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Sunday, April 20, 2008
The
US Economy and the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars
by
Charles M.
Melchior,
Chester County, Pennsylvania
Our current list of national economic
difficulties and governmental failures is a direct result of nearly 30
years of failed Republican policies. We are paying the price in many
ways for our national love affair with slick, emotionally appealing
Republican political rhetoric and candidates. We ignore the harsh
reality behind the deceitful words.
In their new book,
The Three Trillion Dollar War, Nobel prize winning economist Joseph
Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes project the cost of the Iraq/Afghan war to
the United States alone at 2 Trillion 700 Billion dollars through the
year 2017, as reported on the front page of March 10’s Philadelphia
Inquirer. Independently, the Congressional Budget Office estimates
the lower range of probable costs at a mere $1.2 to $1.7 Trillion
through the same time period. What is most remarkable is the very
fact that both reports assume the U.S would continue to fund VP
Cheney’s “endless war” for such a period of time and points out that
our gigantic budget deficits of the past 7 years, brought on by the
Bush tax cuts instituted as we invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq,
necessarily means borrowing for an annually recurring expense, thereby
adding to its total cost hundreds of Billions of dollars for interest
which must some day be repaid, along with the amounts originally
borrowed.
My 33 years as a City
Manager of 6 towns tells me (and one need not be a financial wizard to
recognize) that this fiscal insanity violates the most elementary rule
of public and private finance, not to speak of common sense. To borrow
for purchasing a capital asset like a home, whose useful lifetime can
be reasonably estimated (and which you intend to pay off within that
time frame) is one thing. To borrow for the ongoing expenses of a war
which recur year after year for 10 years without imposing the taxes to
pay for it is the height of fiscal irresponsibility, not unlike
families which substitute the credit card for the checkbook without
paying down each month’s full balance, thereby paying interest on the
interest their initial borrowing incurs - a sure road to insolvency..
In New Jersey, like many states, this actually happened during the
Depression to numerous municipalities who ended up issuing script to
meet their minimal expenses.
While the tendency by
many economic analysts and commentators has been to attribute the
recent precipitous, persistent collapse on Wall Street largely to the
sour housing market and housing mortgages given to sub-prime borrowers
at variable and increasing interest rates, the strain of the Iraq War
on the overall economy, as it added to the Federal Budget deficit and
debt interest costs. has largely been ignored. However, the rather
panicky reactions of the Federal Reserve in the form of large,
emergency interest rate cuts and the supposed stimulus packages of
what some economists are calling too little, too late to the wrong
recipients, plus talk of small possible troop reductions, may indicate
some growing recognition of the severity of the overall economic
crisis, raising new doubts, despite positive claims about the impact
of the troop surge, about the wisdom of continuing this level of
spending.
For it shrinks to an unacceptable level
discretionary funding available without tax increases for domestic
social programs that the Presidential primary campaign shows are
priorities for the American people. While all the “neo-cons” and most
Republican primary candidates demand “victory” in Iraq no matter how
many years or decades it takes, most apostles of realpolitik who
parade as experts on the war on terrorism totally ignore the fact that
the people of Iraq have and are still suffering far more today than
even under Sadaam Hussein’s harsh rule.
With casualties among
Iraqi citizens, insurgents and innocents alike, running into many tens
of thousands each year the war is prolonged, and with its economy and
infrastructure in a shambles as compared to before the invasion, the
Iraqi government seems unable to achieve the factional political
compromises needed to maintain a minimal level of security with its
own army and police forces. If it could do so, it would allow a
beginning of restoring its infrastructure and thus rebuilding the
economy, dealing with the enormous unemployment and refugee problems
which are the result of the war.
Indeed, far from the fraudulent claim that the
war is defeating or is defending us from terrorists and insurgents,
the very presence of foreign invaders and occupiers, who are always
hated, are actually the principal recruiting tools for Al Qaeda and
for the international terrorism which might endanger us in the
future.. One should remember that Tito’s Communist dictatorship in
Yugoslavia did not tolerate ethnic cleansing, or religious or
sectarian violence, and people lived there in relative harmony, with
widespread inter-religious marriages. The evils perpetrated between
Christians and Muslims and ethnic sectarian groups came about in
Bosnia-Herzegovina and other parts of Yugoslavia only after the
Milosevic type of political demagogues no longer had to fear the iron
hand of Tito’s retribution. So too, our unilateral preemptive foreign
imposition of a puppet government under our notions of democracy in
flagrant violation of the UN Charter are the reasons sectarian
violence began in Iraq, and together with our unprovoked military
aggression has reduced Iraq to its present state of chaos.
Thus the withdrawal of all US troops and bases
from Iraq as swiftly as is feasible from a logistical and troop
security standpoint, would seem in the interests of both the people of
Iraq and of the United States. Conditions in Iraq will only improve,
and the threat of further terroristic acts endangering our security
can only cease to exist after all American military personnel are
withdrawn so as to allow some kind of international or United Nations
Peace and Security force acceptable to the Iraqi people to be brought
in as a neutral police agency. Although American personnel should
not be included in such a police force, the funds now being wasted by
the U. S. on the Iraq war would then become available in its Budget
not only to reimburse the UN for our fair share of this operation as
provided in the UN Charter but also for a reconstruction and economic
assistance package the United Nations and the Iraqi and US governments
freely agree upon. Such an Iraqi Marshall Plan on the heels of our
withdrawal of all military forces would do much to dispel the current
animosity towards the United States throughout the Muslim world as
well as rebuilding America’s good name around the world.
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