Obama carrying out Osama’s plan to bankrupt the U.S.

Alan Grayson reminds us that Osama Bin Laden had an overall plan to ruin the United States. All he needed were a couple of presidents to help him carry out the plan. George W. Bush was more than willing. Then along came Barrack Obama, who surprised his followers and decided to do his part to bankrupt the United States. Grayson explains:

Today, the war in Afghanistan becomes America's longest war. Longer than the war in Vietnam. Longer than the Korean War. . . . Bin Laden's strategy was -- and is -- painfully simple: to repeat his victory in Afghanistan against Russia, by driving us into bankruptcy. As he put it, he wanted to use his "experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat." In other words, he just wants to go two-for-two. And, as Bin Laden noted, it is equally simple to get us into that trap.
If you are dismayed that President Obama (and Congress) are eagerly following Bin Laden's plan to bankrupt the United States, consider signing Grayson's petition to support "The War is Making You Poor Act."
This bill would eliminate the separate funding for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and eliminate federal income taxes for everyone's first $35,000 of income (or $70,000 for couples) each year. And it would help pay down our national debt.

Continue ReadingObama carrying out Osama’s plan to bankrupt the U.S.

The war is making us poor Act

I'm delighted to share the letter that Representative Alan Grayson just sent to me. The basic idea is that the obsession of U.S. politicians to fight needless wars is making us poor as a nation (in addition to the immorality of what we are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan). After reviewing the letter, I went to Grayson's website dedicated to cutting the military budget, I became about the 11,000th person to sign his petition, and I'm reprinting Grayson's letter (below). Finally, we see someone who can speak about the military budget with some sanity. I agree with Alan Grayson that we need to stop our absolutely senseless "wars" and, instead, use our money here at home to stabilize our country's noticeable downward economic and social slide. Before you read Grayson's letter, please review (and choke on) two posts about the U.S. military budget numbers here and here.

Dear Erich,

Next week, there is going to be a "debate" in Congress on yet another war funding bill. The bill is supposed to pass without debate, so no one will notice.

What George Orwell wrote about in "1984" has come true. What Eisenhower warned us about concerning the "military-industrial complex" has come true. War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape, so much so that no one notices it anymore.

But we're going to change this. Today, we're introducing a bill called 'The War Is Making You Poor Act'. The purpose of this bill is to connect the dots, and to show people in a real and concrete way the cost of these endless wars. We're working to get co-sponsors in Congress, but, we need citizen co-sponsors as well. Become a citizen cosponsor today at TheWarIsMakingYouPoor.com. Act Now.

Next year's budget allocates $159,000,000,000 to perpetuate the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. That's enough money to eliminate federal income taxes for the first $35,000 of every American's income. Beyond that, leaves over $15 billion to cut the deficit.

And that's what this bill does. It eliminates separate funding for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and eliminates federal income taxes for everyone's first $35,000 of income ($70,000 for couples). Plus it pays down the national debt. Does that sound good to you? Then please sign our petition in support of this bill, and help us build a movement to end our permanent state of war.

The costs of the war have been rendered invisible. There's no draft. Instead, we take the most vulnerable elements of our population, and give them a choice between unemployment and missile fodder. Government deficits conceal the need to pay in cash for the war.

We put the cost of both guns and butter on our Chinese credit card. In fact, we don't even put these wars on budget; they are still passed using 'emergency supplemental'. A nine-year 'emergency'.

Let's show Congress the cost of these wars is too much for us. Tell Congress that you like 'The War Is Making You Poor Act'. No, tell Congress you love it. All we are saying is "give peace a chance." We will end these wars.

Together.

Courage,

Alan Grayson

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Where are the photos of good things supposedly happening in Iraq and Afghanistan?

I’ve totally run out of patience. I need to see photos of all the good things happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, but there aren’t any. Why aren’t we seeing lots and lots of photos documenting all the supposedly good things the United States is supposedly doing in these countries with its bloated military-industrial complex? We spend a billion dollars every three days on these two “wars.” We’ve already spent a trillion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan, much of this money unaccounted for. http://www.costofwar.com/ For Iraq alone, we will have spent at least $6,500 per U.S. citizen before we are done with it all (if that ever happens). Hey, somebody, please show us lots and lots of photos proving that a billion dollars of new things are happening every three days in Iraq and Afghanistan. Show us one trillion dollars of progress over the past 10 years. Certainly the public could be shown photos of stabilized neighborhoods, sprouting businesses, and kids learning in quality schools, if these things were happening. I challenge any of you to scour the current editions of your favorite news sites to find photographs or videos that would give you any optimism that the U.S. will ever leave either of these countries. Just find any photo of anything happening in either war zone over the past week. You won’t find it in American mainstream news sites. And no, this story that Afghanistan has a total of one rock band isn’t good news. You probably won’t even find any current news that any war is going on at all.

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The psychology of becoming a soldier

In 1983, PBS gave this extraordinary unvarnished view of what it means to be trained to be a soldier. The six-part documentary is called "Anybody's Son Will Do," and the documentary focuses on boot camp at Paris Island. Here's one of the opening quotes: "The secret about basic training is that it's not really about teaching people things at all. It's about changing people so that they can do things they wouldn't have dreamed of doing otherwise." In Part III, the instructor asks the trainees to name that special person to whom they are dedicating all of their hard training. The answer: To your enemy, so that he can "die for his country." The commentator adds that it doesn't really matter who the enemy is. Rather, it's the idea of an "outside threat that binds a combat unit together so strongly that its members will make the most extraordinary sacrifices for each other." In part V, the commentator mentions another key point of basic training: They indoctrinate the recruits with the idea that the enemy--whoever he may be--is not fully human, and so it's all right to kill him." Here's an excerpt from an actual training session (also from Part V, starting at the 2:30 mark), discussing the extent which the Marines need to destroy the enemy:

You want to rip out his eyeballs, you want to tear apart his love machine. You want to destroy him, privates! You don't wanna have nothing left of him. You want to send him home in a glad bag to his mommy." [loud laughing from the recruits] . . . Marines are born trained killers, and you've got to prove that every day."
Here's part I: It's apparent throughout this documentary that soldier training depends upon hating one's enemy. It is also apparent that many of the members of the military are religious. Somehow, through this mix, the religious command to "Love your enemy" co-exists with the military command to "Hate your enemy."

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