountAllVotes]

4. on the news last night

I heard it costs $785,000.00 per soldier per year. That works out to: $13,345,000,000.00!!!

That is an extra $13+ billion dollars per year for WHAT!? More death & destruction is the answer!

Say it ain't so Mr. O is right! :argh:

:mad:

:kick:

[dmr]

18. I heard that too, but was affraid to do the math n/t

[Cherchez la Femme]

23. 785K per soldier per year & Rumsfeld

along with the psychopathic duo; Dummy & Deadly

couldn't afford body & vehicle armor for them?!


SO fucked up!
Still, color me unsurprised.

[TBF]

5. Excellent post. K/R

US out of Iraq/Afghanistan. War is not the answer.

[RufusTFirefly]

6. Color me shocked. Not!

Can't "cut and run" now can we? Gotta "stay the course." You know, in the Spirit of Bipartisanship.

"What Washington means by bipartisanship is mainly that everyone should come together to give conservatives what they want." -- Paul Krugman

[kentuck]

7. I think the President is so busy with the economy and the bailouts...

that he is letting Gates and Petraeus make the military decisions at this time. He may regret that??

[flyarm]

10. Is this a "one note" pres??????if it is we are in deep doodoo!

he needs to be on top of it all!

[SammyWinstonJack]

16. "one note' pres? Probably so.

x( Thank Gawd for that historic election. Guess we got what we asked for. :eyes:

[Amonester]

33. that's the point: 500 billion cuts in the military & occupations will help

the economy and the bailouts (auto)

everything is connected

but if President O thinks the repukes really want to be "bipartisan" he's wrong (or naive)

they just want him to fail (or not to succeed) so they can have a slim chance of beating him & Dems (in 2010).

[madokie]

8. And what the heck do you suppose he should do??

Never mind I really don't want to know. But I do know that I have a very intelligent President and I trust him to do what is right by you and I both. that is all...

Never mind me, I go kick shit out in the yard now
peace

[Triana]

9. email it to whitehouse.gov

I think people forget they CAN do that now.

[TheWraith]

12. What bits of the military would you cut, exactly?

I constantly see people on DU making extravagant claims about how to deal with military spending, where they don't have to take any responsibility for the reality of the military budget. So tell me: what parts could you cut? Procurement? That's only $100 billion. Research and development? Only $80 billion.

Oh, and you're being very inaccurate about the military budget under Clinton. By that same standard, our current military budget is less than $500 billion. It only goes to $1 trillion if you include the VA, the wars, debt on previous borrowing, and other items which aren't part of the DoD budget.

The fact is that it's easy to make big declarations when you're not responsible for anything. Hell, that's the Republicans stock in trade. However, the realities of governing are a bit different. Nobody's saying there isn't room for trimming, but until we leave Iraq that's not very realistic. And leaving takes time.

[leftstreet]

13. What about private contracting profits?

Halliburton, CACI, KBR, Blackwater, etc - their CEOS and elaborate layers of salaried administrative people.

Not making an argument here because I don't know the answer, but just wondering what a nonprofit budget would look like.

:shrug:

[TheWraith]

17. If you really want to cut the military, there's a few hard choices to be made.

Contractors account for about $18 billion a year or thereabouts, at least they did when the Bush administration was in charge. There's room to look at stripping fat like contractors, but in terms of really significant cost savinges, one has to start with the hard questions like what sort of military we plan to have in the future. Is it a full-service force like we've been fielding, or something specifically honed towards executing small, fast engagements and then going home?

If it's the former, there's a limited amount we can do to alter the costs. Procurement can be scaled far back, and fat can be cut, but things like maintainence, operations, and personnell wouldn't see much decline.

If it's the latter, you start cutting down on things like armored vehicles and artillery, which aren't fast enough to use in raid-type missions. Reduce the number of regular ground troops in favor of expanding the more highly trained special operations units. This means fewer troops, but cost doesn't decrease proportionally because the ones who stay would be getting better pay and better equipment. Begin decommissioning the Navy ships that are only useful in larger conflicts, like destroyers and minesweepers. Rebuild the carrier groups to accomodate only the needed functions, i.e. getting the carrier to its destination and protecting it once there. Reduce legacy weapons like the B-52 bomber, ICBMs,

While the latter may sound quite palatable to people around here, it also has to be understood that it would also limit our ability to engage in larger scale operations like peacekeeping, or intervening in situations like Darfur. And if North Korea decided they wanted to cross the DMZ and invade South Korea, our ability to stop them would be limited to air support.

