Turn Our Back On Iraq Like They Turned Their Backs On Us!

Oh sure, now that they are under attack, they want the US back in. But no, while we were there, they did nothing to let us know who was friend or foe… The US can’t help everyone. We should help those who help us; and draw the line against those who cheered when we lost men.

We did our best. We tried to fix your nation. But you, created havoc. You knowingly hid insurgents after they attacked us. You sheltered and condoned their actions.

So suffer bitches…

Oh, we know they are bad guys. That is why we tried to bolster your army and it was, it was trained by the best military in the world.. And what did you do? You sneaked terrorists in in uniform, to blow us up. You knew who they were… You aided and abetted them.

Wars cost money, and in case you haven’t been reading the papers, money is something we don’t have. If we spend it, it needs to be on those who by their actions are worth it…

You made your bed. Now lie in it.. You don’t need or deserve help from us.. Maybe after you see what it is like to have your sons and daughters killed, for nothing, you will have a better understanding of what we and one trillion dollars tried to do…

You could have been so great. But you wouldn’t tell us who was friend and who was foe…
Enjoy your fate. Enjoy your slogans. A lot of good they will do you when you’re dead.

Everything You Need To Know About ISIS

 

The plural of Vanilla Ice would be pronounced ….. Vanilla Ice’s (or ISIS)…
They ran out of Vanilla in the Syrian desert….

Tough group, aren’t they? If they walked down my street like this, I too would hide….

Yes. Dick Cheney Tells The Truth Sometimes

Throw this in Cheney’s face next time he or anyone associated with the word neocons opens their mouth….

Beside Biden’s this is one of the best predictions ever made of the Mid East……

Why Would Delaware’s Chris Coons Let Israel Determine When We Go To War?

Courtesy of the Economist (since removed)

There is an old saying I’m fond of repeating….

It takes great courage to stand up to one’s enemies.  It takes even greater courage to stand up to one’s friend….

Chris Coons, Delaware’s Junior Senator who happens to be up for election this year, apparently lacks that amount of courage.  (The Senior Senator, with more experience, does not seem to lack that courage (maybe from all those flights in a C-135…))

The bill known as the Schumer-Kirk-Menendez Bill is a poison pill designed to break the sanctioned negotiations with Iran.  It was written, paid for, and lobbied by Israel.  It has only one purpose and one purpose only;  to put limitations on the President and Secretary of State in their negotiations over Iran’s non-proliferation….

(It is now dead btw.  It does not have enough votes to override a Presidential veto…)

Sadly it shows we have kooks in our Senate running our foreign affairs, and unfortunately for Delaware, one of ours is one…. By kooks, I mean people who sign on to a bill without reading it, (probably not one’s regular definition of kook).

But a kook he is….

Benefit for signing on?  A) money for campaigns and B) protection from the whacky Christian right (think O’Donnell)…  If the bill were dead in the water, if it were just for a show, I could see some sensibility in trying to look good to a certain “whacky” constituency.  After all, sad to say, that is political reality. One has to do, what one has to do….

But this bill would do severe damage.  This bill would allow the nuclear process of Iran to continue.  This bill would keep the sanctions in place, ensuring the nuclear process would indeed be the only option Iran would have at its disposal.

The “zero Iranian enrichment” option demanded by Netanyahu and his allies in the Senate is thus not only a non-starter in negotiating terms, but is not grounded in international law. One must assume that the AIPAC folks who wrote Kirk-Schumer-Menendez understood this, which is why they wrote their bill the way they did — not to “aid” Obama in negotiations as some senators often disingenuously claim, but to kill the negotiations.

We have been cold enemies with Iran a long time.  This negotiation is the equivalent of Ronald Reagan’s reaching out to Gorbachev earlier in our lifetimes.  Imagine if upon Ronnie’s return from Reykjavik, the US Congress bought and paid for by then Communist China, had passed a resolution saying that no thaw could occur until the Soviets dismantled everyone of their nuclear missiles and silos, and destroyed everyone of their Atomic submarines…. We’d still be at war with Russia.

That is the equivalent stupidity of what this piece of legislations does. AND CHRIS COONS SIGNED ON TO IT!  HAS HE LOST HIS FREAKING MIND?

Many of you may not remember but when Ronnie came back, there were a few hawks in the Senate who said exactly what I mentioned above.  BUT WE ALL KNEW THEY WERE KOOKS….

