war

On Redistribution, Or, “Afghanistan Peace Dividend Stimulus Lotto? OK!”

fake consultant — Thu, 12 May 2011 06:46:32 -0400

They tell us we’re dropping about $10 billion a month in Afghanistan so we can catch that Bin Laden guy...but eventually, we’re gonna catch him, and as soon as we do you can imagine that folks will be wondering why we’re still over there – and I gotta tell ya, I’m one of those people.

I mean, we’re over here talking about how we're so broke that we have no choice but to cut a couple of billion from heat assistance for the poor, and a billion-and-a-half from the Social Security operations budget, and money from food stamps and childcare assistance and tornado forecasting in Alabama…but every single month, just as regular as clockwork, we seem to be able to find another $10 billion to spend in Afghanistan, even as we have an economy that could badly use another round of truly productive stimulus.

And I don’t think y’all even realize just how much money $10 billion really is – but today we’re gonna see if we can’t fix that with a bit of a thought exercise.

Imagine if we set up a program that took that Afghanistan money and spent it right here at home for a year or two – and it was spent in the form of a lottery, where we stimulate the larger economy, help fix the mortgage crisis, and create a more energy-independent nation, all at the same time.

I got all we need except a catchy name; with that in mind let’s move on to the description of how the Happy Super Fun Day Peace Lotto Stimulus Thingy works.

...In this world, the two cities – the earthly and the heavenly – are commingled; but hereafter the predestinate and the reprobate will be separated. In this life we cannot know who, even among our seeming enemies, are to be found ultimately among the elect...

--Bertrand Russell, explaining St. Augustine, in the book “A History of Western Philosophy”

So it couldn’t be any simpler: what I have in mind, to illustrate our point, is a giant national lottery, and it wouldn’t cost a dime to enter.

First prize would be directed toward cleaning up the mortgage crisis by either getting folks out from “under water”, lowering their current monthly payments, or converting them from renters into homeowners: if you’re one of the 10,000 first place winners, you get $250,000 to spend on either paying down your mortgage or to buy a house of your choice if you don’t have one now.

Second prize involves “greening” America’s homes; the idea being that if we cut America’s heating, air conditioning, and hot water bills, we free up billions of newly productive dollars to create long-term self-sustaining consumer demand – and that means you can take some of that power bill money and go out and have a nice dinner with the kids again.

10,000 winners would each get $50,000, and with that you could easily replace a whole lot of windows with better-insulated ones…or you could get some solar panels, or put up that rooftop wind generator you’ve been thinking about, and you could pay for the electrical connections to get you in the business of selling power back to your utility. Don’t own your house? That’s OK, we’ll “green” it up anyway, with the owner’s permission – and if that can’t be arranged, then maybe we’ll have to just award you third prize instead.

The idea behind our third prize is to lower the amount of money we spend every year on imported oil; to that end we would give 50,000 third place winners $40,000 to spend on a vehicle that gets 40 MPG or better – and because we don’t want to “disincentive” inexpensive green cars, if you can arrange to buy two cars for $40,000, we’ll do that, too. (And hey, just to be fair: if you were “bumped down” from second place, let’s make your “car credit” $50,000.)

That’s 70,000 winners, folks, who could end up with a new house, or a new car, or a newly energy-efficient home – and that doesn’t give a complete picture of just how much we’re really spending right now blowing up Afghanistan.

You see, we’re spending so much right now that we could give away all this stuff every single month of the year with all the money we’re dumping “Over There” instead – and even that doesn’t tell the whole story, because all that stuff...all the houses and all the cars and all the energy improvements...represents only 50% of what we’re spending every month Over There.

And all that money doesn’t even include what we’re spending on our other wars, overt and covert, in Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, the Philippines, Yemen, Iran, Mexico, Columbia, Venezuela, and, of course, the one we fight right here in the good ol’ USA: The War On Drugs.

So whaddaya think, America?

Should we continue the endless war and keep on looking for those last 100 or so Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, to the tune of $100 million a month for each guy, for the next decade or so…or would you rather do a giant lottery for a couple of years, for half the cost of what we’re spending every month over there now, that creates lots and lots of jobs and permanently lowers our national energy bill?

I think I know which one you want – and that’s just too bad, because we aren’t gonna get it anytime soon, now are we?

America's King George III may get a challenge from the left on Afghanistan.

Michael Kwiatkowski — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:22:38 -0500

Leave it to Ohio's Dennis Kucinich to do what no one else in Congress has the courage to do. The Representative from the Buckeye State's tenth Congressional District is looking to force a vote on withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a report by RAW Story.

For congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Afghan President Hamid Karzai's announcement Tuesday that his country would need the US's military support for another 10 or 15 years seems to have been the last straw.

The outspoken House representative says it was Karzai's statement that prompted him to draft a resolution calling for a House vote on the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"We shouldn't be there another 15 to 20 months, let alone 15 to 20 years," Kucinich told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "When I'm in my district talking to people, nobody has come up to me and said we need to be in Afghanistan for the next 15 to 20 years. They do say we need jobs, we need to protect our basic industry, we need education, we need to protect retirement security. I'd like to see us start taking care of things here at home."