There's also other options which might reduce expenses without having a major negative effect on capabilities. For instance, the military has more than enough money and technical expertise to build and operate their own factory for synthetic aircraft and diesel fuel, probably using algae as a base. It would be a bit expensive to start, but would untether the military from the costs of oil, which tend to be significantly higher than synthetics--and the high-performance jet engines used by most of our frontline military aircraft are thirsty animals. Another front-heavy example would be converting the smaller military vessels the from gas turbines they currently use to fuel-cell fed electrical motors.

[olegramps]

51. The North Korean's invading the South?

What do you think that the South Korean army is going to do? Just sit on their hands. They would have never pushed us out of the North without the Chinese and MacArthur blowing it.

[Blue_Tires]

56. if the books are ever opened up, the waste will be pretty easy to spot

remember a few years ago the Pentagon wasn't able to 'account' for a missing trillion dollars (yeah, we know it was probably a slush fund for graft, black ops, bribes and under-the-table deals, but the congresscritters who dissected the stimulus bill down to the last nickel would be able to find SOMETHING)...

[blindpig]

63. The 'capabilities' need wholesale cutting.

Why do we need such enormous military capability if not to dominate the planet? Half the budget goes to the military, to what purpose? To protect the citizens of the US? Absurd, that could be done with 10% of that money. Nope, our military bestrides the planet in order that capital might thrive without contest. This is in the interest of a very small minority of our citizens.

The benefits of a large scale stand down are enormous. Not only would we have the money to do many more productive and vital things, the rest of the world would have a very large reason not to hate and fear us, very good for national security, indeed. Did you know that the Pentagon sucks up 40% of the obscene amount of oil this country consumes? A big dent in that would put us well on the way to Kyoto compliance.

[unhappycamper]

15. That's the beauty of an across the board cut.

We don't choose. They do.

Bear with me a moment. Should all the costs of occupation be dropped into a black hole? Like it never happened? Or maybe it's on the credit card so it's not real? How about the dead bodies of Americans and Iraqis and Afghanistanis (?)? How do we explain that?

OK, let's say the 2009 military budget is $500 billion. The VA is funded thru - ???. The war debt definitely should be be attributed to the Department of Defense. After all, why should they be responsible for war (or occupation) costs? They only created the problem, why should they be held accountable?

Perhaps I have been channeling Howard Zinn too much.

Now here's an interesting revelation: Democrats are all over the map on Afghanistan. It's true; I have seen DUers I respect disagree about the continued occupation of Afghanistan. What comes to mind is the herding cats syndrome. Can we agree that $5,000 a second can become a problem after six years? Can we agree that the continued loss of (aka dead) American soldiers in the occupations is a matter of National Security? Or at least problematic for their families? Can we agree that dead 'locals' is a problem?

[eridani]

20. Weapons designed to fight a Soviet empire that no longer exists

Shut down most of our foreign military bases. Get rid of that stupid Star Wars system.

[Optical.Catalyst]

42. Weapon systems that can be cut straight out are

Strategic Missile Defense - cancel

F-22 Stealth Fighter - halt production & mothball existing units

Reliable Replacement Warhead - cancel

DDG-1000 Zumwalt Destroyer - cancel

None of the above programs contribute to the defense of the United States in the current world situation. The days of facing down a nuclear armed Soviet Union have long passed.

[Two Americas]

31. we are responsible - for everything

This is a representative democracy. We are all responsible for it, and we all pay a heavier price when things go wrong then the rulers ever pay.

One of the most important ways to honor that responsibility is to speak out. That is the most gutsy and also the most powerful thing we can ever do.

Telling people to leave to to the rulers, because they are smarter, or have a hard job, or know more than we do is to promote tyranny. Tyranny always starts with a public that is passive, obedient and silent.

