This is going to be a very short post. I am going to ask each reader to go do something. Go to your browser and type in:
nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/
Take a look at what the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost us. It isn't the true cost in my mind, the true cost is the young men and women who died. Those precious folks who left behind mom and dads, brothers and sisters, spouses and children, friends and coworkers. All of them, every one of them, touched multiple lives. Their lives have ended and those they touched have been irrecocably changed.
See what we spend on national defense, homeland security, education, environment and food assistance. Use your tax payments and see how the money you provided was spent. Make changes in the numbers and see what else those tax dollars could buy. It is like the commercial says, "It's your money."
When you have done all that please take a minute and write a comment. Don't be afraid to be critical. Don't feel obligated to agree with me or try to guess what I will find acceptable. It is just time for a meaningful conversation about our national priorities. Let's grab the steering wheel and see if we can't turn this conversation some other direction if that is where folks want to go. If you have trouble with the comments section here send me an email.
jeffsutor@live.com
One doesn't really get a true sense of the waste until you see the numbers whirl around in the individual boxes. One number that doesn't appear is 6,795. That is total US dead.
ReplyDeleteThe other numbers are obscene. What could we have built right here at home with those dollars. Education, infrastructure, a true universal healthcare system, and enough to propagate other worthwhile programs for years. Did we get our money and blood 's worth from these wars? I guess we showed some tribes and a terror network not to mess with 'Merica. It also cost Bin Ladan and Sadam Hussein their lives. Are we any safer? Are the terror networks eliminated? Is there peace?
Civil war rages on in Iraq and Afghanistan bloodshed continues. The only thing that benefitted was the proverbial military industrial complex. And yet we continue to abide this conflagration lest we fail to show anything but total support for our troops. "Support Our Troops" is a perfect crafted slogan that says absolutely nothing and yet stymies any dissent. But I digress.
I was against the wars to start and I remain so. The numbers whir and will continue to whir. In a way we shall never end our payments.