Like the pontifications of Ted Cruz today, nobody, nobody, nobody of any import, took them seriously.  Reagan was instead encouraged by the majority to go forward and meet with Gorbachev again…

Unlike those fine statesmen of the 80’s, our Senate is bought and paid for and according to Diane Feinstein, has apparently sworn to AIPAC put the cause of Israel above our own interests! And it is not to all of Israel’s interests they subscribe … it is strictly the war-mongering Conservative Hawks in Israel to whom they subscribe… Close to fifty percent of Israel is not Conservative!…. Simon Peres who recently passed, once led the other half of Israel, the half  which sees progress involving cooperation and diplomacy.  Israel’s Conservatives only get power when there is a crises involving war.  That is behind their drumbeat for war with Iran.  If in the middle of constant conflict, they can keep their hold of the Knesset. But once cooperation appears fruitful…. oops… out they go….

And so somehow they get Chris Coons to sign on to derailing the negotiations…. They got all the Republicans and a number of Democrats.  At one point they gloated they had 77, a veto proof majority….

The bill argues for the US to declare war on Iran, if Israel attacks it..

REALLY CHRIS COONS?  YOU SAID WE WRONGLY WENT TO IRAQ FOR 9/11. NOW YOU COMMIT US TO ANOTHER, VERY MAJOR, AND AGAINST A SMART ENEMY, A 1000 TIMES MORE POWERFUL THAN THE AFGHANISTAN TALIBAN, JUST IF ISRAEL SENDS A MISSION INTO IRAN?

The US, according to this provision, “should stand with Israel and provide…diplomatic, military, and economic support” should Israel launch a preventative war against Iran in what it deems to be self-defense. Though this language is in the nonbinding “Findings” section of the bill, its sense is to partially delegate to the government of Israel a decision that would take the United States to war with Iran. Senators report that AIPAC’s advocacy of the bill has been intensive, even by its usual standard.….

If Chris had not listened to AIPAC, and listened to Allan Loudell of WDEL he probably would have known that Iran is at the negotiation table because the Iranian people demand it, by voting for the one candidate who promised to try to end their isolation. They want to be on more friendly terms with the West. A more cooperative Iran could yield any number of real benefits, including help in stabilizing Afghanistan (which we will need on the way out), the possibility of tamping down the civil war in Syria, and perhaps above all as positive role model of a modernizing and democratizing Islamic state—something of clearly global historical significance. Not to mention economic benefits for U.S. companies…..

SO CHRIS COONS… WE HAVE A BREAK-THROUGH FOR PEACE WITH VERY TANGIBLE BENEFITS BECAUSE A DEMOCRATIC NATION THREW OUT THEIR TOTALITARIAN, AND WE GET LOCKED INTO GOING TO WAR IF THE CONSERVATIVES OF ISRAEL FEEL THE NEED TO CHALLENGE IRAN, THEN STEP BACK WHILE WE GO IN TO DO ALL THE FIGHTING?  AGAINST A DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED REGIME?

What was it I said above?   Yes.  ARE YOU FREAKING OUT OF YOUR MIND?

Lots of love back at you. Just don’t let it happen again, ok?

Senator: We Elected You President For A Reason….

(Senator Barack Obama (D-Il), then an Illinois state senator, delivered these remarks in October 2002 at the Federal Plaza in Chicago.)

“I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil.

I don’t oppose all wars. My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil.

I don’t oppose all wars. After September 11, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again.

I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power…. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors…and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.

I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars. So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the president.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure that…we vigorously enforce a nonproliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.

You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.

Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.”

=======

Wow! What goes around comes around…. It is haunting how by simply subbing the word Syria for Iraq, how truly this 11 year old statement applies to the situation today….

Explaining the Causticity of Syrian Involvement

 We are a tired generation… We grew up with ‘Nam.  Which ever side we were on during the battle here in America over that police action, or war, looking back after it was done, …. we all knew it was wrong….

After that we thought all war was wrong, and unfortunately took some of that angst out on those who least deserved it:  those coming back from the steamy jungles of hell…..