[leftofthedial]

35. What to cut would be up to the military.

They would have the biggest whopping military budget on the planet. They can decide how best to use it.

[tomp]

46. that's a silly challenge.

when one recognizes that we are spending more on our military than the rest of the world combined (roughly) one cannot escape the fact that there must be room to cut somewhere, and one does not need to be an expert on military budget to know it. eliminate the wars, cut everything by 10% and increase the VA by 5% just to start.

btw, your figures of ONLY so many billions is a little offensive. a billion dollars is a lot of soup kitchens, if you get my drift.

[GeorgeGist]

49. Wow, what a clever way to cut the military budget ...

just don't count the spending.

:freak:
:nuke:

[Creideiki]

54. What type of incense do you use

when you meditate in front of your idol of Obama?

Personally, I prefer the Sagittarius incense, since it helps to clear my head. Of course, then after a few minutes of going, "Ohm, ohm, so dreamy, so dreamy," I realize that I've got a lot of better stuff to do--like get my 8 WoW characters to 80 and actually level up my death knight.

[dionysus]

65. is that supposed to be witty or something?

:shrug:

[LostinVA]

67. Uh oh

:rofl:

[BelgianMadCow]

14. Thanks a lot for the War is a Racket link - it doesn't even take a plane ride's time

to read, and given the many DU references I'm glad I could read this essay.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Those who can't see the military industrial complex for the money-suckling vampires they are should re-examine the size of the US "defense" budget relative to that of other nations.

For a nation with 40 million people without medical insurance?
Despicable, unfathomable, reality.

[Time for change]

19. Great recommendations

[Zhade]

21. KICK

REC

[Stinky The Clown]

22. 43 noms and 20 replies .....

..... lots of people seem shy about agreeing with criticisms.

[mitchtv]

25. Beware the SWARM

you'll see why pronto

[scarletwoman]

26. Well, I'll be one of the NOT shy ones. A post and a rec.

I do have some sympathy with Obama's position, not because I'm shy about criticizing him, but because -- as autorank so aptly put it in another thread -- he DOES have "a bunch of NWO, neo fascists breathing down (his) throat".

sw

[nolabels]

50. War is a complicated and mostly intractable thing agreed

but escalating it because you have no way to end it is a very wrong thing to do :shrug:

[lonestarnot]

24. 13 billion a month is not just fucking peanuts!

K & R!

[Orwellian_Ghost]

27. Obama is still seeking a sizable increase in the "defense" budget

The "defense cut" falsehood from The Washington Post and Robert Kagan

(updated below - Update II - Update III)

Even for the standard-less Washington Post Op-Ed page, which will publish any version of neocon claptrap regardless of how factually false it is, this is rather striking:

Barack Obama campaigned on a platform of increased defense spending. True to his word, Obama's 2010 fiscal year budget calls for $527 billion in defense spending (not including the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan). That is more than the U.S. allocated for defense in 2009 and equals what the Bush administration budgeted for 2010:

The Obama administration has given the Pentagon a $527 billion limit, excluding war costs, for its fiscal 2010 defense budget, an official with the White House’s Office of Management and Budget said Monday.

If enacted, that would be an 8 percent increase from the $487.7 billion allocated for fiscal 2009, and it would match what the Bush administration estimated last year for the Pentagon in fiscal 2010.

<snip>

UPDATE III: The author of the above-cited CQ story regarding Obama's budget request, Josh Rogin, just emailed me, advising that he has corrected his story to reflect that last year's defense spending total was $513 billion, not $487.7 billion as he originally reported (and as I quoted). Thus, the increase sought by Obama in total defense spending is $14 billion rather than $40 billion. Obviously, that doesn't change any of the points made here -- Obama is still seeking a sizable increase in the "defense" budget, not a "cut" -- but I did want to note CQ's revision to its story.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/03/kagan/

[iandhr]

28. look

I am ALL FOR getting the hell out of Iraq. But Bush ignored Afghanistan and now we are paying the price. We need to stop the rise of the Militants on the Afghan-Pakistan border

[DUlover2909]

43. Honestly, I'm not afraid of them either. Let's just get out of both.

Pull our troops out and spend money on sending them seeds, fertilizer, books, construction equipment, clothes, food, technology, medicine and other types of peaceful items. You don't buy friendship with occupation and guns. You buy it with help and good deeds.

