Slashdot Mirror
The Cost of US Security
Hugh Pickens writes "The Atlantic reports that as we mark Osama bin Laden's death, what's striking is how much he cost our nation and how little we've gained from our fight against him. By conservative estimates, bin Laden cost the US at least $3 trillion over the past 15 years, counting the disruptions he wrought on the domestic economy, the wars and heightened security triggered by the terrorist attacks he engineered, and the direct efforts to hunt him down. 'What do we have to show for that tab,' ask Tim Fernholz and Jim Tankersley. 'Two wars that continue to occupy 150,000 troops and tie up a quarter of our defense budget; a bloated homeland-security apparatus that has at times pushed the bounds of civil liberty; soaring oil prices partially attributable to the global war on bin Laden's terrorist network; and a chunk of our mounting national debt.' In 2004 bin Laden explicitly compared the US fight to the Afghan incursion that helped bankrupt the Soviet Union during the Cold War. 'We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy,' said bin Laden, adding that that every dollar spent by al-Qaida in attacking the US has cost Washington $1m in economic fallout and military spending."
when terrorism makes us become something we are not then terrorism has won - we are less free and less wealthy
But we'll spend trillions of dollars and radically change our society to 'deal' with them.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
http://files.blog-city.com/files/A05/141484/p/f/wikipedia_fy2009_pie_chart.jpg
The "War on Terror" is nothing compared to the amount of money spent buying votes from the peasants.
he'd be pretty dumb if he did. Seriously. The wars have mostly been a money grab for Halliburton and co, which suits the American Corporate ruling class just fine. Hell, fear of terrorists has set back the labor movement in the US 100 years, again, good for the sort of folk that have been in favor of meddling in the Middle East for years. Plus the wars are helping to keep these people in power. 9/11 was the best thing that could happen to global corporations. People stopped asking why their wages are falling and started cringing in fear of all them tarrafyin' tarrarists.
And of course, who could for get the Best. Chart. Ever. Thanks Bush. It's amazing how much damage one administration can do in such a short time when you let 'em do whatever the heck they want...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
at what cost? Now we all live in fear. For our jobs. For our privacy, and of each other.
"On the Internet, nobody can hear you being subtle." -Linus Torvalds
If they had offered a 1 trillion dollar reward for him we would have had him 10 years ago and saved 2 trillion. Wouldn't actually happen because most of that 3 trillion went to companies that the politicians have interests in.
Because we must follow the rules of war, our costs/losses are going to be exponentially higher. If we waged total war and took no prisoners we would be out of there by now. If Al-Qaida fought "fair" we would be out of there by now. A smaller, more flexible (as in morals/tactics--suicide bombings, hiding behind civilians, etc.) force such as Al-Qaida could bleed any military force dry as long as incoming resources replace those which are lost.
Hold your Troll/Flamebait mods, I'm not advocating we do away with the treaties that restrict us, I'm merely stating a fact. The face of war has changed and conventional warfare is a thing of the past.
The other was a recreational option on our part.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Just let rogue nation states and terrorist organizations crash our own jetliners into civilian buildings and use foul language in return.If we had only just turned the otehr cheek I am sure OPEC would have felt so bad they would even now be lowering the cost of oil.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson
3 trillion dollars don't matter if you have money printing machines.
Even if there were no Bin Laden, terrorism and Islamic extremism had been rampant on the planet. The US had to fight anyway, although against a different terrorist leader.
Does anyone else see this as being very similar to how the USA beat the USSR?
We forced the USSR to spend themselves out of existence. The terrorists are now playing our own game, except against us. Unfortunately, I fear how this will end for the USA if we don't figure out that we can't win this game without changing the rules.
In other words, fantastic business for well-connected defense contractors. What, you thought they were going to sit back and make less money just because we defeated the only other global superpower?
In all seriousness, a couple of years ago I attended a meeting with a military organization that was created specifically to deal with the threat to US soldiers created by Improvised Explosive Devices. The purpose of the meeting? To sell them their own computer network.
A computer network in Iraq, or Afghanistan, where the IEDs tend to accumulate? Nope. Just another big installation in Washington DC, costing a fortune to the taxpayer, so an office full of remote staff can have their own redundant equipment and IT staff while the real work gets done overseas.
So out of the 145million people that filed taxes it cost us 21k each over 15 years.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/10taxstatscard.pdf
But think of all the innovation;
Remote controlled drones with missiles.
Armored K9's
Quiet Helicopters
Body Scans (would be nice if they could detect cancer or a tumor at least while i walk though)
um cannot really think of anything else we came up with for 3 trillion.
I think we got hosed on this deal.
Ignore the terrorist. When the Russian airport was bombed some months back, people walked over the rubble and got on their connecting flights the same goddam day. Ignore them. And ignore the media, your friends and family, the government, the talk-show host, your teachers, and any other fool who says we need to fear. ignore the stupidity, but DONT GIVE UP. Attempt to have rational conversations. Get don't be polarizing. Be polite. Be honest. Use facts. Check them. If your wrong, admit. Do things the scientific way. Do things morally. Do things honestly.
We all die someday, its terrible. I am related to people who have been physically been harmed by extremist. And you know what. FUCK THE EXTREMIST. Who gives a shit! Its time our society collectively grabs its balls, puts in work, fires to dumbfucking politicians, and accepts collateral damage at being a successful capitalistic country. Yes there exist corporate corruption in the pockets of government. Yes we get screwed by this and that. But fight for what you believe in and research the facts and fuck all the bullshit. Next time you go out, have a conversation with somebody. Mention to them the falling intelligence levels of the country, the deficit spending, the ridiculous wars, the stupid bigotry. Make people see how ignorant and irrational the country as a whole is acting. If enough people talk about it, it will become the subconscious mind-set of the whole. Anything is better than this Lifetime movie induced coma culture suckling away at the 5'o'clock news and twitter and Facebook.
Last time I was at the DMV, an older gentlemen casually said to me "worlds' fallin to shit, ain't", I said yeah and this and that, and he said "so what is your generation doing about it?"
We don't need some stupid violent revolution or anything like that, but an evolution in the way we think about the sustainable of our race. If we are doomed to be Matrix like beings stuck in vats for our protection while some masters sit in a panoptican keeping everybody's nutrients levels up and fear levels low, well, lets go ahead and start that private space industry funding to Titan's moons.