Kucinich tried to initiate impeachment proceedings against Dick Cheney using this same method. Unfortunately, he'll get absolutely no support from his own political party. We can't pay for basic services here in the United States, such as medical care and infrastructure including bridges, highways, and electrical grids, but oh how we have money for genocidal killing and for Wall Street criminals. And the political party that is supposed to be against all this is instead enabling it. It's madness.

Small wonder that rumblings of a repeat of 1994 abound. With Democrats like the bunch we elected to power, who needs Republicans? I don't know about you, but it's time we on the left finally get Dennis Kucinich's back and help him end these wars. Click the link to the House Telephone Directory and use it to get in touch with your representatives. Tell them that if they want your money and votes next year, they'd damn well better do as they're told and end this occupation.

Leonora Perron

Leonora Perron — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:47:20 -0400

Greenwald: WaPo thinks wars are more important than health care.

Michael Kwiatkowski — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:58:42 -0400

Glenn Greenwald reveals the depraved "logic" behind the beltway media establishment in his latest entry. According to the Washington Post, it's perfectly acceptable to be trillions of dollars in debt to finance the crumbling empire's wars abroad, but wholly unacceptable to invest in genuine health care reform because it would create massive debt.

John Crippen

John Crippen — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:20:48 -0500

White House Blackmails Iraq Ahead of Dec. Expiration of UN Mandate

Gus Wynn — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:21:28 -0400

The recent $70 billion financial bailout was forced onto a skeptical, unwilling American public who dialed in to Congressional offices protesting the plan. The inital NO vote by Congress echoed the feeling by enraged citizens that Wall Street should twist in the wind, choked by it's own greed and irresponsible, unsustainable practices.

The White House got the votes it needed, however, after a few days of tense wrangling in which big finance threatened they'd let the peoples assets get eaten up in their collapse. The White House became salesmen for the deal. Congress saw they were up against impending chaos if the tumbling dominos endangered the life savings of their constituents. Blackmail.

The bailout ensured the Bush White House enough cash and control to see them through to the end of their misbegotten term. That it was unhealthy for the economy in the long-term mattered not - Bush all but doubled the national deficit already, signaling how much he cares about fiscal responsibility.

Now the White House has turned his attention to Iraq. Frustrated for months at the resistance Iraq has shown in signing a Status of Forces Agreement, Bush has ratcheted up the pressure. The SOFA would allow U.S. to continue its "war on terror" in Iraq until 2011 and pave the way for the contracts Big Oil has been long waiting for.

The Iraqi people have been protesting and marching in solidarity against the SOFA which they see as exploitive and imperialist. The blatant greed of the U.S. has brought together Iraqi rivals in common disgust. Prime Minister Maliki, who endorsed Obama's plan for a responsible withdrawal of U.S. forces has stood up to Bush, identifying privatized military forces as a sticking point in negotiations - the Iraqis want Blackwater liable for their actions in Iraqi criminal courts.

But President Bush wants a deal now, charging General Odierno with the job of threatening the Iraqis who quickly termed this blackmail. Odierno gave a three page list of "services" that the U.S. military will withhold if Iraq resists further. This includes the security that has prevented Iraqis from killing eachother in the streets as they did for years before the Petraeus era.

Here's where it gets interesting - January 1st would be the date for withholding these services. In a hilarious twist of irony, a timetable, but without adequate transition support for the Iraqis to take over their own security.

Unlike the timetable proposed earlier by Democrats which Bush claimed amounted to surrender, this timetable is being used to pressure the Iraqis, leaving them without weapons and training, vulnerable to violence, and particularly at their borders. Many experts believe this may further push Iraq towards waiting Iranian influences.

This deadline however isn't of Bush's design- it represents the expiration of the U.N. mandate under which U.S. forces have been allowed to occupy Iraq - the legal cover for the war. Technically, the U.S. couldn't continue providing military "services" if they wanted to - unless a SOFA is signed or the deadline is extended, unlikely because the President won't let Congress, the American people or the U.N. see the terms of the prososed agreement.

Phyllis Bennis offers an excellent analysis of a translated draft of the SOFA leaked by the Iraqis here - and it is a must-read for anyone against this war and particularly troops questioning the legality of their deployment after New Year's Eve.

Perhaps it's the fingerprint of Vice President Cheney at work here. It was Cheney who stopped Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Hans Blix on his way into the Oval Office to meet the President in 2003. According to Blix, Cheney ordered him to issue a report that agreed with George Bush's claims or Blix would be discredited.

Another story circulated during the 2006 NSA hearings warned that any Republican who voted to continue the inquiries would see their reelection funding withheld -- at the behest of Karl Rove. By the next day, the hearings were discontinued without explanation.

Regardless of who within the White House is conceiving of these blackmail and secrecy plots, it's clear the current administration wants to do some last-minute business in ensuring the wealthiest of defense and energy industry barons contract out a little more plunder before the Bush era ends. Related reading: updated commentary by John Perkins, author of A Game As Old As Empire: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

Links:
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5624
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/54849.html
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_john_per_070315_john_perkins_3a_...

Joint Chiefs chair: US prepping military options against Iran

Michael Kwiatkowski — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 17:46:01 -0400

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Pentagon is planning "potential" military actions against Iran, reports The Washington Post.