After 9/11 we should have asked the world, "What we did we do wrong?" We should have asked, "Why did you do this to us?" If we had done that we might have been given the answer to peace served to us on a silver platter. Instead, we went in guns blazing seeking vengeance. Violence begets violence.

Think about how much less expensive humanitarian assistance is when compared to military operations.

[OwnedByFerrets]

29. K and R

[change_notfinetuning]

30. Increasing military spending is one thing. Spending it unwisely is another.

Disappointed? Extremely. Shocked? Hell no. The only significant change I can foresee in any area is in Supreme Court appointees, and nothing is more important than that. But even then, when President Fine Tuning is making his first appointment to the Court, I'll be hiding under my desk, expecting the worst. Change is what we keep in our piggy banks, period.

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

32. after reading your post

I put the link in email I sent out, and added this to my mail.
(I think we need to make it uncomfortable for Obama to want to stay in the wars by Prosecuting Bush Cheney and crew)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Easy New Lookup Page: Contact Your State District Attorneys To Prosecute Bush and Cheney
Date: January 26, 2009 10:56:20 AM PST
To: dreamweaver


The Best Way To Light A Fire For Federal Prosecutions of Bush And
Cheney Is To Get Collateral State Actions Going

After weeks and weeks of unbelievable work, we have completed
compiling a database of the current contact information for every
state district attorney, for EVERY county in the country. And we have
put it all together into an easy one click lookup function to help
organize contacting your nearest state prosecutor, to call on THEM to
step up to the plate, to stand up for justice and accountability, by
prosecuting George Bush and Dick Cheney for their crimes.

In particular, renowned former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi has laid
out a compelling case for charging both Bush and Cheney with the
premediated murder of American service men and women, for starting a
war with Iraq on patently false pretenses. By using this new lookup
page you can instantly get the mailing address, phone, fax, and in
many cases also the email of your local prosecutor. This action is SO
critical we have dedicated our entire main site homepage to it.

Local Prosecutor Lookup: http://www.peaceteam.net

IMPORTANT NOTE: We are not asking anyone to file a "formal" criminal
complaint yourself. Common sense tells us that a state prosecutor
will only act, in the exercise of their OWN discretion, if they
believe there is a non-frivolous case to bring. But by speaking out,
we can let them know there is community support for them to do so.

There are nearly 3,000 county level state prosecutors in the country.
And these are often VERY politically sensitive elected positions,
where citizen pressure can have huge impact. Indeed, if you look at
current members of Congress, a large number of them started out as
district attorneys. Who among these 3,000 has the courage to take on
the urgency of pressing these historic charges, and perhaps then
replace some of the partially inflated punching bags that many
members of Congress have allowed themselves to become?

To hear the Sunday morning Washington chucklehead pundits talk about
it, whether to prosecute war crimes or not (as if it were optional)
is an inside the beltway political decision. Oh really? Well maybe
our United States of America is a little bit bigger than their little
beltway.

Attorney General Holder is already coming under enormous pressure
from rabidly lawless Republicans, for just simply declaring what any
first year law student would have to say to keep from getting
flunked, that torture is a CRIME. And if Bush and Cheney ordered
torture, as they have recently brazenly admitted on TV, they MUST be
prosecuted. End of story.

But we cannot ONLY rely on getting an honest attorney general who
will do his duty (though we must have that too), nor can we rely much
on the mostly whiny weenies in Congress to finally put together an
investigation with teeth. NO!! The critical move NOW is to drum up
collateral actions at the state level, as counselled by Bugliosi, and
that will help force the hands of everyone else.

Imagine what it would be like if we found just ONE crusading state
prosecutor to respond to the call of destiny. Imagine what it would
be like if a DOZEN or more suddenly sprang into action, because of
our many letters, and phone calls, and faxes and emails. We can open
up an whole new third front, and keep it open.

We were still packing up more "Convict Dick & W" caps as we were
listening to the presidential inauguration last Tuesday. Then we got
out the first large shipment last Wednesday. And with that we
officially inaugurate the Bush and Cheney conviction movement.