As I say this I just finished a letter to my representative Jamie Boles (NC) regarding him balking at people having legally permitted concealed weapons in restaurants, and his stalling tactics in regards to HB1XX. Take a stand on what you feel is right, and let these fuckers know your watching them. We just have to stop talking amongst ourselves and start reaching out to others who aren't in our little mental circle jerk in all these forums.
For the TLDR crowd: longwinded guy says some political shit, herp derp nub aids
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
US economic output exceed $150 trillion dollars in the last 15 years. $3 trillion could have been better spent, but it's 2%. Current deficit spending will do far more damage to future generations than Bin Laden could ever hope for.
He's an evil fuck, but from a professional standpoint I have to admire how well he succeeded in his mission to hurt us, and most of it was psychological.
At least we were spared a pic of /him/ wearing a flight suit.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I once had to get my car repaired. After I was done, I was just in the same position I was in before the car broke down in the first place. I had paid money, and I had gained nothing!
Seriously, this is nonsense. Killing bin Laden isn't a gain over there being no bin Laden; it's a gain over him being there but staying alive and in charge. Wars are always expensive; we don't fight them because they produce gains, we fight them so that we can stay in the same place--it's a gain over not being able to stay in the same place, but wars always sucked, and they always will. And the article is really reaching to point out things like the economic boom caused by World War II. We didn't fight World War II to cause an economic boom, and not having one certainly wouldn't mean we shouldn't have fought it.
at the mere cost of 30 million dollars a head.
The Bush Administration really wanted to have enemies so they could have wars. Bin Laden was useful, but the Afghanistan War did get in the way of the Iraq War that the Pentagon had been planning since Bush got into office. And all that Patriot Act stuff got put together in a surprising hurry - you'd think the FBI and NSA had been planning to keep proposing power-grabbing rules even before the terrorists got there (pay no attention to that Louis Freeh behind the curtain...)
Terrorists were really convenient, and since the Feds had been trying to scare the public about terrorists with anthrax since at least the second half of the Clinton Administration, it was especially convenient that they used some of that.
(I'm not one of those 9/11 Truther Conspiracy Nuts - I think this was mostly opportunism on the parts of the military-industrial complex folks and the surveillance-state folks who got a chance to do the things they'd been telling us all along they wanted to do. Bush and Cheney got elected as tough-guy militarists, after all, and you don't expect them not to have wanted to help the FBI/NSA eavesdropping types.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Those who know me personally or know my online record know that I'm one of the biggest deficit and debt hawks around, but I'll provide a contrarian opinion of sorts in this debate. It's not just the hunt for Bin Laden that cost us $3 trillion in this war on terrorism. If tracking down and eliminating Bin Laden was the only thing we spent that money and the rest of our treasure on (most importantly precious American lives), then that would be an unmitigated disaster. But it's obviously farcical and disingenuous to make that claim because killing Bin Laden wasn't the only accomplishment. We took away the safe haven Al Qaeda had in Afghanistan, and then, like it or lump it, we removed a vile dictator named Saddam Hussein and liberated Iraq. Now with the "Arab Spring" setting the Middle East ablaze, we have at least one marginal beachhead Arab state in a semi-stable, semi-functional, semi-democratic Iraq. It's also important to recognize that at the very least we have killed a lot of terrorists and would-be terrorist radicals who otherwise would have been left to plan attacks against us in the future.
Was it necessary to fight these wars? It's an arguable point. At the very least they weren't a total waste, but their efficacy, efficiency and opportunity costs can and should be examined. Did these wars do their part to massively increase our indebtedness? Absolutely they did, but not solely - they were coupled with out-of-control, unconstitutional Entitlements and bloated federal bureaucracies. (It must also be said that national security and national defense are responsibilities of the federal government under the Constitution, whereas the vast majority of Congress' other expenditures are unconstitutional and only permitted because of the post-FDR-New-Deal perversion of the Constitution that Americans have complacently allowed to remain and grow for 80 years.) But to paint the wars as caricatures, which is what is done when people say we spent $3 trillion killing Bin Laden, is at best satire and at worst historical revisionist propaganda.
Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
This seems to be a very short-sighted view of the situation. While I don't necessarily feel that the spending on the wars or the "counter-terrorism" is the best use of that money, we can't reasonable expect to see noticeable effect in just 10 years time. These kinds of operations are meant to protect the long-term future of security, and they aren't only meant to help the US, they are meant to help the world. We can't look at a global operation and say "How much good has this done us?" We have to look at the bigger picture, and the truth is the bigger picture is still being developed. Much of the Middle-East is in turmoil at the moment, but turmoil always accompanies change, and we can't say whether or not those changes will be good for us until those changes are complete, or at least what might be reasonably viewed as complete. There's still a lot left to do.
It was a few million dollars, though I think he raised it to $25m, and he did spend about that much on the cruise missile attacks on the camps in Afghanistan and the medical factory in Sudan.
And Bush didn't have to drop the war effort in Afghanistan just because he had a political opportunity to attack Iraq, but he and Rumsfeld were hardly competent. And so what if Osama got away, that would just mean we'd have a permanent excuse to continue the wars.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If the PNAC guys under Bush didn't decide 9/11 was their excuse to turn Iraq into a hegemony, to hell with the original villains.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
All he wanted was to cripple us. And where he failed, we did it to ourselves. So ultimately, he won. When a suicide bomber walks into a populated area he knows he is going to die - he just hopes that he can take out at as many people as possible in the process.
Lets put these numbers into perspective:
Osama Bin Laden's estimated damage: $3 trillion
Bill Gates net worth: $56 billion
Apple's market capitalization: $308 billion
2010 stimulus bill: $787 billion
So Bin laden and the resulting spiral of stupidity did more economic damage to the US than Bill Gates + Apple + the economic stimulus put together. From Bin Laden's perspective, our loss is his gain. That means he died the wealthiest most powerful human being on the planet. All because he fooled America into it's own economic death spiral. History will look back on this time as a time when America nearly destroyed itself.
This is like one flea taking down the entire dog because it scratched itself to death.
If anything, Hugh Pickens' summary paints too rosy a picture.
The title, "The Cost of US Security," has the words "cost" and "security" in it.
