Bush is STILL ASKING FOR WAR FUNDS while he CONTINUES on the path of DESTRUCTION and INCOMPETENCE. He calls it 'winning' but everyone else calls it Civil War.
Anyways, get this:
The Bush administration is preparing its largest spending request yet for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a proposal that could make the conflict the most expensive since World War II.
The Pentagon is considering $127 billion to $160 billion in requests from the armed services for the 2007 fiscal year, which began last month, several lawmakers and congressional staff members said. That's on top of $70 billion already approved for 2007.
Since 2001, Congress has approved $502 billion for the war on terror, roughly two-thirds for Iraq. The latest request, due to reach the incoming Democratic-controlled Congress next spring, would make the war on terror more expensive than the Vietnam War.
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., who will chair the Senate Budget Committee next year, said the amount under consideration is "$127 billion and rising." He said the cost "is going to increasingly become an issue" because it could prevent Congress from addressing domestic priorities, such as expanding Medicare prescription drug coverage.
Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., who put the expected request at $160 billion, said such a sizable increase still "won't solve the problem" in Iraq.
Bill Hoagland, a senior budget adviser to Senate Republicans, said: "At a minimum, they were looking at $130 (billion). If it goes higher than that, I'm not surprised."
Anybody feeling sick yet? Well add this to the stack:
Before the Iraq war began in 2003, the Bush administration estimated its cost at $50 billion to $60 billion, though White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey had suggested in 2002 that it could cost as much as $200 billion.
Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha ..vowed to use his clout as chairman of the House panel that reviews the Pentagon budget "to get these troops out of Iraq and get back on track and quit spending $8 billion a month."
...The new request is top-heavy with Army and Air Force costs to replace and repair equipment and redeploy troops, Hoagland said. That's why the 2007 cost is likely to top the war's average annual price tag.
Overall, he said, "we're easily headed toward $600 billion." That would top the $536 billion cost of Vietnam in today's dollars. World War II cost an inflation-adjusted $3.6 trillion.
Leon Panetta, President Clinton's former chief of staff and a member of a bipartisan panel studying recommendations on Iraq for President Bush, said the Pentagon needs $50 billion to $60 billion to "restore the units that are being brought back here, to re-equip them and get them back to a combat-readiness status."
Those are just numbers right? AND the things they're talking about are to repair things the troops use, BUT if we GET THEM OUT OF THERE, then we don't need to waste money on the Iraq Civil War.
AND it's mighty DIFFICULT to not remind people that BUSH SENT OUR SOLDIERS TO WAR WITHOUT ARMOR AND WITH EQUIPMENT ALREADY FALLING APART!!! Also, HE WITHHELD BLOOD CLOTTING BANDAGES FROM THEM. AND he ALLOWED HALLIBURTON TO USE GOVERNMENT MONEY TO BUY ARMOR FOR THEIR EMPLOYEES BUT OUR SOLDIERS HAVE BEEN FORCED INTO BUYING THEIR OWN! AND WOUNDED SOLDIERS HAVE BEEN FORCED TO REIMBURSE THE GOVERNMENT FOR THE ARMOR THAT WAS DAMAGED OR MISSING AFTER THEY've been removed from the bloodbath injured and possibly dying.
And now they want 20,000 more troops there.
This isn't the way to PROTECT and SUPPORT OUR TROOPS.
Bush has gone about this 'war' half cocked and he's been downright RECKLESS with other peoples' lives.
So...when does the war crimes tribunal grab Bush and charge him with "Crimes against Humanity?"
It can't come soon enough.
Spending for Iraq should NOT be increased and we should look for strategic exit strategies and let the Iraqis try to handle the situation. It was a bad decision to even go there. Spending for Afghansitan SHOULD be increased - don't make the current liberal blunder of grouping these two in the same basket. Afghanistan is still a just war and 90+% of the populace wants us there to help. We are vastly improving the lives of women there, as well as everyone, and we can't abandon it again, like Bush Senior and Clinton did after the Soviet Afghan war.
Afghanistan should be funded in the budget. (not emergency funding)
You're right...keep the names separate.
Your tone sucks and you acted like a jerk in other threads, and you derisively used the "liberal blunder" to describe the way we tend to combine the two.
But other than that, your point about keeping them separate is accurate. BUT...face facts...it's not just liberals or dems who do this. It's moderate Republicans, Libertarians, and others too.
Regarding your point on the other thread:
1. Nolies has talked about the effects of the war on Iraqis all over this blog. There's more than 50 titles and so your comment on the one thread was absolutely way off course. I see the thread has been closed or I would have posted my comment there.
2. Afghanistan women thread...yes, you did call nolies32fouttes names there, as well as Fox, but the general point you wanted to make could have been dealt with much more respectfully. Then you would have been pointed to other links where Nolie has spoken about the situation for Afghan women or men at other times as well. You read one blog post and ignored all 50 plus titles of work in which you might have found your questions answered.
Furthermore, you totally missed the point of her blog. It wasn't that the Taliban should stay and that there was no progress--her point was that Bush got rid of the Taliban and then ran for the next war. Yes, he left some troops there. But he didn't maintain a high enough commitment to making sure that more progress was being made. He stole funds out of Afghanistan and put those funds into Iraq. Even though some progress was made in Afghanistan, as all of you seem to agree, more progress could have been made if the commitment and support level had remained as high as it should have.
Had you not jumped onto the attack there and on other threads, you probably would have been able to find out what the author meant. And you could have had a reasonable discussion.
Instead, you offended many.
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