Thank you for your patience. Researching thousands and thousands of
websites (where many counties have none at all), cross-checking the
best available lists, many incomplete and out of date, against hard
to find local election results, took a massive amount of energy to
create the new local prosecutor lookup function. But we had to make
it the number one priority, and now it's done, and it works like a
dream.

Local Prosecutor Lookup: http://www.peaceteam.net

So after you use the local prosecutor lookup at the page below, you
can also request one of the new "Convict Dick & W" caps from the same
page, complete with a little embroidered cowboy hat on the "W". Yes,
a tiny cowboy hat for a very small man, the Cowboy from Connecticut,
our first presidential felon to be, George Bush. It's perfect.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed
to be ours, and forward this alert as widely as possible.

If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at
http://www.peaceteam.net/in.htm

usalone294b:68342
_______________________________________________________________
Now, how is that going? I ordered my hat.
And there is this site: http://prosecutegeorgebush.com/
Where you can also get a DA list.
"What activity makes one an Activist?"

[DeeDeeNY]

57. I would suggest

that you put this information in an original post.

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

68. I followed your suggestion

You can find it here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5121644&mesg_id=5121644

[Baby Snooks]

34. Mr. O needs a history lesson...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_P._Bush

http://ecosyn.us/Bush-Hitler/Blogspot/Samuel_Bush/Remington_Arms.html

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Samuel_Prescott_Bush


People scoff at the thought of a dynasty in a democracy but that is what the Bushes are. A dynasty. Founded 100 years ago by a man named Samuel Bush who controlled an empire in relative obscurity in Ohio - a pillar of the community in Columbus but also a pariah because of his political views which promoted fascism as the ideal of federalism and oligarchy, a form of fascism, as the ideal of democracy.

We are where Samuel Bush envisioned us to be - what the son and the grandson could not accomplish the great-grandson did.

We are a collapsing empire. And we are collapsing by design.

[Spiffarino]

36. Cut the "defense" budget and see how fast he sinks

Like it or not, the American public is an idiot. It will listen to the baboon-like hooting of the GOP and Barack will be pilloried if he takes your advice. Goodbye one-term president, hello GOPer in 2012.

Money spent on war is wasteful and stupid. Unfortunately, so is America, and it will take a long time to unlearn the lessons that the military-industrial-government complex has taught us. It has a 50-year head start.

[file83]

37. He can't sink any faster than this ship already is - so I say, cut it.

It would certainly stir up a shitstorm, but hey, the fan's already been coated and the room is brown.

[tomp]

47. peace is better and cheaper.

it's an easy sell if you aren't using the propaganda machinery to scare the shit out of people in order to drum up support for trillions in military spending. the u.s. MUST learn that it has been the aggressor and has created the "need" for all that spending. all it has to do is back down from its imperialistic stance and try to make friends instead of insisting on using the rest of the world to the advantage of the corporations. simple, easy to understand, if you tell it plain. it is the myth of american beneficence that is in the way.

[defendandprotect]

38. Evidently we're headed for a depression, Treasury is busted but we can still afford two wars!!!!

Hand me the WH calculator --- cause I don't think so . . . !!!

[Sherman A1]

39. Well Said! UHC

I sure you know I am in complete agreement with your thoughts although I think I might cut deeper, but it's on the right path.

We don't need the F35 (or the F22 for that matter), The President can get by with fewer new helio's, The Littorial Combat Ship (or whatever it is this week) can be cut as well as a couple of carriers. The MIC is a big reason we are in this financial mess (not all to be sure, but a big reason) and it needs to take some hits along with every other part of government.