Against our will a certain president soon sent Marines into Beirut;  what happened then reinforced our belief that an American war was unjustifiable and that all other means must be utilized to prevent American war from ever happening again….  Against our will, we propped up a Nicaragua dictator against some rebels.  Against our will, we sold arms to Iran to use for paying for our support for that Nicaragua dictator, since a Congress elected by the American people, flatly said no to supporting him in Nicaragua…  We found a way to do it anyway….

I remember Senator Rudman, (R-NH) saying at the hearing while addressing Oliver North,… “The American people have the RIGHT to be wrong.”

Oliver North had been insisting that even when Americans flatly say NO, one still must do what one deems is necessary, that whatever one deems necessary, is the highest moral truth.  “Sometimes one has to go above the law!”  was actually said by the defense at this hearing.  Only one good thing came out of those hearings:  we all were introduced to Fawn Hall.

But then…  The Brits quickly regained the Faulklands. Then came Grenada, which went off without a hitch.   Then Panama, which was successful and almost painless.  Then came General Schwartzkopf.  The 4th largest army in the world, was routed in hours, and in days, had been completely mopped up.  Then came the Balkans.  We were on a roll.  We’d finally nailed down the successful formula of how to win in battle.

Today we say Iraq is a failure.  But that was so not so just after the invasion.  Inside Baghdad, the pulling down of Saddam’s statue, the victory of capturing Saddam, the ability of us to hand out billions of American dollars, initially gave this campaign the luster of looking like another success story…

Until we tried to steal their oil.  The standard global rate of dividing oil revenues is that the US gets a 20% cut for the development, and Iraq would get to keep 80% because it is after all, their resource.  That is how we deal with Nigeria.

But Brenner announced that we’d flip that to pay for the war, and that Iraq would be allowed to keep 20% because we liked them so much, and we’d only, by our good graces, take 80% of the revenues. 24 hours after letting that cat out of the bag, the first IED went off under a US military vehicle…  Before week was out, the total was in the hundreds.

The luster was gone.  We were an invading army, something  we have not called ourselves since WWII.  We always saw ourselves as the policeman who leaves as soon as order is restored…

Afghanistan likewise, got worse.  Then Pakistan.  Then Yemen.  On the diplomatic front  instead of doing no harm, .. we could do no good.  Then Libya costs us an ambassador who was running guns through Turkey.  He shouldn’t have been there; it should have been a low level staffer with security clearance.

This baby boomer generation knows that war is wrong.  We know from experience. The only time it can be employed successfully, is a) when the whole world is united behind you, b)  you go in and get out, and c) you have a structure that stays in place long after you are gone.

The only time it goes badly… is every other scenario.

Which brings us to Syria.  Syria has no importance to anyone.  (They couldn’t even defend the militarily advantageous Golan Heights in ’67!)  Which is why we let the Russians have them.

People are going to die in Syria if a):  Assad wins, b):  the rebels win, or c):  no one wins. The only thing changing upon this wars outcome, is which side will be massacred at war’s end.  Hence the battle for survival over there now.

So by having the US intervene or not, we are choosing which side gets to kill the other after the hostilities die down.

The weakest argument for going in still left with standing, is that they used chemical weapons.  In WWI, the British, French, and Germans all used chemical weapons.   Are chemical weapons really worse than being burned alive?  Or asphyxiated as a bomb blast sucks all the oxygen out of your lungs and the room?  Or a milk jug sized piece of jagged metal shrapnel ripping and leaving a hole through your body?  Or a mine being stepped on?  I’m trying to think why chemical weapons are so much worse, except for the fact that we’ve been told” they are so much worse”?

A causality is a causality.

We understand “why” some say we should go into Syria.  Because if we do not respond to chemical weapons in a big way, someone else will become confident and use theirs.  There is only one way to keep the genie inside the bottle, and that is to never leave a opening for it to escape….

We also understand “why” one of our beloved School districts had a policy that suspended, and expelled those who brought weapons to school!  Not just guns, but knives too. After all, the argument for punishing Syria, applies to soon-to-become high school felons too.

But, there came a time when the response generated by a policy, actually became the crime,   You remember the little boy expelled who brought a cake to school, and his grandmother thoughtfully sent a knife knowing teachers usually don’t have utensils in their classrooms.  The teacher actually cut the cake, served it, thinking nothing of it.. it was someone higher up, reviewing the situation, who said, “wait, that can be interpreted as a breach of regulations.  Let’s make an example out of this little boy”.  He was suspended and could have been expelled, except it eventually became news and public outcry was solidly on his side.  The policy makers were laughed out of town.

