Science & Government Funding
Bush and Obama comprise the start of a new type of presidency – the rise of the total president. He is nearly a king, his edicts are law no matter their Constitutional quality. And they are costing us dearly:
A report released by Brown University in conjunction with the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks has pegged the cost of the ensuing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan at more than 300,000 lives lost and $4 trillion spent. The “Costs of War” study also found that indirect deaths, those related to malnutrition, damaged infrastructure and environmental degradation “may far outnumber deaths from combat.” While those are difficult to precisely measure, they could push the actual toll north of 1 million. And some of the real costs will not be evident for decades as “many of the wars’ costs are invisible to Americans, buried in a variety of budgets, and so have not been counted or assessed.” The study noted that more than 6,500 U.S. soldiers have died in the wars “and levels of injury and illness among those who have returned are startling, with a quarter-million disability claims filed with the Veterans Administration.”
It makes one wonder at the slander “isolationist” that is often thrown at libertarians by Republican neocon warmongers. Who is truly the isolationist faction?:
Now that the neocons have been in control of the American foreign policy apparatus since the Reagan administration do you, as an American, feel more “engaged” with the people of the Middle East, or do you feel isolated from them? Do you feel free and safe to travel there, to shop, or to form business partnerships when Saudis, Libyans, or Egyptians, or do you feel isolated from them? Is it safe to send your children to a university in that part of the world, or on a summer tour-the-world vacation, or is is safer to isolate your children from such people and places?
The answer to these questions is of course “NO,” thanks to the belligerent instigationism of the neocons who run the American foreign policy establishment. They are the real isolationists. It is war and aggressive military bullying, the defining characteristics of the American empire — and of all empires — that isolates peoples of the world from one another. What brings them together, on the other hand, is peace, free enterprise, and free international trade. Ron Paul made this point over and over again during the Republican “debates,” and was roundly shouted down as an “isolationist” by the GOP statists and all their loudmouth minions on TV and radio. They all got it exactly backwards, in other words. But that doesn’t matter to the neocons. All that matters to them is to regain or retain political power and the wealth and riches is brings to them.
Could Obama represent the “peace” candidate in this election? I shudder at the thought…
Another prisoner of “war” has died. He was not convicted or tried of anything, and was being held indefinitely. This is the power of the new class of president.