The Bush Iraq and Afghanistan wars will cost the U.S. $2.4 trillion, but some fiscal conservatives and anti-tax crusaders are still fixated on derailing the billions of dollars requisite to restore a city lost to Bush’s incompetence and hubris – the city of New Orleans.
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An old, annoying, yet benign, viral e-mail is being treated to a sinister makeover and finding its way into e-mail boxes across America. The e-mail, in its original form, was disseminated ostensibly to ask the reader to posit the vastness of a $1 billion. While ruminating on this idea, the letter goes on to show how politicians cavalierly bandy about such a hefty sum in conversation whilst doing the nation’s business.
Regrettably and inexcusably, the latest revision of this message is laced with lies, race-baiting, and Jim Crow-style bigotry. Its aim is to subtly, but inextricably blame the catastrophic and unprecedented damage of hurricane Katrina, unleashed on the good people of New Orleans, as not only a product of their presumed slothfulness but as a giant welfare windfall waiting to happen for all whom reside there.
The entirely contemptible dispatch contorts and outright fabricates enormous leaps of illogic, Karl Rove-style mathematics, and draws utterly absurd and downright ridiculous conclusions. Playing the Ronald Reagan “welfare queen” card, the e-mail incredulously claims each of the roughly 240,000 city-dwellers of New Orleans will receive a largesse check of $516,528. This insane conclusion—and rather acrobatic and illusionist arithmetic—is misleadingly derived from the aggregate total proposed in and by Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary L. Landrieu’sHurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act of 2005.
Naturally, using even the basest of common sense, any prudent read of the bill neither promises nor suggests anything so outlandish. Rather, it is a wide-ranging laundry list of needed ameliorations to restore a litany of essential services, from education, to housing, to small business and veterans’ needs in order to rebuild the disaster torn area. Money rightly requested to reconstruct a fallen city—struck down by a devastating tragedy—rather than Bush’s senseless misuse of trillions of dollars to wage war in order to lay waste to an entire country.
Now, let’s talk trillions.
The United States is spending about $8,000 every month per man, woman and child in this country to pursue criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the most recent estimates by the Congressional Budget Office that estimates the wars will cost about $2.4 trillion over the next decade. These are unnecessary wars of naked aggression, which were, manifested using false pretenses by the Bush administration, and perpetrated using more than 935 lies uttered by Bush and his senior cabinet during his time as President thus far.
More than one-fourth of the money spent in Iraq and Afghanistan—$705 billion—will go to paying interest on the wars' overhead, which are being funded with borrowed dollars chiefly from China. Outside analysts, such as Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, largely agree with the CBO’s findings and judgment.
The usury alone, which stands at a staggering $705 billion, is more than three times the amount proposed to revive and restore New Orleans. And it is more than 40 times the original figure given to fight both theatres of war in the Middle East initially by the Bush administration.
Further, It was only five years ago when Lawrence Lindsey, then-head of the White House's National Economic Council, estimated that the "upper bound" of the cost of going to war with Iraq would be between $100 billion and $200 billion.
Therefore and understandably, most people have difficulty comprehending the scale of $2.4 trillion. To grasp a number that vast in size, one should think of it in these terms: 1-billion seconds equals about 32 years, while 1-trillion seconds equals nearly 300 centuries.
So, if dollars were time, Bush’s war would go on for more than 700 centuries, the equivalent to 72,000 years of combat, death, and violence. To date, after five-plus years of war, we have lost 4,124 soldiers—many of whom where still in their teens or early twenties— at a rate of virtually two per day killed in a senseless act of barbaric hostility.
If the U.S. was at war for 72,000 years, at the current rate of casualties, over the next 700 centuries, George Bush will be directly or indirectly responsible for the pointless deaths of more than 56.4 million young men and women.
The current population of the United Kingdom is 60 million. The present population of Italy is also around 60 million inhabitants. The state of California, according to a 2006 U.S. census, estimates the current populace to reside at around 36 million.
Now, imagine a war that would take the lives of every single individual who lives in Italy or the U.K. A combat mission that is so immense and long-lasting that it would kill off the state of California nearly twice over again.
The above comparisons and analogies might strike a certain cord of hyperbole, but so does the idiotic notion that the people of New Orleans have won a massive welfare lottery as victims vis-à-vis of an enormous natural disaster, yet the proposed government relief is somehow a reprehensible response to people and a city truly in need.
The immeasurable, oppressive expenditure of Bush’s wars is a growing and substantial danger to the future financial security of our nation that now measures into the trillions of dollars. They are also acts of unconscionable bloodshed conjured up by sadistic war profiteers through ginned-up intelligence in order to line the coffers of corporate welfare recipients; beneficiaries of obscene private profits and grotesque public losses—both in blood and treasure.
Frank J. Ranelli is an opinion editorial writer, a research author and critic. His erudite and chic style of writing has been lauded and extensively published in a variety of news outlets and across the Internet. (more...)
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
The flaw is that NO was under water BEFORE... Somehow, politicians thought it was a good thing to rebuild the town, in a hole, right next to the ocean.
