Posted on 09/28/2014 7:11:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
Young people may find it hard to believe, but going to war used to be a big deal. When the United States started bombing Iraq in January 1991, Americans somberly watched President George H.W. Bush address the nation, followed by live video of Baghdad being bombed. The Bush address drew the biggest audience TV had ever had.
This past week, by contrast, life went on normally as U.S. warplanes and Tomahawk missiles destroyed targets in Syria and Iraq in a new war, which has no clear goal or time limit. As our leaders took us into a conflict fraught with peril, most people yawned. We're at war again? Oh, right -- and rain is still wet.
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has been at war two out of every three years. Remember Somalia? Bosnia? Kosovo? It's hard to decide whether this is our third war in Iraq or a continuation of our second, which began when Johnny Manziel was in the fourth grade. Our fight in Afghanistan has been going on for 13 years, five years longer than the Vietnam War.
This one, Secretary of State John Kerry said, could last two or three years. He doesn't appear to worry that the American people's patience will run out before the administration leaves office. Though they occasionally get weary of particular conflicts, they rarely evince strong resistance to new ones.
There are many reasons for that. The 1973 abolition of the draft was a worthwhile achievement with an unfortunate effect: divorcing most people from the tangible consequences of war.
A lot of parents would be warier of Obama's bombing campaign if they had to contemplate that one day, the gods of war would demand the healthy bodies of their sons and daughters. Young people would be likelier to march in protest if they feared being sent to Syria against their will and returned home in coffins.
Most of us are even further removed than the Civil War-era humorist Artemus Ward, who said, "I have already given two cousins to the war and I stand ready to sacrifice my wife's brother."
The majority sacrifices nothing noticeable for the privilege of reminding the world that we can blow up whatever we want and kill whomever we want anytime we choose. For the time being, we don't even have to put up any money.
The latest war will cost some of that, though how much is anyone's guess. Asked the likely price tag, White House press secretary Josh Earnest replied, with charming nonchalance, "I don't have an estimate on that."
Members of Congress show no sign of weighing the benefits of this operation against the outlay. Nor do voters, because they have no reason to. It's a free lunch.
It hasn't always been that way. During World War I, Congress raised taxes twice to pay for sending an army to France. During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt proposed the biggest tax increase the nation had ever seen. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau didn't sugarcoat it: "The new taxes will be severe, and their impact will be felt in every American home."
During Vietnam, President Lyndon Johnson pushed through a surcharge of 10 percent on all personal and corporate income taxes. He justified it as a way to "finance responsibly the needs of our men in Vietnam."
Our government may provide for the needs of those fighting this war, but not in a fiscally responsible way. George W. Bush launched two invasions while cutting taxes, not raising them. Barack Obama is happy to let Americans assume the funding for this war will come off the money tree in the Rose Garden.
It won't. It will all have to be borrowed and repaid, with interest, by us or our children. The total cost of Bush's Iraq and Afghanistan wars will come to at least $4 trillion, according to a study by Harvard scholar Linda Bilmes. Had we known that -- and had we been forced to make a noticeable sacrifice with every paycheck -- we might have insisted he do things differently.
If Obama and Congress had agreed to impose immediate new federal burdens on American taxpayers before launching this latest war, public attention would be greater and resistance would be stronger. We would at least have had a real debate.
Nothing would do more to break our addiction to perpetual war than a simple requirement that everyone can understand: You want a war? Pay for it.
I don’t get the headline... who ever thought war was free?
“Free War! Free War!”
Would the writer attach the same criteria to the war on poverty? 50 years and counting, and trillions later, we still fight poverty.
Would the writer have insisted that LBJ and all future presidents increase taxes to pay for the war on poverty, on a pay as you go basis????
The same case could be made about government spending in general. How many years of budget surplus have we had since the end of World War II? A handful? How many years of deficit spending? How much of the $17 trillion plus national debt has been racked up during the Obama administration?
Face it, all government spending contributes to deficits. Congress and presidents decide to spend money, and additional spending just gets added to the deficit. It could be spending on war or anything else. Same concept.
I always wondered what that meant, “War On Poverty’’. What does that mean, you shoot poor people?
It needs to be said often, when Obama took control the war was over, America had peace over there, we did not steal any oil. The iraq’s with their purple fingers had picked a government, Bush was fine with it and troops were coming home. America was leaving about 10 K troops as an insurance policy, but the war was over.
VP Biden spoke about how well things were and Obama and the Democrats took this victory and flushed it down the drain.
Keeping a promise to supporters he pulled all the troops out. ISIS was born and here we are again bombing and I’m sure troops on the ground can’t be far behind.
All of these “Wars on...” are derivatives of William James’ once-famous address, “The Moral Equivalent of War”, in which James advocates a national service program to conduct “warfare against nature” to engender national unity in the absence of an external enemy. It was the inspiration for FDR’s CCC, LBJ’s Peace Corps, and similar programs.
In my view, such programs are manifestations of leftist state worship. Without an external enemy, why do we need national unity? In any case, it’s not as if we don’t have external enemies...
Spending on defense is top priority. Without defense we will lose the country.
After that, we must pick and choose where the dollars go. And, plenty of dollars have been spent on the “War on Poverty” since Johnson only to create poverty and the dysfunctional culture of generational welfare and fatherless children.
Now THAT has been wasted money that has made the situation worse.
All these new Wars are Obama only Wars ,he doesn’t even have the guts to talk to congress
We have been at war, more or less, since 1917. Although there have been "Peace Treaties" signed little was done to smooth out the causes of the conflicts. We spent Zillions on foreign aid and trade but never were able to undo the underlying causes of the dissent, religious, economical and political differences between nations. These are unfixable and as a result war will always be just over the horizon or behind the next cloud. Strength ensures survival. Weakness invites catastrophe. Obama is weakness personified!
“Spending on defense is top priority. Without defense we will lose the country.”
The question is, are we really spending money on defense?
- money is spent to make the navy “green”, diversity, and other PC initiatives
- money is diverted to DHS, NSA for checkpoints, surveillance etc and others programs targeted against patriot groups, constitutionalists.
- money was spent to promote the bogus Arab spring with the goal of toppling stable, neutral, authoritarian governments and replacing them with hostile Islamic governments (Egypt, Libya, Syria). Now that we have unleashed these radicals by toppling more stable governments, we have to spend more money to fight them?
Every time we have a war, we are forced to lose more privacy and individual rights. I think we’ve already lost the country, and misguided defense spending is part of it.
I thought it was going to be “Whitey’s on the Moon”
Remember when we went to war to win!
Lotta people here in favor of the Warfare State.
Everything the guy says is true. Most importantly, the President has no right to start a damn war on his own: it’s Congress’s job. The War Powers act was written as a bridge to that.
Endless war means endless taxes. That’s what the extortionists want. They can bury a lot of pork in the mil contracts.
And that’s the real goal.
Yup. Dead On.
“I always wondered what that meant, “War On Poverty’’. What does that mean, you shoot poor people?”
Where do I sign up? Wal Mart would finally be fun :)
The Founding Fathers recognized that government is inherently wasteful, even the military.
By limiting the government to what is absolutely necessary, there would be a limit to the possibilities for corruption. Corruption in establishing the military will be eventually revealed in that military’s inevitable failure. Without a very apparent way to identify failure, money shouldn’t be spent in the first place.
That arrogant pos sees himself as emperor, and as such only what he says counts and he does not have to listen to Congress
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