Afghanistan war calculator: How much did YOU pay?

This short video tells you about the Afghanistan war calculator, and then you go here to calculate the economic damage the longest war in American history is doing to you. I like the IOU offered by the site, along with the calculations. I wonder about the accuracy of these numbers because the United States is massively in debt--we are funding much of what we spend by borrowing. To the extent that we aren't actually paying for the war now, however, it makes matters much worse. It's such a strange thing for all of those "family values" politicians to be crushing the next couple of generations with debt.

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Politicians try to clarify their confusion

It's amazing that someone as incoherent on Libya as Newt Gingrich is being considered to be presidential material. Gingrich is as incoherent on this topic as Barack Obama who, for the past few weeks, has been saying that Gaddhafi has got to go. Until today, when his press secretary (I just saw this on CNN) stated that regime change is not a goal of the military action in Libya.

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Bill Maher: the United States is like herpes

Recent activity in Libya reminds me of the following from Real Time with Bill Maher, Episode 147, premiering on March 27, 2009:

New Rule: Forget about bringing the troops home from Iraq. We need to get the troops home from World War II. Can anybody tell me why, in 2009, we still have more than 50,000 troops in Germany and 30,000 in Japan?

. . .

How did this country get stuck with an empire? Now, I’m not saying we’re Rome. Rome had good infrastructure. But, we are an empire, and I think the reason is because once America lands in a country, there is no exit strategy. We’re like cellulite, herpes and Irish relatives. We are not going anywhere! “We love you long time!”

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Anthony Weiner aims his sarcasm at do-nothing Republicans

NPR is fighting hard to keep it's sliver of federal funding. On the Hill, Anthony Weiner aims his arrows at the Republicans. And at least one Republican, Ron Paul, understands that our Nation's (destructive) money pit is Afghanistan, not NPR. Every week we spend four times more on our military adventure in Afghanistan than we spend for one year on funding domestic public media (we spend a lot more on propaganda devoted for international audiences than we spend on domestic programming).

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