"Security" implies that the US's four wars since 2001 (I count Pakistan as a war) have some positive correlation with US Security. If anything, they have decreased US security. The second Iraq war happened because Bush got Powell to go to the UN and tell them lies about how Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were a security threat. The Pakistan war involves our giving the Pakistani government lots of money so they can work hand in glove with terrorists. What exactly has the Afghanistan war accomplished, other than killing lots of young Americans and putting a corrupt Afghan government in power and allowing it to fake elections?
The word "cost," along with all the dollar figures, encourages us to measure the outcome in terms of money. The outcome should be measured in terms of the destruction of domestic civil liberties, crapping on the constitution, torturing people who didn't do anything wrong, crippling and killing teenage Americans, and killing innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
Find free books.
Yes, you can blame the WTC and Clinton's cruise missile attacks and to some extent even the Afghanistan* War on bin Laden, but the article also blames him for the costs of Bush's Iraq War, which had nothing to do with him and which cost a lot more than Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein was the kind of corrupt secular dictator bin Laden hated, and American troops based in the Holy Land (that's Saudi Arabia, in this case) were one of the things bin Laden got most upset about.
Bush may have used bin Laden as an excuse, along with "Weapons of Mass Destruction" and "Saddam tried to kill my daddy after my daddy tried to kill Saddam", but the Pentagon was planning the Iraq War from the first week Bush got into office. (See Bamford's book "A Pretext for War" for more details - Cheney, Condi Rice, Rumsfeld, and Cheney's neo-con buddies were all at those early planning meetings. And Iraq was a logical target since Bush 41's war had never really been finished, so the Pentagon should have been doing at least some planning in case the politicians wanted to finish the war.)
* And even the Afghanistan War was mostly an attempt to impose a non-Taliban winner onto the civil war that the Taliban had mostly won, and while they were permitting bin Laden to operate in their country, bombing the place in response to 9/11 was a bit like the Brits bombing the Irish parts of Boston and San Francisco after an IRA bombing in London.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The amounts that were spent do not necessarily equal the costs.
Who knows spending 1% may have had the same effect.
S
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
The biggest problem of any modern military is getting rid of old weapons and equipment. The cheapest way to do that is a war.
The biggest problem of any modern democracy is justifying the existance of government. The easiest way to do that is by creating fear.
The actual threat from terrorism or bin Laden is not that big. The important thing here is that bin Laden was spinned as an argument to make war and seed fear, that is, as a means to an end. Now that Obama spent the bin Laden card on his re-election, i wonder what will the government put in it's place to avoid actually dealing with the real problems.
FCKGW 09F9 42
Instead of just spending the money on some nukes to bomb the Taliban and other terrorists, we spend trillions of dollars because liberals bitches about "innocent" civilians. It's not a war with conventional armies like the past. Enemies do not wear uniforms. There aren't any innocent civilians in those areas. As the killing of Bin Laden has proven, even the government of Pakistan are not innocent. It's a war, when you tie the hands of the soldiers in the war, soldiers die. All of the deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are on the heads of the liberals around the world. Terrorists only understand death, when they know that you will not kill them if they are caught, that only encourages them. Instead of just using conventional weapons, we spend millions on specialized weapons just to avoid collateral damage. That's where the cost of weapons and lives results from.
he Bush Administration really wanted to have enemies so they could have wars.
That is a cornerstone of neo-con philosophy, but it is for extremist muslims as well. The philosophies of Leo Strauss and Sayyid Qutb are more alike than they are different.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
Yeah but before you get all crazy about spending $3 trillion on Osama without any real reward, consider the cost-benefit of the credit crisis. It could possibly double the Osama number... how did most of you (and me) benefit from that cost? It may not have been a public policy decision, but it sure was a private-sector risk management decision made by all of the top US financial services companies. I sure didn't sell my house before the credit markets tanked, anticipating that - of the banks who were underwriting the bonds that were financing my mortgage - more than half would fail. But the financial structuring guys and the Wall Street traders all got paid (record years and record bonuses after the crisis happened). Public funds bailed them out afterwards, which is even worse, and now savings yields are nearly 0%. How is this really that much different? I may even feel better about spending $3 trillion on Osama... at least I got some satisfaction out of that event.
3 trillion dollars spent on matters that are in some way related to some subjects that may indirectly be connected to Bin Laden or people he has spoken to at least once in the past.
title says it all
yeah but what the hell has this got to do with Apple - c'mon slashdot!
The Bush Administration really wanted to have enemies so they could have wars.
Um, you may have missed it, but Bush isn't President anymore. It's Obama now - the guy who you rubes thought would end all these wars and such.
Do you have ESP?
I understand the terms I will use could be viewed as callous, but I do not have better terms. My issue with the cost of the wars is not based in cost, but value. We have spent this much money, and neither our economic nor political standing has improved.
We seem to be fighting a war as if our enemy was the old USSR, when in fact our enemy is quite different. This type of conflict requires more human intelligence, and in country resources. As anyone in security knows, a static defense can be bypassed given time and effort. Does anyone really feel safer with Wal-Mart dropouts running the security at the airport? This is not where we should be putting our money, but it makes people feel better about security.
He's right when he said this: 'We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy,' said bin Laden, adding that that every dollar spent by al-Qaida in attacking the US has cost Washington $1m in economic fallout and military spending."
How would the economic outlook of the US (and by extension the world) economy be if 9/11 didn't happen? There wouldn't be a post-9/11 down fall obvious. How money would NOT have been spent on Afghanistan and then Iraq? How much money would be saved without formation of the DHS and the expansion of the TSA? How much money would have been saved if there was no PATRIOT Act? Money spent goes to to profit someone but for the average American, they face an improving but not terribly optimistic economic future from a country burdened with a rapidly expending national deficit that is not completely but definitely attributed to this "war" on terrorism.
You never realize what a great country we live in until you've gone to another country and had the ability to be able to make a an unbiased comparison. Not what you read or hear on the news, but determine on your own, just how valuable what we do here in America.
make fast money online
The Bush Administration really wanted to have enemies so they could have wars.
Um, you may have missed it, but Bush isn't President anymore. It's Obama now - the guy who you rubes thought would end all these wars and such.
Ah yes... dunno why he hasn't. I've seen all the magical and seemingly impossible things that "The Easy Button" can do while watching all those Staples commercials.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
It wasn't the Islamic Fundamentalists, who who have a lot in common with the founders of the United States. It wasn't the United States as explained in the article.
