Congress: Delcare War On Afghanistan, or Not
December 7, 2009 at 11:25 AM 1 comment
Congress should debate and hold an up or down vote on whether or not it is willing to formally declare war on Afghanistan. Enough of these monstrously expensive forays into foreign countries that aren’t on the books as official wars. Let’s have a public discussion about what our goals are, and the most efficient way to accomplish them.
I want to see my representative raise his hand in support of the war in Afghanistan, or not. I want him to put his vote where his mouth is. I want him to be held to account because given numbers like these, one can’t help but wonder whether there might be some hanky-panky going on around here:
The nation’s military-industrial complex means big campaign money, and now Democrats get more of it than the GOP. Weapons-makers make elective wars. Historians Barbara Tuchman and William Manchester chronicled how big guns made by the Krupp family encouraged Germany to launch three disastrous wars.
In 21st century America, half of the on-budget $310 billion annual defense budget goes to our own latter-day Krupps. Some recently moved their headquarters here to be close to the spigot. They spend $100 million a year on lobbying, and deploy 1,000 lobbyists to Capitol Hill. Total defense industry employment in this region tops 280,000.
They’re having a field day. The biggest, Lockheed-Martin, based in suburban Maryland, gets upward of $40 billion in defense work a year. Estimates for number two, Boeing, reach to $27 billion; third-ranked Northrop-Grumman gets $24 billion.
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ChrisH | December 8, 2009 at 12:20 AM
But we’re not really at war with Afghanistan, so they are unwilling to make the vote official. We’re just giving them our troops and our money to fight their internal war. I agree, make them vote on it, declare war on Afghanistan. Then we’ll have to stop supplying them and supporting them.