It is a documented FACT that the federal response to the plight of NO, was faster than any other disaster on record, and I don't say this to say it was good enough...
The point is a simple one... This summer has seen buildings that were rebuilt after the floods along the Mississippi in the mid 90's took them, taken AGAIN....
Why it was deemed necessary to rebuild in the flood plane is beyond me, but there it is.
NO is the product of failed policy that dates back to before the 1920's, and is perpetuated even now.
So, before people ask themselves ANYTHING ELSE, answer this question first....
Why rebuild a city in a hole next to an ocean????
Ciao, CZ
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steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 829 comments [52 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Jul 29, 2008 at 12:57:24 PM
Your callous, insensitive comment suggests you missed the entire point of the article.
Further, a vast majority –more than half – of the Netherlands is below sea level, yet the Dutch have prospered and managed to master the sea and live behind man-made levees to protect them. They use giant sea walls, called storm surge barriers, to protect the fragile inlets and dikes and have staved off the incoming waters for more than 50 years without incident.
However, I would sincerely suggest you take a second look and re-read my article again. It is not solely about New Orleans, nor is it wholly about governmental failures in response to Katrina or the flaws in the levee system's design.
The main thrust of the article is about the lack of humanity and the consequences of pure greed; how we eschew decency for dollars, justify needless war costing trillions, while ignoring our own, true national needs at a fraction of the cost.
Frank R.
Senior Editor, OEN
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Frank J. Ranelli (66 articles, 143 quicklinks, 29 diaries, 383 comments) on Tuesday, Jul 29, 2008 at 2:08:33 PM
I was merely pointing out that if it were not for a government repeating failed policy continually, there would be no issue at all.
For example... they could have built up the area that New Orleans sits on, so that it was not sitting in a hole. there could have been a way to build the buildings out of the area that has been proven to be a major flood zone every 10 years or so....
There are many policies that should not have been repeated. I get what you are saying, really I do. However, my remarks were not aimed at the people, instead, they were aimed at the folks who are supposed to be representing us.... The people who are supposed to safeguard our money, YET refuse to do so.
Whether it be spending ludicrous sums of money (that were supposed to be paid back via oil from Iraq) in Iraq, and Afghanistan, or spending a ludicrous amount of money rebuilding the same buildings in the same holes... Bad policy is Bad Policy...
They COULD have spent some more money and filled in the hole, and rebuilt above sea level... THAT could have been a positive step.... However, they did not do this...
It could also be drawn in to the billions spent on the border fence that will never be built... It never stopped them from spending the money.. On what I have no clue, but it IS GONE...
Meanwhile the head of the GAO says the US is on the hook for $70 "T"rillion dollars....
You want to feel bad about someone, feel bad for the people of the United States who have to, somehow, pay all of this back, at some point...
To be honest, I really do hope those people get the help they need to rebuild their homes, but I have to say this... Their homes will be under water again, sooner or later, and so long as they keep rebuilding the city in the same hole, we will keep having the SAME PROBLEMS...
That was what I was saying.... If that makes me callous and insensitive, I can live with that, because I surely can not remain silent while my representatives are selling our future to the lowest bidder....
Ciao, CZ
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steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 829 comments [52 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Tuesday, Jul 29, 2008 at 4:20:27 PM
The "have nots" are being driven from their homes by "the haves". Apparently "the haves" won't mind building their condos and million dollar homes "in a hole, by the ocean", either.
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Mary Dare (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments) on Saturday, Aug 2, 2008 at 8:14:51 PM
After thousands of miles as a refugee, over mountains, homeless, pennyless, many a day hot and thirsty, many a night cold and hungry, three years later I finally crawled back into New Orleans, only to find the investment banks were buying up everything and I could'nt afford a hole to live in, food is three times more expensive than elswhere, why? The land developers don't want us to come back! New Orleans is not just a city, its a culture, a way of life. Two thirds of the pre-storm population can't and probibly will never be able to come home. I don't want well-fare, I just want to make a living, a tent would be nice at this point. To be able to wash my clothes for less than 15 dollars a load. Working everyday of the week and curling up under the bridge to sleep at night just to slave away the next day for six(6) dollars an hour just to survive while buildings sit empty because some realestate corporation bought it and wants to sit on it for the next ten years until the board of directors in San Diego or the Hamptons decide what they want to do with it. Right now New Orleans is a Realestate developers land grab while 2/3's of the people of New Orleans are scattered all over the country. The only rebuilding going on is for the upper class, the poor is just out of luck. No "Road home program" for the surf. But if you go to New Orleans, the land of dreams, you sure as hell can buy t'audry plastic souvenirs that were made buy Malaysian slave labor from shops own buy Jordanians and Pakistanis. We don't want hand outs, we just want our city back, the storm did her damage but corporate greed has made refugees of hundreds of thousands of good, honest, hard working people. I don't really know how to express the heart ache, the sadness, the day to day struggle for survival, only to be exploited for shareholder profit.
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Keystone (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 299 comments [78 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Aug 6, 2008 at 6:03:13 PM
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