Wars sending U.S. into ruin

To clarify somewhat: I feel the US is incapable of winning this war because if we HAD been capable of winning this war, we would have done so within 3 years or so. The fact that this war has been dragging on for- what- 8 years now? is proof enough to see that this is one war- like Vietnam- we will never win. It pains me to say this. Yet we also see soldiers rigging up their own homemade armor plating to put on their humvees. The govenment is sending troops in to battle poorly trained all ill equipped- like the Germans did when they attempted futilely to conquer Russia. History repeats itself yet again- lessons of past wars are largely lost on those who choose to wage them

Corporate investment in military hardware and supply has become our achilles heel that President Eisenhower warned us of years ago, The military industrial complex is killing America and capitalism. I personally can't wait for the final stock on the stock exchange hits zero. Fuck capitalism, bring on the golden age of Socialism for America.

Greed is destroying the U.S.

Socialists, um..um.. ahh. um.. hold on, my teleprompter isn't working. There we go! I meant to say "progressives" are driving this country to ruin.

As far as the spanish empire was able to steal everything they wanted from the occuped territories in America it was a good business both politically, militarly and economic. The current problem for US is that the wars are a bad business politically, militarly and economically.

It surprises me that US political elite is still so naive to believe they could be an example for other cultures and nations with several thousends of years history. It is like we try to imposse our neighbours our life stile as it would be the only possible.

anyone know what the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan is to the UK? would love to know, as i know i'm never going to read the real figure in any newspapers

Bin Laden's plan is working better then he would have ever hoped! THE US gaves him a TON of weapons & then we went & fought a war far away from him while he was able to build an awesome safety "cocoon " & continue to live out his life as an extremely rich man!!! Meanwhile, due to a very much self caused war, the US is now several trillion dollars in debt !!! & We seem no closer to getting out of war then we ever have!!! OH! & here's another nice little fact for people! Many of Bin Laden's family members were escorted out of the US on government air crafts by our government!!! Can the US recover from this war??? No!!! At least not 100%!!! Why??? Because we have pretty much lost the trust of most of the world!!! As many probably know,America is VERY dependent on other nations,so...That pretty much means we have a hell of a lot of explaining to do!!! & will likely have economic problems for at least a decade no matter who's in the white house!

War is Hell AND expensive. Obama, cap the military budget! If we restrict resources maybe the people in charge will get things done more quickly, more efficiently and less lives will be lost or ruined.

I think that if we STOP spending like we got it like that ( nmeaning put ah CAP on it ) then we may be better off , like i said may but i could be wrong , why does EVERYTHING HAS TO GO UP WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO IT , an also why
don't we Stop trying to help EVERYBODY in so many words ! huh ?

on dollars and cents, I heard on NPR that the IED's made by Afghanistan rebels are using less metal which makes them harder to detect, because they use less metal, and IED can be made for the equivelant of 0.25cents.
In order to find and defuse these cheap, effective, exploding devices ,...the US uses a team of bomb detectors, and equipment that is becoming more and more expensive due to the nature of the bombs made with less metal.
So,..they spend 0.25cents
and we spend upwards of 1 million to detect and get rid of it.......

we have already lost by the amount of money we spend, while the rest of America suffers and begs for healthcare, education, and infrastructure

Duh.

Any body out there ask Israel and its extremely rich citizens to help US with our deficit and with the cost of our wars which ultimately benefit them?

Again we did not decide to win. We let politicians decide that killing a criminal like Bin laden would not bode well for the US especialy since his family controls so much oil. Afganistan has a history of eating armies and spiting them out no matter how much more advanced they are. They will never get rid of the system of tribalism they use. Go in to win or don't go at all. Capture and hang Bin Laden for the over 3000 dead and injured in New York and don't pay attentiion to the Saudi Royal Family. They have abbrogated there right to speak for him.

is the oil worth it?

Osama bin Laden's idea was that if he could strike America once that America would simply spend itself to death. America being just four percent of the world cannot police the entire world. It makes no sense whatever. There was never a chance.

Not that like either of these two, but bin Laden was more intelligent than Cheney. It all comes down to that.

