http://www.dailyscare.com/comment/reply/1819
The War Racket: How Americans Pay for Bush's War Crimes at the Bank, the
Pump, the Shop & the Graveside
by Len Hart
Bush had hoped to pull off a quick victory cheap. But nothing worked out as
hoped or planned. The American people are stuck with the tab, paying for
the war with high hidden taxes, higher prices and American lives. The cost
of Bush's war crime has tripled since Bush declared the end of major combat
operations. The American people are not safer for having sacrificed the
lives of loved ones. The war on terrorism is either a criminal fraud or a
miserable failure and I challenge my critics at the Heritage Foundation to
debate me on that issue.
War is a racket fought by the masses for privileged elites, big
corporations, and venal politicians like Bush. Bush's quagmire is fought
for the benefit of no-bid contractors like Halliburton and Blackwater and
financed by America's working poor and middle classes who pay for the war
—with their lives abroad and with their jobs, their retirement prospects,
and their access to health care at home. Bush's base —the nation's elite,
his corporate sponsors, and the so-called defense industry —have paid
nothing, risked nothing! Rather —they feed at the trough. The upper one
percent of the population has gotten several tax cuts while the big oil
companies report record profits rising concurrently with higher prices at
the pump.
Just two days after 9/11, I learned from Congressional staffers that
Republicans on Capitol Hill were already exploiting the atrocity, trying to
use it to push through tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. ... We
now know that from the very beginning, the Bush administration and its
allies in Congress saw the terrorist threat not as a problem to be solved,
but as a political opportunity to be exploited. The story of the latest
terror plot makes the administration’s fecklessness and cynicism on
terrorism clearer than ever.
There are big profits in the death business. Go to Texas and ask the CEO at
DynCorp.
The war in Iraq has boosted DynCorp's revenues, responsible for about $400
million of the company's nearly $2 billion in sales. And while the company
didn't specify how much the effort has added to profits, there has
certainly been an upside, Lagana said, although he added that profit
margins are lower than in other private industry -- often below 10 percent.
For government contractors and other US-based businesses that are doing
work in Iraq, the war there has continued to provide opportunity and
benefits, although experts and companies alike say they are difficult to
quantify. To be sure, security businesses, oil producers and defense
contractors are among the biggest winners. Those who manufacture key
products, from bulletproof vests to bullets themselves, and, more recently,
those involved in reconstruction, have reaped the benefits, too.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2006/060325-war-work.htm
Over the longer term, however, the effects of Bush's war against the people
of Iraq war are only temporary, benefiting the entire economy only for a
short period of time, the period of time in which the pump is primed. On
the whole, the effect is minimal. Average Americans have not benefited from
mass murder, torture, and other atrocities perpetrated by the "state". As
Economic Policy Institute economist Jared Bernstein noted, whatever
economic stimulus war might have provided becomes increasingly less
significant over time. Defense spending had a big effect on job growth in
2004, but its effect since that time is relatively small. Wealth, however
ill-gotten does not trickle down.
The number of US troops in Iraq, put at 145,000, does not include more than
126,000 private contractors. Author Jeremy Schahill calls it “the world’s
most powerful mercenary army.” But that is polite. They are, in fact, hired
hit men financed, enabled and paid by the people of the United States
whether they want to or not. Under Bush, the US taxpayer no longer has a
say in how his/her money is spent.
Scahill and filmmaker Robert Greenwald have told the House Appropriations
defense subcommittee that these so-called "contract workers", these hired
killers murder with impunity and undermine the better efforts of US command
and control.
....contract workers have been involved in — but not punished for — numerous
scandals during the Iraq war, the pair claimed. These contractors were
among the interrogators and translators who tortured prisoners at Abu
Ghraib prison, Greenwald said.
In one short period, senior military personnel documented 12 instances in
which contract workers shot at Iraqi civilians, killing six, Scahill said,
but no contractors were charged with crimes.
Contract employees were granted immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law
by Paul Bremmer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority that ruled
Iraq in 2003 and 2004, Scahill said. And they were not subject to US
military law.
Truck drivers working for Halliburton routinely drove empty trucks across
Iraq because the company is paid by the number of trips, not by the amount
of cargo a truck carries, Greenwald said.
http://defensenews.com/story.php?F=2750348&
One of the more insidious falsehoods about Iraq has turned out to have been
Bushco estimates of its cost. In 2002, George W. Bush himself predicted the
war would cost between $100 billion and $200 billion —tops! To be expected
—Bush was dead wrong. A report by the Democratic staff of the House Budget
Committee now estimates that Bush's war of aggression in Iraq could cost
the US $646 billion by 2015 —depending on the scope and duration of
operations. Nobel prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia
University, estimates the cost of the war from one trillion to two trillion
dollars!
Ongoing operations in Iraq were estimated at $5.6 billion per month in
2005. And costs have surely risen since then as the intensity of fighing
increases accompanied by significant losses of materiel and maintenance.
The Bill So Far: Congress has already approved four spending bills for Iraq
with funds totaling $204.4 billion and is in the process of approving a
“bridge fund” for $45.3 billion to cover operations until another
supplemental spending package can be passed, most likely slated for Spring
2006. Broken down per person in the United States, the cost so far is $727,
making the Iraq War the most expensive military effort in the last 60
years.
