| War without end |
| by Paul Craig Roberts |
"We support the troops!" That's the excuse the Democrats have given for continuing to fund Bush's aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan. But, of course, war funding doesn't support the troops. War funding supports an evil machine that chews up and spits out the lives and well-being of the troops, along with that of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan, men, women, and children. War funding supports Bush's aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan and his continuing efforts to occupy both countries in order to turn them into puppet states. Polls show that a majority of the troops and their families do not support Bush's aggression. The fact that Ron Paul's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination received the lion's share of contributions from military families also underlines the great divide between the troops and those who would "support" them by keeping them in Iraq and Afghanistan. What all those ribbon decals on the back of SUVs proclaiming "support the troops" really mean is support Bush's wars of aggression against Muslims. According to the Washington Post, Bush's $3.1 trillion federal budget provides no funding for his proposal in his State of the Union address to permit military members to transfer their unused education benefits to family members. Bush got applause for his nationally televised words, but the troops and their families got no money in his budget. Government analysts calculate the education benefits would cost in the range of $1-2 billion annually – the cost of funding the war for two days. The only money that Bush and Congress want to give the troops is what is required to keep them at war. Everyone has read the horror stories of the lack of care for the physically and emotionally wounded troops who have made it back from Iraq. In contrast, to fund Bush's war, Bush and Congress have already spent in out-of-pocket and future costs at least $1,000 billion. Every American can draw up lists of better uses of this immense fortune than blowing up a country's infrastructure and killing hundreds of thousands of its citizens. Nothing good whatsoever has been accomplished by Bush's invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. It was obvious to anyone with a lick of sense in 2002, six months prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq on March 18, 2003, that an invasion would be a strategic blunder. William S. Lind, myself, and others made that prediction in October 2002. Three years later, Lt. Gen. William Odom, former director of the National Security Agency, vindicated us by declaring Bush's invasion of Iraq to be "the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history." If the head of the NSA doesn't know a "strategic disaster" when he sees one, who does? punditman says...Do read on, dear reader. My favourite line in the Full Article link above: "Bush started a war, and now to avoid losing it Bush pays Iraqis not to attack U.S. troops!" Yep, that's insanity. |
2/12/08
Bush Calls on France for Help
