But is the U.S. government learning from the financial meltdown? Are they seeing the connections? It does not seem so. Both Senators Obama and McCain, along with President Bush, are calling for an escalation of the war in Afghanistan. None of the three is calling for a complete withdrawal from Iraq. Even Senator Obama’s plan leaves 30,000 to 85,000 troops and more than 140,000 private contractor troops in Iraq. And, both candidates, along with their party leadership want to expand the U.S. military – even though we already spend as much as the whole world combined. In fact, on the same day the U.S. passed the $700 billion bailout, it also passed a $700 billion military and occupation budget. This was done with no debate. No one in Congress, except for a few on what is described as the political extreme, ever discusses cutting the wasteful, extravagant and overstuffed military budget.
When this era of U.S. history is looked at people will say it was foolish of the government to fight two long wars, really two occupation-quagmires, at once. And now that the financial meltdown has begun, if the government fails to rapidly end these occupations and re-think a foreign policy and federal budget dominated by militarism, historians and future Americans will wonder how the government could have been so thoughtless.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