I'm a US Navy veteran, and I have seen the proof that we cannot win in Afghanistan. Never. Does anyone seriously believe that if we continue to pour billions into this money pit, if we continue shipping troops off to the MiddleEast to get blown up by IEDs, that we will win, "eventually"? How long has this debacle been going on- 8 years now? Lets get real. Having an incompetent shallow narcissist who pushes the "nanny state" continuously on the American people, it's no wonder we see people rising up

Wars sending U.S. into ruin Obama the peace president is fighting battles his country cannot afford By ERIC MARGOLIS, QMI AGENCY

U.S. President Barack Obama calls the $3.8-trillion US budget he just sent to Congress a major step in restoring America’s economic health.
In fact, it’s another potent fix given to a sick patient deeply addicted to the dangerous drug — debt.

More empires have fallen because of reckless finances than invasion. The latest example was the Soviet Union, which spent itself into ruin by buying tanks.
Washington’s deficit (the difference between spending and income from taxes) will reach a vertiginous $1.6 trillion US this year. The huge sum will be borrowed, mostly from China and Japan, to which the U.S. already owes $1.5 trillion. Debt service will cost $250 billion.

To spend $1 trillion, one would have had to start spending $1 million daily soon after Rome was founded and continue for 2,738 years until today.

Obama’s total military budget is nearly $1 trillion. This includes Pentagon spending of $880 billion. Add secret black programs (about $70 billion); military aid to foreign nations like Egypt, Israel and Pakistan; 225,000 military “contractors” (mercenaries and workers); and veterans’ costs. Add $75 billion (nearly four times Canada’s total defence budget) for 16 intelligence agencies with 200,000 employees.

The Afghanistan and Iraq wars ($1 trillion so far), will cost $200-250 billion more this year, including hidden and indirect expenses. Obama’s Afghan “surge” of 30,000 new troops will cost an additional $33 billion — more than Germany’s total defence budget.

No wonder U.S. defence stocks rose after Peace Laureate Obama’s “austerity” budget.

Military and intelligence spending relentlessly increase as unemployment heads over 10% and the economy bleeds red ink. America has become the Sick Man of the Western Hemisphere, an economic cripple like the defunct Ottoman Empire.

The Pentagon now accounts for half of total world military spending. Add America’s rich NATO allies and Japan, and the figure reaches 75%.
China and Russia combined spend only a paltry 10% of what the U.S. spends on defence.

There are 750 U.S. military bases in 50 nations and 255,000 service members stationed abroad, 116,000 in Europe, nearly 100,000 in Japan and South Korea.

Military spending gobbles up 19% of federal spending and at least 44% of tax revenues. During the Bush administration, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — funded by borrowing — cost each American family more than $25,000.
Like Bush, Obama is paying for America’s wars through supplemental authorizations — putting them on the nation’s already maxed-out credit card. Future generations will be stuck with the bill.

This presidential and congressional jiggery-pokery is the height of public dishonesty. America’s wars ought to be paid for through taxes, not bookkeeping fraud. If U.S. taxpayers actually had to pay for the Afghan and Iraq wars, these conflicts would end in short order. America needs a fair, honest war tax.

The U.S. clearly has reached the point of imperial overreach. Military spending and debt-servicing are cannibalizing the U.S. economy, the real basis of its world power. Besides the late U.S.S.R., the U.S. also increasingly resembles the dying British Empire in 1945, crushed by immense debts incurred to wage the Second World War, unable to continue financing or defending the imperium, yet still imbued with imperial pretensions.

It is increasingly clear the president is not in control of America’s runaway military juggernaut. Sixty years ago, the great President Dwight Eisenhower, whose portrait I keep by my desk, warned Americans to beware of the military-industrial complex. Six decades later, partisans of permanent war and world domination have joined Wall Street’s money lenders to put America into thrall.
Increasing numbers of Americans are rightly outraged and fearful of runaway deficits. Most do not understand their political leaders are also spending their nation into ruin through unnecessary foreign wars and a vainglorious attempt to control much of the globe — what neocons call “full spectrum dominance.”
If Obama really were serious about restoring America’s economic health, he would demand military spending be slashed, quickly end the Iraq and Afghan wars and break up the nation’s giant Frankenbanks.

Copyright © 2010 Toronto Sun All Rights Reserved

I admit Eric Margolis credentials are impressive but his logic is flawed. This summer will be a true test of the future of the war in Afghanistan as the entire 10th Mountain Division and 101st Airborne are heading to Afghanistan in a massive surge of U.S. Military might. Both the 10th and the 101st are light infantry division which excel in the mountainous regions of eastern Afghanistan (the Taliban's hold out).