:thumbsup:

[DNOSDNO]

40. Say it ain't so, Mr. O

As far as this progressive citizen is concerned, there is much to frown over in this first month of the Obama administration. I don't like the coddling of Wall St. and bankers, they should be left to sink or swim, and the ones that sink should be taken over and restructured by the Fed. Giving them more money is tossing it down a rat hole. They have robbed America right up to and after all the bailouts. They exist for only themselves, and have no real care for America, other than to rob it. I don't like the way wiretapping is being swept under the table. I don't think that we've seen much change in Iraq and less in Afghanistan, and increased bombing by automated drones is not making any new friends in Pak. But the worst thing of all is the way we're yet to see those criminals of the previous administration brought to court. There is numerous and broad spanning evidence of everything from graft to treason, in every Fed. Dept. The Atty. Gen. and justice dept. were criminalized. Courts were stacked. Valerie Plame was outed, while on duty and undercover. The Dept. of Interior has almost sold out millions of acres of National Forest and Wilderness areas, many adjacent to Nat. Parks. These areas should be protected forever, and made much more accessable to all Americans, not just for those who can afford 1st class accomodations. Countless lies continue. I am almost disgusted with the way the Obama Administration is bending over back-wards to the republicans in Congress, when I absolutely know that without any doubt, they would be roasting him alive if they had anything close to a majority, heck they are roasting him in most media. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are almost looking like agents for cover-up. America has run out of time. We need to see justice brought back to Washington D. C. and all the other Fed. Courts. And let's not forget that every week, thousands more are being driven from their homes, without jobs, without food, and almost without hope. I feel like I voted for a bunch of wimps. That disgusts me.

[JeffR]

41. Bravo!

K & R.

[sandyj999]

44. I couldn't agree more! n/t

[cboy4]

45. Out of Iraq yes....out of Afghanistan no.

Obama is doing an excellent job with this.

[bread_and_roses]

52. Incinerating and dismembering children is "an excellent job?"

Since that's what we're doing in plain language. I notice a distinct lack of appetite among our NATO partners for this "excellent job." Why might that be?

[cboy4]

53. We're doing everything we can to avoid civilian injuries.

Air strikes are called off every day because innocent people are in the way.

And we might not be there anymore had all of those thousands of troops that were needlessly sent to Iraq been sent to Afghanistan.

I'm willing to give Obama a chance with his strategy and I know a lot of Americans join me.

[bread_and_roses]

62. I find it interesting how blithe some are about other people's children being blown to bits

"everything we can to avoid civilian injuries" - sure, except stop the aerial bombings. This is the same rhetoric we heard from Bush.

[bluedawg12]

59. The Taliban are doing a wonderful job of protecting women and children?

It's a lawless place that is given over to bands of thugs like the Taliban to roam around the country and murder and rob the people.

[bread_and_roses]

64. Why do so many prefer the Taliban to the Americans?

This is not about how awful the Taliban are - I am not defending them. But the path to persuading the Afghan people to reject the Taliban does not run by children dismembered by American bombs. The same rhetoric was used to justify our slaughter of civilians in Iraq - SH was torturing and murdering his own people, so it was justified for us to blow children to bits to get rid of him. How's that worked out for us - and for the Iraqis?

[cboy4]

66. Why do so many people prefer the Taliban to the Americans?

What you mean the small minority of extreme leftists?

The country is strongly behind the continued operation in Afghanistan, and it's no coincidence that the newly elected Democratic President is leading the way.

[superduperfarleft]

69. "Why do so many people prefer the Taliban to the Americans?"

He's talking about the Afghani people, genius. You know, the people who actually live there and have a claim to the land, unlike the American occupiers.

[Christa]

48. K & R nt

[Creideiki]

55. "War Is A Racket"

was required reading during my Marine Officer training. Given the type of hero worship that Marines go in for, especially where it concerns General Butler, not too surprising, really. Still, it was a really insightful read.

We also had to read the text of Eisenhower's speech warning about the growth of the Military-Industrial complex. The goal is to have a military that serves the people, not people that serve the state. We're not Sparta, after all.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

58. ROFLMAO

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Myrina]

60. Our military budget funds a booming industry and lots of 'jobs' ...

.. just ask Halliburton, Blackwater, Dynagen, etc if they've had to cut dividends or lay anyone off (aside from those involved in criminal charges) ... :puke:

We gotta get out of the 'war business' and get into the 'peace business', quicklike.

[Mari333]

61. yep heres a list of the fuckers

http://www.businesspundit.com/the-25-most-vicious-iraq-war-profiteers/?

[Orwellian_Ghost]

70. Kick

[LWolf]

71. Just don't send him a copy of the book you'd like him to read.

He'll send it back.

Because it's a "gift," not information that you'd like him to heed.