Which is why, if you are making this decision, you need to stall.  Acting quickly and decisively is equivalent to acting on rumor and innuendo.   So what if Syria lied and shot the gas cannisters off?

Does a military strike create enough excellent good will to neutralize this bad act?

Ironically what is best for the US in this situation, is for Assad to stay in power, to have a zealous change in heart, to work closely with the USA to get his economy working, to becoming a partner in that region with the US, and to signing a treaty with Israel, as did the Egyptians many, many years ago…

What is worse for us, is if the jihadists win, push out the moderates and take over the reform movement (they always do), then go to war with Israel, Jordan and Turkey.  Making ourselves into the evil empire will only create more explosions everywhere, flare-ups which would not have occurred had we taken the Jedi way, and used the “Force” in our possession, to make events on the ground turn our way and happen in our favor….

Realistically such a rosy scenario probably can’t happen; but if it did, were this to come about, there would be no doubt: Obama would be lauded as the best president we’d ever see in our lifetimes.  The cost of failure is so low that it just might be worth the try.

The second point… which all us Viet-namers will well remember, is that you may win every engagement you participate in Syria, but you won’t win the war at home, and that… will suck all your energy away from all the good you plan to do before 2016.

It broke LBJ.  It broke Bush II.  Don’t let it break you….

Time For A Quick Crow.

it is always nice to say “I told you so” even when it irritates those listening to have to hear it.   I apologize in advance for this is one of these moment.  But the first story I saw today, was one that i went on a limb to state and took flack for.  It has now come to pass.

in what now seems like a previous lifetime, when there actually were Conservatives on the blog circuit,  I stated that teeming up with the Chinese was our solution to stabalizing and getting out of Iraq.  I made the point that we’d lost the right to develop all of Iraq’s oil and would never get it being the oppressor;  we should use a third party as a front, and partner with them to at least get some access.

The oil barons all cried traitor…

Lol.  Well, today Reuters broke the story that Exxon was partnering with PetroChina to develop one of the massive oil fields near Basra.  As an aside to that story, it mentions that one of Iraq’s targets is to be outproducing Saudi Arabia by 2020.

it is always nice to always be right. 🙂   But just imagine if we’d done it back in 2007.

Liar, Liar, Liar …. Again with Romney/Ryan

“The events in Egypt and Libya show the failure of the Egyptian and Libyan governments to uphold their obligations to keep our diplomatic missions safe and secure and the regard in which the United States is held under President Obama in these two countries,” he told Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin. “It’s all part of a broader scheme of the president’s failure to be an effective leader for U.S. interests in the Middle East.”

Wrong… Wrong… Wrong

It was because of a movie.   A really bad movie… in fact.   I was offended by it.  Deeply so.

If  someone made a similar movie about Jesus,  the American Tea Party would have done exactly the same as did those Muslims.  They would have attacked a black church, killed the preacher and burned it to the ground.

The problem is the movie., not Obama.  A movie that was incidentally funded by groups also providing support to the Romney Campaign, and to the Republican Party.  The same benefactors.  As soon as the New Century Club’s  name come up,  it begs for a comparison to using public events to mold and formulate policy.  It now appears that the riots were staged as a cover up for the murder.

Delaware Liberal provided a list of those advising Romney on foreign policy.  Many of  those names  give credence to the unthinkable, that this event was staged by supporters of the Romney campaign, to make Obama look bad…….

It is obvious Romney is being advised by nuts.  People who are just nuts.  They are nuts on foreign policy. They are nuts on economic policy.  They are nuts on women.  They are nuts on religion.  Simply put, they are nuts.

How can anyone who is a real Christian, support these nuts?

Today’s joke:   Why did Romney’s staff scatter when the convention was over?  They thought they saw a squirrel…..

 

 

Iraq And One Sided Argument

It’s kinda odd…

It is like hearing only the one point of view coming from the woman, that she and her man of 35 years were splitting up, and in that report was her accusation that he was a deadbeat, wouldn’t show her affection, couldn’t perform when it counted, and was selfish, uncaring, and just impossible to live with… Then you hear from another source, that it was her who abandoned the family, and ran off with another man, leaving her husband of 35 years to care for the children, and run the household as a single dad.