Long-term Impact on US Economy: In August 2005, the Congressional Budget
Office estimated that the cost of continuing the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan at current levels would nearly double the projected federal
budget deficit over the next ten years. According to current estimates,
during that time the cost of the Iraq War could exceed $700 billion.
Economic Impact on Military Families: Since the beginning of the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 210,000 of the National Guard’s 330,000
soldiers have been called up, with an average mobilization of 460 days.
Government studies show that about half of all reservists and Guard members
report a loss of income when they go on active duty—typically more than
$4,000 a year. About 30,000 small business owners alone have been called to
service and are especially likely to fall victim to the adverse economic
effects of military deployment.
—The Iraq Quagmire: The Mounting Costs of War and the Case for Bringing
Home the Troops, Institute for Policy Studies
http://www.ips-dc.org/iraq/quagmire/
The Bush administration has been able to keep the precise cost of the war a
matter of guess work and estimates. But however much is wasted killing
civilians in Iraq that is money that is not being spent educating
Americans, providing for health care, fixing Social Security, rebuilding a
deteriorating infrastructure, or addressing real threats to our
environment.
However much has blown up in Iraq, it is lost forever to the victims of
Bush's incompetence in the face of Katrina. It is lost forever to those
millions losing retirements to corporate mismanagement and greed. It is
lost forever to those unable to pay the high costs of health care,
education, transportation, housing, and getting enough to eat each day.
US Budget and Social Programs: The Administration’s FY 2006 budget, which
does not include any funding for the Iraq War, takes a hard line with
domestic spending— slashing or eliminating more than 150 federal programs.
The $204.4 billion appropriated thus far for the war in Iraq could have
purchased any of the following desperately needed services in our country:
46,458,805 uninsured people receiving health care or 3,545,016 elementary
school teachers or 27,093,473 Head Start places for children or 1,841,833
affordable housing units or 24,072 new elementary schools or 39,665,748
scholarships for university students or 3,204,265 port container
inspectors.
Social Costs to the Military/Troop Morale: As of May 2005, stop-loss orders
are affecting 14,082 soldiers—almost 10 percent of the entire forces
serving in Iraq with no end date set for the use of these orders. Long
deployments and high levels of soldier’s stress extend to family life. In
2004, 3,325 Army officer’s marriages ended in divorce—up 78 percent from
2003, the year of the Iraq invasion and more than 3.5 times the number in
2000.
Costs to Veteran Health Care: The Veterans Affairs department projected
that 23,553 veterans would return from Iraq and Afghanistan in 2005 and
seek medical care. But in June 2005, the VA Secretary, Jim Nicholson,
revised this number to 103,000. The miscalculation has led to a shortfall
of $273 million in the VA budget for 2005 and may result in a loss of $2.6
billion in 2006.
Mental Health Costs: In July 2005 the Army’s surgeon general reported that
30 percent of US troops have developed stress-related mental health
problems three to four months after coming home from the Iraq War. Because
about 1 million American troops have served so far in the conflicts in Iraq
and Afghanistan some experts predict that the number eventually requiring
mental health treatment could exceed 100,000.
—The Iraq Quagmire: The Mounting Costs of War and the Case for Bringing
Home the Troops, Institute for Policy Studies
http://www.ips-dc.org/iraq/quagmire/
Many delusions were promoted in order to commit this nation to aggressive
war. In the short months after 9/11, Bush erected a strawman upon which to
direct American frustration, anger, and vengeance —an “axis of evil”
consisting of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. His intentions were made clear
at the time. This "Axis of Evil" was responsible for world terrorism in
general and our nation would wage war against it. Bush's speech was most
notable, however, for what he did not say. Bush did not tell the American
people that he had no intention of paying for the war. He would leave the
deficit to future administrations and generations. Rather than expect his
privileged base to pony up, he would reward their loyalty with several tax
cuts. Nor are sons of daughters of that base required to serve their nation
militarily. Bush's base gets a free ride as the rest of the nation bears
the cost of war —in both lives and dollars.
If wars are not paid for upfront, they are paid for in the form of higher
interest rates, prices, and lives. Wealth does not trickle down. But the
effects of a falling dollar is felt by everyone. The exponential rise of
wage and income inequality began with a vengeance in the Reagan 80's, most
closely associated with the Reagan tax cut of 1982. Only the top 20 percent
of the population benefited. Wage/income disparities have increased since
then with only a short respite during Clinton's second term. The current
trend began before a great wave of technical change and a computer
revolution —none of which has benefited working Americans. Indeed, if you
work for a living you have paid and continue to pay for Bush's war of
aggression while Bush's base gets preferential treatment!
It is no coincidence that as prices increase, so, too, the national
deficit. American credit abroad is dodgy. As the dollar continues to slide
on world exchanges, not only gasoline prices increase but also prices of
imported goods. Bush had said that he favors a strong dollar but, in fact,
his administration has let the dollar slide, a cynical ploy designed to
finance the Iraq folly upon the backs of working Americans. That it
provides a moderate relief to US exporters is a bad trade off. What —other
than death, torture and destruction —do we export these days?
Like Bush's mythical "Axis of Evil" the idea that a nation can wage a free
war is an evil GOP fairy tale. Wars are always paid for, if not now, later,
and in ways you won't like.
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