Friday, June 27, 2014

Warfare queens


Insane, isn't it? When it comes to war, Republican leaders don't care about the cost - either in money or lives.

Well, they're not going to be fighting it, and they're not going to be paying for it, either. (You don't think they're planning to raise taxes to actually pay for a war, do you?)

In everything else, they pretend to be worried about government debt. Of course, that's only because they don't hold the presidency. They certainly didn't care about the deficit during the Bush years! But even today, war is just so much fun, they simply don't care what it will cost.

The Bush administration didn't even budget for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That's how little they cared about the costs. Of course, Iraq was going to "pay for itself," remember. Hey, if it's one thing we can't pass up, it's a free war! Am I right, or am I right? (Of course, it didn't actually pay for itself, not even close, but 'truth' is whatever Republicans want to believe.)

And Afghanistan,... well, we had to get Osama bin Laden, didn't we? Not that Bush ever did get Osama bin Laden by invading Afghanistan - or any other way, either. No, that was left to Barack Obama to accomplish, ten years later. (Yet they have the gall to complain that it took Obama a year and a half after Benghazi to capture Ahmed Abu Khattala.)

Meanwhile, we're still at war in Afghanistan, with no valid exit strategy. Yeah, we're tired of that war, and we're tired of the war in Iraq, which we only started because the first one got boring, and Bush wanted to get reelected. (I've heard a lot of other excuses for Iraq, but not one that held up under scrutiny.)

But these same Republicans who vote against everything in Congress, with the argument that America is too poor to be a civilized nation these days, can't wait for the next war. They've been pushing for war with Iran for years, even trying to sabotage negotiations between our countries, so that war will seem like the only option.

(Ironically, those same Republicans have been Iran's biggest friend. Saddam Hussein was Sunni, and his Iraq was Iran's worst enemy. Now, Shiite Muslims run Iraq, as well as Iran. Republicans gave the Iranian government the best gift they possibly could, and now they help the mullahs keep control over the country by their continued talk of war.)

Of course, Iran is far from the only place Republicans want to wage war. In fact, it often seems like any war will do. Are they really that entertained by war? Are they really that scared of everything, everywhere? Or is it mostly that defense contractors make lots of money from war - money that comes back to Republican campaign coffers?

I suspect that it's all three. But we can't allow frightened and corrupt old men to push us into war, especially as they work tirelessly to destroy America from the inside. We have to stand up to these warfare queens.

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