However, China has been racking up economically while they finance our war on terror through the purchasing our our debt.
If I wanted to destroy an nation, getting it involved in an endless war on terror, while I Build up my economy would be a great way to go. This is what I would think if I did not have the main stream media to do my thinking for me and tell me it was Islamic terrorism that brought down the trade center.
I always believe the media because they have a crack team of impartial investigative journalists. (who are all investing in China)
GWB's response to 9/11 was like a histamine reaction to a grain of pollen.
The other image that leaps to mind was the classic one of a mouse scaring an elephant. That one even lines up with the party symbol!
Analogies aside, Al Qaeda is nothing like the Soviet Union. There's no excuse for it to cost as much as it does to counter them. We should have revised cockpt access control policy, and sent special operators and a few thousand support troops to Afghanistan. We probably could have nailed Bin Laden before he escaped to Pakistan if it had been done right. Iraq never should have happened.
I can has educashun next time?
It's too bad that Clinton didn't manage to kill Bin Laden back in the late 90s when he launched a cruise missile strike on Afghanistan. Reportedly, Bin Laden narrowly missed being at that location when the cruise missiles came in. (And, I still remember how all the foreign press went apeshit about how Clinton did the strike to distract everyone from the Lewinski affair. I thought the foreign press was a bunch of short-sighted parasites then, and I still think so today.)
... every dollar spent by al-Qaida in attacking the US has cost Washington $1m in economic fallout and military spending."
"bin Laden cost the US at least $3 trillion over the past 15 years
Really? Because that works out to al-Queda spending only 3 million dollars over the past fifteen years. I think that's a bullshit number. There's no way al-Queda spent only 3 million dollars for everything, including hiding Bin Laden for the past ten years.
bin Laden cost the US at least $3 trillion over the past 15 years
Wait. I thought we spent all that money to prevent Iraq from using their weapons of mass destruction on us; pre-emptive attack and all that. And we found the 9/11 mastermind, which was not Bin Laden.
Here's my prediction. Bin Laden doesn't matter. Someone else will take his place and be the figure foisted in our minds as the reason these wars must continue.
The USA financial system is structed in a way that encourages crazy amounts of spending (see: War on Terror) in order the fill the big banks pockets. Look at this (2010 stats): Annual Tax Revenue: $2.162 trillion US Govt Spending: $3.456 trillion This means that the US government is spending $1.294 trillion more than what it earns. Now, what does the government do when it needs more money? it is not allowed to print it's own money so it sells Treasuries (IOUs in the form of Notes, bonds, securities) Who buys these treasuries? Foreign countries, the public - but, the biggest buyers by far are the Federal Reserve Banks (and tricky intra government debt). The Fed loans out money to banks at 0.00% interest, who in turn buy US Treasuries that pay approximately 4% per annum. Can you say "We're making money out of thin air"? The banks sure can. It's in their best interest that the government remains in debt and constantly requires money to continue to provide services, pay off their debt payments (to prevent a default) - and most importantly PROLONG a hugely expensive war! On top of that it's the most highly out-sourced and privatised war in history (I'll loan you the money, and then I'll get it back from you) - but that's a whole other story - and it applies to 99% of government spending. Note: I've intentionally simplified this and left out many other factors - if I were to talk about everything I would be here all day.
At least its not costing you anymore, or this case probably won't be much longer.
Look at what that guy's done with the Russia, especially economically. For those of you that DON'T know? He's turned them around, for the good, by many orders of magnitude, and he takes less pay for it than most of the others in the duma.
If you don't believe me? Take a read for yourselves here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin and the reason how and why? He knows how to get things done and isn't after money. He's a real honest to god patriot for the russian peoples in my opinion.
Why don't we get the same people in politics in the USA?
Well, because we largely instead have idiots, undereducated idiots, for our politicians is why. Undereducated dolts who are nothing more than puppets placed there by BIG money (i.e.-> Banks and Industry).
For example, they don't understand finance (and the shenanigans around it in derivatives, naked short selling, and the mortgage backed securities realm) and that opened the doors for the wallstreeters to rook them.
So, then, what do these morons do?? They hire people from the PROBLEM AREAS who worked for them, for example, the banks (the federal reserve fractional reserve fiat monetary system is a sham people) or wallstreet and were their damned lobbyists (bribers is more like it)!
Talk about letting foxes guard the henhouse.
Still, that's exactly what you get when you have 2 political parties that aren't ANY different from one another (though you're told they are, b.s. - their campaign contributions come from the "ruling elite" in the world corporatocracy & IMF) and those puppet politicians are truly the "best money can REALLY buy" (for real).
I could go on, but that's enough for now (starting to get upset here).
Signed 1 PISSED OFF U.S. CITIZEN
Bin Laden built his entire lifestyle around getting stupid people to give him money to fight "the Big Bad." First that was Russia, but after they were driven out of Afghanistan, he needed a new enemy. Otherwise, he'd have to actually earn his money. The US was the easiest target. But he never cared about the US at all - we were just the most convenient target. He would have gone after Iceland had he thought suckers would have given him money for it.
"I swear to protect the President and the US Constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic"
now is
"I swear to uphold the Patriot Act and hide Continuity of Government from the consumers of the US"
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-indiana-supreme-court-dispenses-magna-carta-constitution
President Obama gave a speech in Egypt where all the theory of bin Laden came from. Egypt experiences Arab Spring overturning all that theory. Getting bin Laden was less important than this, but it is a sign of a large difference is competence compared with the former administration.
You know, I deployed to Iraq in 2005. And the imagery of the country (Iraq) that our maps had was dated 9/11/2001. Of course, that could also have been the day of the last satellite flyover.
Iraq had nothing to do with Osama.
Careful there. If you don't throw in Black Helicopters to prove your insanity the government may deem you actually dangerous instead of just a conspiracy nut...
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
It's great the way our problems with Al Qaeda, Taliban, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. can all be lumped on Bin Laden.
By that same logic, the butterfly that set off Hurricane Katrina was one hella expensive insect. Never mind the decades of poor decisions that came before, to make it what it was...
Hell, I wanna get on that bandwagon too! If it weren't for bin Laden, the USA would still have the wonderful warm relationship with the Arab world it previously enjoyed. The bastard!
