Friday, February 17, 2006
$400 Billion, and Counting...
The Iraq war would pay for itself, we were told. Three years later, after countless cuts to vital domestic programs, with massive tax cuts and outright giveaways to big multinational corporations and people who live off of inherited wealth, we're up to $400 billion.
There's no end in sight, either. Indeed, our illustrious leaders recently have gone from calling this the War On Terror, to calling it The Long War. How long?
Is this how the USA would prosecute a war?
Numerous military and other strategic experts have said that we don't have enough troops, and we're not adequately supporting the ones we do have. Far from supporting the troops, it often looks like we are abusing them.
Stop-loss orders keep our troops in service long after they have fulfilled their obligation. This imposes unfair, unreasonable hardship and risk to them and their families.
To cut funding for Veterans' services, and to charge veterans for the services they do receive is ungrateful.
Charging combat soldiers for lost equipment is absurd. It is also obscene.
Today's army is not the army in which I served. It sure as hell is not my father's army. I grew up in my father's army, and that army's motto was "The Army takes care of its own." What has happened to us?
Is the USA really at war?
I wonder whether, in spite of all the blood spilled and lives ruined, the huge price tag, as well as the degradation of morale and prestige within the Military Services, indeed, within the whole country; is the United States even really at war?
Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the sole power to declare war. But our forces are in Iraq today because Congress gave President Bush the authority to use force against Saddam, who was falsely accused of an evil plot to launch an Armageddon upon everyone who is free. Is this what Congress had in mind? Did Congress really intend to give the president an open-ended, refillable debit card, with which to endlessly consume our national blood and treasure? I'll bet that if you could get your congressperson to tell the truth for just one second, he or she would say, "No."
I don't think we are at war at all. Were we at war, I don't think that we would have any idea who our enemy would be, much less, how we would know if we had defeated it.
I think we are victims of a very cruel hoax. A hoax that brings enormous rewards to a handful of hoaxters, while it bleeds us and our country dry. The hoax must be stopped, and the hoaxters must be called to account.
Your Congress people need to hear from you today. Tell them to start doing their jobs.
jj
February 17, 2006
Dear Rep. Hefley,
This latest $65 billion supplemental request is the fourth time in three years the Administration has requested off-budget billions to be taken from other critical needs and poured into the unending war in the Middle East.
I am ashamed and angry that we neglect health care, education, scientific and medical research, veterans' support, and other vital programs , while we pour limitless funding into an illegal, undeclared war, that is still being justified by ever-changing lies and misrepresentations; and which only benefits wealthy companies, such as Exxon and Halliburton. Insult adds to our injury as we watch massive tax cuts going to those corporations and the class of people who control them.
(Exxon earned nearly $37 billion last year, as America paid record fuel prices. According to Halliburton's latest quarterly report, their annual operating income more than tripled in 2005, and yesterday, the company declared a 20% dividend hike, a $1 billion share-buyback program, and a 2:1 stock split).
The war in Iraq is not helping the Iraqi people, it is not helping the future of the Greater Middle East, and it certainly is not helping the United States.
If Congress believes that we must wage this war, then Congress should ascend to its Constitutional charter with a legitimate Declaration of War, against an authentic, corporeal enemy that can surrender to us when they are defeated.
Congress should then call for the sacrifices that are necessary to quickly win the war from all American citizens and Industries. Finally, Congress should raise and support appropriate armies, to win.
"Staying the course" in "the Long War" is costing our nation $100,000 a minute. Our soldiers, our children and our nation are not served by continuing to plunge heedlessly ahead. We look to you in Congress to exercise responsibility for our future.
I urge you to vote AGAINST this supplemental appropriation.
