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Blowing Billions on War While American Workers Go Under
When asked by USA Today's pollsters last week, sixty-eight percent of Americans said we worry that the cost of the Afghanistan War hurts our ability to fix problems here in the U.S. This week, we learned just how right we were about that. Friday's terrible jobs report shows that a crushing 9.8 percent of us are unemployed. And, millions of us are about to lose our lifeline because Congress refuses to extend unemployment insurance benefits. We're spending $2 billion per week -- per week! -- in Afghanistan while millions of people face going hungry during the holidays.
Do our elected officials not get it? We're drowning out here, and the administration is throwing money that could put Americans back to work at a failed war on the other side of the planet. In fact, that's where the president was when the jobs report came out this morning -- in Afghanistan, talking about "progress" again.
Now, it's great that the president met with wounded troops. Goodness knows they deserve our attention. Their pictures ought to be on the cover of every newspaper until this war ends. But it would be better if the president stopped sending them to get wounded for no good reason, and it would be even better if the hundreds of billions of dollars we're wasting each year over there were putting people back to work in the U.S.
Here's one way to think about it: just one Hellfire missile fired in Afghanistan costs $58,000.00. That's enough money to provide unemployment insurance benefits for almost 4 people for a full year. For the full cost of the war for one week, about $2 billion, we could extend unemployment insurance for about 6.7 million people for a week. What are the 2 million people who are about to lose their unemployment insurance benefits supposed to think when they hear senators yelling about the cost of keeping them from going hungry, while at the same time those senators shove enough money to keep the benefits going into that money pit of a war?
Do we care more about dropping bombs than we do about putting Americans to work and keeping them from going hungry when they get laid off? Are those the kind of people we're paying to represent us in Washington, D.C.?
If so, we want our money back. And while you're at it, bring back the money being wasted on a war that's not making us safer. We'd like to use it to put people to work again.
If you're fed up with wasting money on war instead of putting people back to work, join Rethink Afghanistan on Facebook and Twitter.
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8 Comments so far
Show All"Do we care more about dropping bombs than we do about putting Americans to work and keeping them from going hungry when they get laid off? Are those the kind of people we're paying to represent us in Washington, D.C.? "
Yes we do. Americans love violence and love dropping bombs. Americans hate lazy people (the unemployed), freeloaders(the unemployed), and wimps(people who would give up war for butter).
That's why we keep putting the same crew of war mongers back in office and refuse to admit our mistakes as purveyors of violence.
Americans hate losers!!!!!!!!!!
Many Roman Citizens were kept pacified by showing up at the Arena to watch men kill one another.
It did not matter to them that these "spectacles" cost much in the way of gold. The more lavish the spectacle the better and it WAS a democracy after all...they got to vote on whether the losing Gladiator was killed or allowed to live.
Citizens of this "New Empire" watching their own champions of the arena slaughter people in Pakistan and Iraq and Afghanistan are not much different.
Once they can no longer afford bread though, all bets are suddenly off and they will find those same wars "Objectionable" and it won't be because they do not like the killing.If ones own belly empty it hurts a heck of a lot more then some Iraqi child having all 4 limbs blown off.
The right time to be against wars and Militarism is before they begin. Any President that tried to gut military spending would NOT have a whole lot of Citizens supporting those measures.
Until there broad based support amongst citizens of the USA to gut Military spending wherein they would support Politicians who promised to do so and carried out those promises , the USA will always be driven by the Military Industrial Complex and its policies of visiting violence against others.
I don't know how it worked in Rome but here in the US, more employment and consumer spending gets tied to the war machine. Think of it as a Catch-22. That's not to say that we can't break away from it but it's a toughie. I would be interested in finding out how much employment and consumer spending was tied to empire building in Rome's time.
"Now, it's great that the president met with wounded troops. Goodness knows they deserve our attention. Their pictures ought to be on the cover of every newspaper until this war ends."
Christ what's with the obligatory jingoism? {Barf}
Go to your local government and share the statistics in this article. Ask them to pass a non-binding resolution targeting your rep(s) in the House. Get a community forum together and let nurses, social workers, transit workers, teachers, etc. testify about the cuts to programs, and needs going unmet. Then get some press there to cover the vote on the resolution.
Even if it doesn't pass the first time, you helped a lot of people connect the dots.
fmi bringourwardollarshome.org
you want a job?
enlist.
The GDP of Afghanistan is approximately $15 billion.
We're spending over $100 billion a year for operations in Afghanistan.
That's all you really need to know to understand that the entire act is a farce and a crime.
Americans cared little about any of this until they started losing their jobs.
Americans care little about anything, really, until they start losing their jobs.
We live in the most politically ignorant country that has ever existed.
No one in government has ever given a legitimate reason for the United States to be waging war in Afghanistan. The best Bush and Obama can do is say we're there to prevent 'terrorists' from using Afghan territory to attack the United States again.
To put a fine point on it, the World Trade Center was attacked from Logan Airport in Boston.
So now we're fighting a civil war in support of a virulently corrupt government against a political side whose only interest is in getting the United States out of their country.
The fifty or so al Qaeda the United States estimates to be in Afghanistan are laughing up their sleeves at Bush/Obama.
If it weren't so sad and pathetic and so deadly to American democracy, or what's left of it, the ironies and stupidities would be just a bit amusing. Except for the dead, in their thousands, of course. They're not laughing.