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
We elected the hawks, kept them in power, and _still_ we blame bin Laden. We chose to spend $5 trillion, not he. Take responsibility, dismantle the apparatus, write it down in the history books, and don't let it happen again.
Where are the small gov't conservatives or pacifist liberals? We should not sit idly by reading slashdot while we let our country bleed to death. Write your government representatives today! Stop paying for this sh*t!
Well, surely turning the other... whatever hippies.
That's not a contrarian opinion. It's nothing but a collection of the usual bile.
"vile dictator named Saddam Hussein"
You do remember that we CREATED him? We (the US) put him in power and provided the weapons he used to fight against Iran, against his own people and eventually against us.
I'm all for deficit reduction,et al.. But I really wonder when these self-declared "conservatives" will wake up and realize that all the preaching in the world isn't going to change anything. You can rail against "entitlement" programs and bureaucracies until you're blue in the face, but I guarantee you wouldn't want to live without them. Might I point out that the money we spent on Iraq is enough to permanently fix social security?
I assume you're not old enough for Social Security, but I bet your parents are and claimed it. Since you're using your computer and posting to a website, you've benefited from the FCC and the DoEnergy. If you drove on any US highway or ridden on an airplane, you've benefited from the DOT. I assume you were educated in the US,probably attended college and probably used at least some amount of student loans to pay for it. You can thank the DoEducation for that.
If you really want to change something, why don't you take the time to actually learn what all of these agencies do. Instead of being spoon fed by Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin, take the time to do the research. Then, you can make some intelligent arguments about how to improve the system. For all the rhetoric, the "conservative" movement is nothing more then the same old crap in a different wrapper. Reagan raided SS and filled it with bonds to finance his deficit spending. The Bush's both wanted to raid it entirely and give it to their wall-street buddies in the form of "private accounts." The only people that would have benefited from that are the investment bankers. I think we've given them enough handouts already.
So, back to my original point: Unless you have a better proposal that's well thought-out and actually implementable, you have no standing.
If all you can say is that we should do away with all of it, you've only demonstrated your own ignorance.
as the single most cost-effective military operation in history.
This attrition strategy is known in modern parlance as "death by a million paper cuts."
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
If the bush admin had flown the bin-laden family out of the US the before the 911 incident, rather than the day after, I might think that the government(of the time) was in on it, rather than the result of it...
When the world is taken hostage by family politics and personal greed, you've got to wonder who the system of government is serving(and why the safeguards where allowed to be dismantled), it wouldn't seem to the the citizens...
And for the record(from the perspective of US allies), if you paint yourselves as the 'defender of world freedom' (read 'bully of the world'), ya shouldn't be too surprised when someone takes objection to that; especially when the agendas of those in power are/where so thinly veiled... We've all got to live together, and be accepting of those who believe in a different whatever...
I'm reminded of the saying: "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones!", we've all got TVs and the contrast between US news and local domestic is astounding, but for anyone who was living inside of the propaganda machine, I'd imagine it must of been rather overwhelming...
I'd recommend that the US gov. be very careful about who they validate as an enemy, imagine if bin-laden had the resources of a government behind him...
And let's look at Afghanistan a bit closer:
According to a 2002 NBC news report: "President Bush was expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaida two days before Sept. 11 but did not have the chance before the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, U.S. and foreign sources told NBC News." This would have been on 09/09/01
This is backed by a Sept 2001 BBC News report which states: "Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October....And he said it was doubtful that Washington would drop its plan even if Bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taleban."
Read that last sentence again.
The weapons industry would have found something else to spin so they could continue to sell their products. They needed a new "enemy of the state" after the cold war was over and OBL fitted the bill just fine. Russia, nor OBL were the cause of spending the money, the US people were. They let themselves be suckered into the theory that there was one or another big enemy that needed to be fought with lots of weapons. The truth is, the enemy is within.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
It's not Bin Laden per se, he was just the occasional enemy. A war-driven super power as USA needs enemies, always, as the military-industrial complex controls the political system.
Commies yesterday, "terrorists" today... who's coming tomorrow? No one knows, no one really cares. But there WILL be an enemy to fight and spend money on.
I don't have a sig.
i can't remember the exact instance, but i'm pretty sure that I read somewhere about Nazi and Soviet spy operations where the goal was to make the enemy leaders go fucking insane with paranoia and start wiping out their own people. alot of false flag stuff etc.
i wish i could remember the exact thing .. but my mind is moosh right now sorry.
Trillions for defense, not a dime for tribute.
the 'terrorists' apparently also hate Saudi Arabia for it's freedoms.. beacuse they blow themselves up there too.
Obviously we should have played this one better - not invading Iraq which was really nothing to do with Bin Laden would have saved money and lives.
But what was the alternative to going after Al Qaeda and Bin Laden? They attacked us on our land. Did you want to let them keep attacking us?
is that theft too?
The USA can control the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan and any other Stan very cheaply if they really want to. The secret to keeping the cost down is not to put any boots on the ground. Just drop a few fuel air bombs on their heads each time there is a terrorist attack anywhere on earth and they will get the message pretty soon.
The Somali pirate problem can be solved the same way. Just indiscriminately blow up all the little seaside villages where the ships are anchored.
Those areas are overpopulated anyway, so a Roman/German style decimation can only do them good.
Talk about missing the big picture - give me a break, that 3 trillion is nothing - we would have spent it on SUVs and more supersized burgers. Instead we hardened any number of institutions for the next wave, which is probably just around the corner and likely to a lot tougher than a bunch of superstitous throw-backs that Bin Laden represented. And a glance at any economic chart will show that the global real estate bubbles and the brain-damaged banking industry caused far more disruption - yet people are still pretty well off by any rational measure.
America probably needs *more* threats like that, not less, if it is to face up to the challenge of free manufacturing of low cost WMD and the wild idealogical swings that will face us in the 21st century.
Bush and Cheney got elected as tough-guy militarists
They absolutely did not. Bush ran in 2000 on a damn near isolationist foreign policy platform. "No more nation building," "No more Kosovos."
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
What is your point, troll?
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
As far as I can make out, the goal of Islamists to establish societies which follow Islam law. In the center of their effort are countries with a mostly Muslim population and secular governments. People in these countries have to decide how to live their lifes and what form of government they want. The western living style is perceived as attractive because it has always been associated with wealth, personal safety and personal liberties.