But no one reports that. All they talk about is how she should take him for every penny and that she deserves to be happy too…

It is sort of that way with the war. It has almost been a full week since Obama has announced the end of the Iraqi War.

What fills the media?

That every Republican Presidential candidate has said it is a mistake. That Republicans in Congress, while they are taking credit for all the happiness coming from the news back home, in Washington, are trying to stymie the winding down of military action… That even within the Obama administration enterprising reporters were still able to find some voices of dissension that perhaps we were being a little too hasty in running out on Iraq…

All the argument is over Iraq…

Uhh, hello?… whose money is it that we’re spending?.. Uhh.. Shouldn’t that huge portion of the argument get some play?

I mean it would around a family dinner table. “Dad, I want to go to Harvard… It will cost $40,000 a year… ” “Nope, can’t afford it. You’ll need to rethink your future.”

Or in a bedroom, “Honey, we need all new furniture. I’ll put in on layaway this next Monday… ” “Nope, can’t afford it. You’ll need to rethink your priorities.”

Or in ones car. “Dad, I need the PS3.. My PS2 and PS1 games are all out of date.” “Nope, can’t afford it. You’ll need to rethink your spare time.”

Just the actual occupation of Iraq, cost us $720 million each day.

Isn’t it ironical that those who very same who were willing to gamble with our nation’s credit rating to cut expenses, are the very ones calling out Obama for turning off the spigot? Doesn’t that just sound like a bunch of hypocrites?

Just to give you an idea as to what that money could be otherwise spent on, here is a list compiled by a group that is against the war. No doubt it has probably had it’s numbers bumped up, but still it gives you a general feeling and some insight into what else that $720 million could be used…

One Day of the Iraq War = 720 Million Dollars, How Would You Spend it?

One Day of the Iraq War = 84 New Elementary Schools

One Day of the Iraq War = 12,478 Elementary School Teachers

One Day of the Iraq War = 95,364 Head Start Places for Children

One Day of the Iraq War = 1,153,846 Children with Free School Lunches

One Day of the Iraq War = 34,904 Four-Year Scholarships for University Students

One Day of the Iraq War = 163,525 People with Health Care

One Day of the Iraq War = 423,529 Children with Health Care

One Day of the Iraq War = 6,482 Families with Homes

One Day of the Iraq War = 1,274,336 Homes with Renewable Energy….

One Day of the Iraq WAr = $2.34 dollars each day into the pocket of every American man, woman, or child… One week =$16.38… One month = $70.36 .. One quarter gets rounded up to $213 and if cumulated over an entire year… 365.25 days… Every man, every women, every child, every toddler, every infant, is being costed by the war…$854 dollars!!!!

So why is no one talking about it?

Let’s backtrack to 2003 one month before we went in.

In a March 16, 2003 Meet the Press interview of Vice President Dick Cheney, held less than a week before the Iraq War began, host Tim Russert reported that “every analysis said this war itself would cost about $80 billion, recovery of Baghdad, perhaps of Iraq, about $10 billion per year. We should expect as American citizens that this would cost at least $100 billion for a two-year involvement.”

And here is the actual outcomes.

FY2003 Supplemental: Operation Iraqi Freedom: Passed April 2003; Total $78.5 billion, $54.4 billion Iraq War
FY2004 Supplemental: Iraq and Afghanistan Ongoing Operations/Reconstruction: Passed November 2003; Total $87.5 billion, $70.6 billion Iraq War
FY2004 DoD Budget Amendment: $25 billion Emergency Reserve Fund (Iraq Freedom Fund): Passed July 2004, Total $25 billion, $21.5 billion (estimated) Iraq War
FY2005 Emergency Supplemental: Operations in the War on Terror; Activities in Afghanistan; Tsunami Relief: Passed April 2005, Total $82 billion, $58 billion (estimated) Iraq War
FY2006 Department of Defense appropriations: Total $50 billion, $40 billion (estimated) Iraq War.
FY2006 Emergency Supplemental: Operations Global War on Terror; Activities in Iraq & Afghanistan: Passed February 2006, Total $72.4 billion, $60 billion (estimated) Iraq War
FY2007 Department of Defense appropriations: $70 billion(estimated) for Iraq War-related costs
FY2007 Emergency Supplemental (proposed) $100 billion
FY2008 Bush administration has proposed around $190 billion for the Iraq War and Afghanistan
FY2009 Obama administration has proposed around $130 billion in additional funding for the Iraq War and Afghanistan.
FY2011 Obama administration proposes around $159.3 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Kind of a little more than the total cost of $100 billion that Cheney alluded to.

