By TomHayden Bush’s war costs in Afghanistan have been $173 billion from 2001 through 2009. Obama’s proposals for Iraq/Afghanistan are $144 billion this fiscal year, but not broken down. The secret war by the US-trained “Freedom Corps” in Pakistan is budgeted at $400 million. As America’s infrastructure decays, the Army Corps of Engineers is spending $4 billion for construction in Afghanistan this year, including 720 miles of roads this year alone. [W. Post, Mar. 22]. The expansion of Afghanistan’s army will cost “up to” $20 billion in the next several years, while Afghanistan’s entire national budget is $1.1 billion for this year.[Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation, Mar. 23]. Cost overruns and corruption being what they are, it is easy to predict the Afghan/Pakistan wars costing one trillion dollars by the end of the president’s first term. Military spending will continue to outpace civilian reconstruction aid indefinitely.
In summary, be prepared for a war that spans the length of the Obama presidency, an Obama War. Expect the Congress to be inert and distracted. Expect little help from the media.
But hey, we’ve been here before.
It’s time for a new movement against reckless escalation, especially one which threatens to divert our attention from the crisis at home, while only leaving poverty, malnutrition and anti-American hatreds rising abroad.
The new movement could begin this week, a living memorial to the passing of Dr. Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968.
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