In response to terrorist attacks, western countries are giving up what has made their societies attractive and play directly into the hands of Islamists.
This following quote sounds like a value proposition: "...adding that that every dollar spent by al-Qaida in attacking the US has cost Washington $1m in economic fallout and military spending." Bin Laden's multi-faceted statement sounds like a way for Bin Laden to preserve Bin Laden's life. He is saying "it is not worth it to find me, kill me, and destroy al-Qaida."
Irish dissidents are planning on attacking the UK mainland again, in the past many Irish Americans have helped fund them.
So it would be nice if they didn't, in the UK we have to protect against Irish dissidents, Islamic extremists and we're in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya along side US forces.
For Al Queda, the US reverting to Christian fundamentalism is a good thing, because the power structure of Christian fundamentalism is similar to fundamentalist Islam, and so it is easier to take over from within. It is exactly the same mechanism by which German communists were among the most likely to become fanatical Nazis - people who are already fanatics are ripe for conversion to a different brand of fanaticism.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
As the soldier, diplomat and historian John Bagot Glubb pointed out, the Arab problem is that they are unable, for cultural reasons, to avoid their states fragmenting through tribal clashes and the mechanisms of gaining power. A global caliphate is as probable as a world union of all C programmers with a set of common beliefs and goals.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
You are presenting with a number of symptoms of schizophrenia. Either you know this and are trolling or you need to consult s physician urgently.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
That wasn't bad, really liked your "become the subconscious mind-set".
We probably would disagree about a lot but I don't doubt your good intent, it shines through, and I would only add a suggestion of trying to spin your debate and criticism in a positive way.
Not like the old guy who thought everything was shit; it sabotages the whole idea from the start (and take it from an early grump (me) it doesn't mean he understands anything; anyone and everyone can and do complain).
Not only do anyone and everyone complain but they also don't take any care at all in what they're wishing for, they don't even remotely figure that complaining loudly enough acts as affirmation and often acts to legitimize what they oppose:
"yeah it's a bad deal but we have to do it for X and since it's out in the open we might as well use it for Y, Z, A, B, and C and maybe D because while it sucks like the fifth circle of hell at least that way we get more good out of our sacrifices".
That's 21st century politics and for good valid reasons so be careful, be friendly, and be positive (and best wishes on that because I'm struggling hard to do it myself and failing).
[Hell most people haven't heard of or don't even get the notion that law is an alibi, and has been for an awful long time because that's what makes the most sense and in total delivers the most benefits for everyone. Justice must be, needs to be, blind because otherwise no one can handle her; imagine the chaos in any society the last 3000 years if everyone was judged for everything they could be judged for!].
P.S. let's not ignore the terrorist (they certainly don't in Russia!), let's just not fret and worry about him or her while they're being dealt with.
Actually I doubt that you saved lives... Assuming that there would have been more successful terrorist attacks on the US without the wars... Then you might have exchanged American civilian lives for afghans civilian lives at a pretty horrible exchange rate (and at a fairly high price)...
Bush's Iraq War, which had nothing to do with him
The Bush Administration explicitly said that Iraq was connected to 9/11 - both Bush and Cheney said that plainly - which made iraq tied to Bin Laden by association.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I bet you live in a far more homogenous society than the US. It's as wrong as the day is long, but ethnic differences strike a deep, tribalistic chord in the flawed human soul.
If Bin Laden thinks he is hurting the people at the top of the pyramid who control the US government, then he is sorely mistaken. Terrorism is nothing less than a dream come true for those who make their fortunes in the business of government (and their associates in the "private" military-industrial sector).
Look at the facts. Terrosism has been used to justify trillions in spending and radical advances of government power over the people. It's nothing less than a blank check in terms of BOTH revenue and power. The ultimate consequence is that the business of government is now more lucrative than ever before for those with the ability to exploit it.
So if two wars are indeed driving up the cost of gasoline like TFS and TFA posit, then I guess I've been right all these years when I tell my friends and family (who are not in the military intelligence field like I am) that no, we didn't invade Iraq for the oil...either time. If we had, we'd have a direct pipeline to US tankers and gas would be $1.50 per gallon.
Many other countries have paid the cost to. Just the global increase in the cost of oil has cost other countries dearly. All of western civilisation has come and is coming closer to being destroyed. Which is exactly what Bin Laden said he set out to do. He has not exactly needed to do much in the last few years. The US government has reacted in such a way as they might just as well have been his paid agents.
You will have to go back far more than thirty years. Take a look at how the Bush family fortunes were made (just one example). You would probably need to go back a century.
...and perhaps the saddest, is the fact that this accounting is considered "news". If more people had actually thought about this, instead of allowing themselves to be scared into giving up precious liberties and huge chunks of our national treasury, we would have been far, far better off. Holy shit. More people die in car wrecks in a 6 week period than were killed by terrorists on 9-11-2001, and we've spent three trillion dollars on "fighting" this bogeyman?
Some sharia law already exists in the UK but is only applicable to muslims. And the civil police are required to support the decisions of their sharia courts. The same think is being debated in Australia right now. Thing is even the majority of Muslims don't want sharia law but it is still encroaching on secular societies.
OBL was responsible for only the smallest fraction of that three trillion.
The balance of it was frittered away to appease the hordes of bleating sheep demanding 'perfect' security from the politicians.
Regards;
3 trillion.... Yeah, Bin Laden won big time by that measure, but even if you only blame 1 trillion on him, or even half a trillion, and blame the rest on Bush's being Bin Laden's tool, ( which is giving Bush too much credit, I mean you need a certain level of competence to be culpable... ) then Bin Laden won BIG TIME.
The thing is, Bin Laden isn't special. There are thousands of them out there. If one Bin Laden can cost America even 1 billion dollars, and each of them do, then America is doomed to play a losing game of Whack-a-Mole.
...
Osama is NOT dead. We are talking about a guy that was hunted down for more than 8 years and what did the "army" have to show for it. The through the only evidence into the sea...WTF???. He did NOT blow the towers but the US government did under the bush administration. The reason for the war was for nuclear bombs and such....no bombs were found and when the scientists that went to check were going to say to the world that they did not find any bombs, the US killed their leader.