That’s the problem with Republicans… “We gotta go to war. We gotta go to war. If we leave they might collapse… ”
with no clue of how to pay for it.. No clue that going to war costs money. So it becomes a choice of where better to spend our money. Here at home? or in Iraq?

Drumroll please: The obvious answer is……….

Clueless as Republicans were, they put that war on our credit card. They did not raise revenues one tick to cover the extra expense. They took out a loan to finance the entire operation.

According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in October 2007, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion dollars by 2017 when counting the huge interest costs because combat is being financed with borrowed money. The CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the war, about $1.9 trillion of that would be spent on Iraq, or $6,300 per U.S. citizen….

So Cheney’s $100 billion will cost us $2.7 Trillion counting interest paid… And the cost of caring for the humans who survied, is not even included.

We just can’t afford it. Some may say it is a hard decision. Some may say it is a wrong decision. Most will say it was an overdue decision, and it’s about damn time that someone did it.

It’s just funny how no one, no one is reporting the finances lurking behind this decision that made such a decision a no-brainer. There is no other choice really, but to let Iraqi’s handle their affairs themselves.

Holiday Spirit: Putting Politics Aside… :)

It is such a great time. The cold front has passed, warm moist air flowing in, misty rain, not enough to get you wet, but enough to wake you up as it dances across the face. In it one can feel the snow coming two days early… For a weekend night, outside it’s peaceful… Those with money, have finished shopping. Those without, are waiting for that last check before the holidays…

The annual tradition of trading favorite YouTube’d carols over the internet, has begun in earnest… Strains of Mozart, Celtic Women, Cat Stevens, Bon Jovi, Metallica, and tons of favorite carols by assorted artists, have caused all the stress, pain, heart attacks, symptoms of short breathing,……….. to melt away somewhere into the distant future, as we float back into all those happier times as we remember fond memories of our past……..

Courtesy of All American Patriots

Courtesy of Pat Dollard

Courtesy of Theodore’s World

Things aren’t so nice for 100,000 plus Americans now fighting in Afghanistan. Things aren’t so nice for their families, friends, and lovers back home,… now that things have really heated up over there….

Take a second: Imagine you’re a Taliban fighting this foe invading from a very distant land. Imagine the hope, and shot in the arm a headline like this from the United States, would instill in you upon having it read to you. Imagine how quickly its words would resonate in your blood, and how less inclined you would be to throw in the towel against overwhelming odds? Imagine if you had rounds of waterproofed AK 47 ammo hidden in your well, how inclined you must now be to pull them up, and lay in wait for an American serviceman, any American serviceman, to come close enough to fire a killing shot.

That Headline….

Republicans Shoot Down $700 Military Appropriations Bill Funding War in Afghanistan. Bill Not Passed.

Republicans just aided and comforted our enemy…. Can you hear the Taliban cheering?

It’s the holiday season;  I’ll be honest.

David Anderson: you served. How can you stomach supporting the Republican Party when they refuse to fund American servicemen in combat?

Frank Knotts: How can someone with your passion for all that America has stood for, still call yourself a Republican when they play games with Americans living and dying for our shared values?

Hube:  What gives?  Where is the line across which the Republican Party stops supporting America, and the Tea Party begins to represent the Conservative’s cause?

Tyler Nixon: How can any ex service man, support the party that is so self centered, they have no clue of how their vote to, not fund the war, emboldens our enemies?

Kilroy of Delaware: What kind of political party would play with funding for troops in active combat? How can that be tolerated?

Oh, well, it’s not skin off my teeth. It’s your party… do what you want. I don’t care… But I’ll tell you this… This nation needs a little old one horse Tea Party for this one reason alone: so conservatives have somewhere else to go without crawling on their knees to suck up to the moral backruptiveness of the Republican Party, that’s why…

Oh, well, I’ve said too much already. It’s not my problem. I just think that:

Our servicemen deserve better.
Conservatives deserve better.
Our republic, the United States of America, deserves better.

Conservatives: isn’t it way past time to switch your parties affiliation?  It’s the holiday season!  What better gift to your kids and grand-kids  could you possibly give?