The war was used to enhance the limits for the us citizens. Now they have the patriot act and others that take anything that the citizens thought they had as liberty blown away. I would like to remind the us citizens that "He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither" and you guys have sacrificed the hell out of it and for what, for a lie about Bush partner (Bin Laden) that "blew up" the towers (Which he did not and did you noticed how they fell?... demolition anyone?.. did anybody talk to the engineers of the towers, the firemen, etc..?...no?....did anybody noticed that NO PLANE crashed with the pentagon?...did really NOBODY see that 1 plane per tower CAN NOT DESTROY THE WHOLE TOWER!. you need a really big amount of planes to blow that thing up. Did anybody NOT noticed that the planes took another route of course for many MANY minutes with radars checking them and how "lucky" were they that the goverment send all air defense almost to the other side of the US, did not have activated the anti air defense and guess what, did not have anybody to communicate with during that time.. excellent cover up.. you rock at creating one). No, did nobody notice that the US profits better on wars and destruction than on science and education?.
The war was not for Osama, was not for bombs. It was for oil. Most of the countries that got attacked had NOTHING to do with the war. They just happen to have oil or were in the line between the oil and the oil pipes.
Do you really think bin laden was in that house and they videos of him just HAPPEN to just show his face and nothing more like...well... the surroundings..because well you know...he might be anywhere else but in the suppose house we was killed. With that said, was anybody really killed anyway?
Do not just react to fox news, obama news, goverment news. For the love of god, READ!, research history. Look into details. connect dots (And there are lots of dots believe me since the CIA sucks at making plans). Stop sitting in your couch with the pizza on the side and watching whatever news they through at you and feeding from them and just making them "The truth" because the news said so. It is like the new scandals about sexual problems with the wikileak leader and others.
WAKE UP NEO!
Someone hates America and Freedom...
There are many more hundreds of billions in indirect costs, how much is worth all the harassment of innocent citizens by the TSA? Much more than you might think when millions of people start to avoid flying because it is not worth the hassle. Or the cost to tourism from all the people that just don't want to be humiliated to visit the US.
And that barely scratches the surface of all the hidden costs of the so called "War on Terror" and the resulting security circus.
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
If you can blow up an aircraft carrier with a cheap aircraft or missile, or destroy a geared and trained army with a volley of arrows from afar, you win not only the battle but the war. This was true 1,000 years ago and will remain true until the fire of the universe dims. War is often about bang for the buck, and I see the US as being on the losing end of this kind of dynamic for a long time. It has gone from hiding behind trees and shooting at the British Army to hiding behind body scanners... Sooner or later the US will have to settle for less security because this kind of spending is unsustainable, never mind the cost to freedom.
So the military was using 4 year-old imagery of a country they had occupied for 2 years? Sure...
Yes, they opposed nation building. But nation-building was not considered "tough-guy" military action.. it was spun as something that is weak. They did run on increasing the size of the military. And Cheney, of course, was a well-known hawk prior to being elected Vice-President and was a founding member of PNAC which called for increased military spending.
Probably that Democrats and Republicans serve the same power structure.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
We (the United States) spent all this money because there were enough people in enough power positions to get really, really, really rich off of it. We pretend it's in the name of "security" or "liberty" or "an Islamic Caliphate" or whatever other crap there is. The reality must be that some people, in the United States, in the Middle East, and in the richest corporations across the world, got way richer. I can't fathom that this was an accident. I can't accept that it's just a coincidence that Dick Cheney used to be CEO of Halliburton, and just HAPPENED to be Vice President of the United States from 2001-2004 when Halliburton got billions in government dollars. http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/about_hal/chronology.html
Since the beginning of civilizations, it always has been, and always will be, about the money. Even when it's about the religion, it's still about the money. All the theater we put on about how "evil" the "extremists" in Islam are and how "they hate us for our freedom" and blah blah, it's all crap. It's all about money. Some people with political ties made billions off the trillions spent. It happens all the time, in every culture, across the world, and 9/11 just allowed politicians an excuse to squeeze more money out of the near-bankrupt US system for their own pecuniary/familial/political gain.
I'd rather risk dying in an unexpected terrorist attack if we could have spent a trillion bucks on eliminating most use of fossil fuels in ten years. I'd take the one in a million (or whatever it is) risk getting killed by an "extremist" car bomber if it means we could have had an education system that isn't totally fucked. I'd take that personal trade off without hesitation. But you don't hear about people like me in the news. You hear about the families of the victims of 9/11....
It's always about the money. It always will be about the money. The plutocracy and cronyism is more rampant now than ever before. I mean you don't have to be a crazy conspiracy theorist to accept that it's all about the money. Just recently, Meredith Attwell Baker, an FCC commissioner who just voted to approve the Comcast-NBC merger, just agreed to take a job at the new Comcast-NBC corporation. Can it get any more transparent?
Thats because those running America are either foolish boobs or cowards.
Squat and piss like a girl at the first sign of trouble.
Your evil politicians ( and the slime who own them ) did, all in the war against American liberty. In a few more years Grima ( aka Homeland Security ) will have you shitting yourselves whenever it says "boo" ( and give me all your money )
... and don't we just know it...
'Two wars that continue to occupy 150,000 troops and tie up a quarter of our defense budget; a bloated homeland-security apparatus that has at times pushed the bounds of civil liberty; soaring oil prices partially attributable to the global war on bin Laden's terrorist network; and a chunk of our mounting national debt.'
yeah us crazy liberals kinda said that would happen. but hey what do we know? hindsight is 20/20 and we're going to keep driving into the future using the rear view mirror.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
Most people care more about the lives of their countrymen (real losses and potential ones) than they do about people in other countries. It's not very loving, but it seems to be how most people think. Similarly, we're more concerned with our immediate family and friends than we are about people Far Far Away, despite the fact that (to the world) they are rarely any less special.
So yes, it doesn't surprise me that we'd pay $30M/each to "prevent" terrorist attacks, even if we might have been better off (collectively) spending it on programs to prevent child drownings or improve driving safety.
but there were still plenty of regulations in place that could have (should have) stopped the bubble. The Bush administration wasn't enforcing them, cut funding to the agencies, and staffed the gov't with Goldman Sachs employees. So yes, Bill Clinton screwed up, but not so severely that we couldn't recover. The real problem was the Republicans were given unfettered control of our countries policies for 8 years while we ran scared from terrorist threats.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Eight Out Of China's Top Nine Government Officials Are Scientists:
http://singularityhub.com/2011/05/17/eight-out-of-chinas-top-nine-government-officials-are-scientists/
Other nations elect people that are smart and educated in economic theory or sciences and their nations have excelled during their tenure in office!
(Which probably explains both Russian and Chinese doing so well the past 5 yrs. or thereabouts in those areas as was noted in the post I replied to in regards to Putin's Russia doing so well).
We don't get that here in the states. "Gosh, I wonder why?" (not).
No, instead?? We get the "gladhander" bullshit artists that don't even understand economics and banking theory instead get put into office because their "true masters" (banks and wallstreet) do NOT want truly educated people in office that could challenge their edicts is why.
I mean, hey - If we had someone who DID understand the "Secrets of the Temple" (banks reference to author William Greider) and "the street" (wallstreet)???
Well, I for one, truly suspect we wouldn't be in the mess we are now financially/economically, in allowing a system of ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY (e.g.-> The Federal Reserve, about as federal as FEDEX IS (it's not gov't @ all folks) has NEVER BEEN AUDITED IN ITS ENTIRE HISTORY SINCE 1913!).
The TRUE "powers that be" (corporations, banks, & wallstreet) wouldn't tolerate it.
Several years ago, I researched the following:
In 2007 President Bush asked Congress for another $200 billion appropriation for the "war" in Iraq for 2008. With that appropriation, the cost of the invasion of Iraq reached $1 trillion dollars. I started to wonder what the US could do with that much money....
For 2008 only year the war will have cost
$67.3 million per 9/11 casualty. $336 million/casualty total. (2974 people died on 9/11)
$666/US resident. $3,333/US resident total. (Population of 300 million)
$1,538/US taxpayer. $7,692/US taxpayer total. (130 million taxpayers)
There are ~818,000 LEOs in the US. You could double the number of LEOs in the US for "only" $40 billion (assuming $50k/year). Just think what that would do to crime statistics. In 2006 there were:
17,034 Murders
92,455 Rapes
447,403 Roberries
860,853 Aggravated assault
9,983,568 Property crime
2,183,746 Burglary
6,607,013 Larceny-theft
1,192,809 Motor vehicle theft
(http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/law_e...nel/index.html)
(http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_01.html)
Roadway safety is a serious, national public health issue. In 2003, there were 42,643 fatalities and almost 3 million injuries (at an economic cost of $500 billion) occurred on our nation's roads. Out of the total 42,643 fatalities in 2003, there were:
* 25,321 road departure fatalities (59%)
* 9,213 intersection fatalities (21%)
* 4,749 pedestrian fatalities (11%)
The total Federal Highway Administration budget for 2004 was $30 billion. We could double the FWHA budget and focus on reducing traffic fatalities (rumble strips, retroreflective signs, forgiving roadside hardware, skid resistance pavements, all-weather pavement markings, traffic signal timing, improved signage, exclusive turn lanes, and roundabouts, pedestrian-signal timings and pedestrian signals; improved lighting to enhance visibility). Just a 10% reduction..
-Road Departure Fatalities: Save 2,514 lives.
-Intersection Fatalities: Save 921 lives.
-Pedestrian Fatalities: Save 475 lives.
-Safety Belt Use: Raise seat belt use to 90% by 2008. Save 5,536 lives
(http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/facts/road_factsheet.htm)
A 2,000 mile state-of-the-art border fence has been estimated to cost between $4-8 billion dollars.
Some other items....
Approx 3 million people in the US experience homelessness each year (346,000 - 637,000 households at any one time). You could house all those persons for "only" $7.6 billion/year (assumptions - $1,000/month/household).
(http://www.nationalhomeless.org/publications/facts.html)
There are approx 45.8 million uninsured in the US, 21% (9.6 million) are children (18yrs). Insuring those children would cost ~$29 billion ($3,000/yr based on a $9,000-$12,000/yr familty premium). Interesting since GWB plans to veto a bill (its an "irresponsible" expenditure) that would extend the State Children's Health Insurance Program because it adds $35 billion over five years (but pays by raising the federal tobacco tax) (http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/0...-cps/index.htm)
Approx 1 million people die of malaria each year, about 4/5ths in Africa. In 2006, the US pledged 1.2 billion over 5 years to assist in battling the parasite in Africa. However that only covers 15 countries, 8 of which wont start revceiving aid until 2008. WHO estimates that $38-45 billion will be required from 2006 to 2015 to reduce deaths by 75% worldwide; on average, $3.8-4.5 billion per year. In Africa alone, malaria is estimated to cost the African economy $12 Billion/year.
(http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/.../en/index.html)
Approx 1.6 million people die of tuberculosis each year. WHO and the StopTB partenership estimates that $56 billion is required from 2006-2015 for TB control, reducing deaths by 50%.
(http://www.who.int/mediacentre/facts.../en/index.html)
(http://www.stoptb.org/globalplan/plan_p2main.asp?p=2)
So for $200 billion/year, the US could
$56 billion - Completely fund
I agree with that wholeheartedly, but I don't read that in the OP's post. It seems to be more buck-passing.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Well, isn't he kinda doing just that, withdrawing troops from Iraq and Afghanistan?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I went flying recently. I walked through the airport, remembering when I would arrive 35 minutes before my flight and made the flight easily. Now, two hours is pushing it. Oh, and of course, there is layer after layer of junk to deal with. I'm only going from one little U.S. city to another one on a mid-sized plane. The experience has convinced me, that the terrorists have won, and we have done most of the work for them. At my work I constantly preach/ask, is this cure worse than the disease? I'm lucky that the C-Level people at my job really get it. Apparently, they don't do that at the TSA.
Only marginally, and he'd told us before he got elected that he thought the Afghanistan war was justified, which was the closest we were going to get to a "peace candidate" among the major Democrats. I had hoped he'd have followed through on his promises to close Gitmo, but nope.
And now he's not only started his own war in direct violation of the Constitution, he's said he doesn't need to be limited by the constraints of the War Powers Act. And he's also said that he can order the military to assassinate an American citizen without due process, which even Bush didn't say in public. So he needs to be impeached.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks