The U.S. War Against Afghanistan Is Now 8 Years Old and Cost $228 Billion Dollars.

http://www.costofwar.com/

Eight years ago today the United States attacked Afghanistan, one of the poorest nations in the world, because the Saudi oil-rich multi-millionaire bff of the Bush family, former child-star discovered by Ronald Reagan, Osama bin Laden, was supposedly living somewhere in Afghanistan, and supposedly had masterminded the four hijackings that took place in the U.S. on 9/11. Because of those four hijackings, and because the U.S. wanted to invade and occupy much of the middle east, to steal the oil, the neocons who were running this country used the hijackings as the opportunity to start a war against every country in the middle east.

Eight years later, we have spent $228 Billion Dollars of our money in the war against Afghanistan, a nation whose "military might" consists of some homeless men with rifles, beat-up pickup trucks and a few hand-held missile launchers. And now the U.S. military is insisting that we need to send tens or even hundreds of thousands more troops into Afghanistan. Ask yourself why. Is it really to "fight" against one of the poorest countries in the world? Or is it to prepare for the next war we're going to start in that region?

And guess what? The Obama administration is "carefully considering" the request to send tens or hundreds of thousands more troops into Afghanistan. My bet is that they're going to do it. Not because of anything to do with Afghanistan, but just to prepare for the war that the U.S. is going to start against Iran. Or various other countries in the region.

As part of our war against Afghanistan, we installed an oil executive by the name of Hamad Karzai, and annointed him "King" (or prime minister, or president) of Afghanistan, and proclaimed to all the world that the country was now "free," and was a "democracy." But when the elections were held this year, the citizens voted against Karzai, so the U.S. had to get in the middle and rig the votes. http://www.juancole.com/2009/10/gross-massive-fraud-in-afghanistan.html Just like the neocons did in the U.S. in 2000.

Why are we still in Afghanistan? The pretense was that we were going into Afghanistan to catch Osama bin Laden, a man who well might be a CIA double-agent. Oops, never did get around to catching him. In fact, it has been reported that the U.S., at the top-levels, gave explicit instructions to allow him to escape by making sure certain areas were not guarded by the U.S., but instead were protected by bin Laden's friends in Pakistan who would guarantee him safe passage.

So why are we still in Afghanistan? Reportedly, in the summer of 2001 the U.S. was trying to negotiate a deal with the Taliban to allow a U.S. oil corporation to build oil pipelines through Afghanistan to run oil out from some of the other stans countries. Afghanistan said no. The U.S. then started a war against them, and continues to occupy their country. The main reason we are still there is to guard the land where the oil corporations want to run their pipelines. They need pipelines so they can transport the stolen oil out to the sea, to be taken by tankers and sold to the highest bidder. Theft and empire are complicated. And expensive.

I heard this morning that the inner-circle in the Obama administration is frantically reading books about the U.S. war against Vietnam, trying to figure out if there are any parallels that can be drawn. How amusing that they are actually looking at history. How sad that they don't already know it.

The Obama administration and the Democrats will keep the war in Afghanistan going forever in order to avoid being called "losers," and thereby being thrown out of office by an angry and murderous portion of our citizenry. They needn't worry, because by keeping this war going, they are guaranteeing they will be thrown out of office by an angry and murderous and bankrupt citizenry that will finally realize that the cost of empire is -- everything they own.

$228 Billion dollars pissed away in a sandbox. And I'm not even bothering to mention the thousands of children we have blown apart and dismembered by dropping bombs on their homes, the thousands of people who are refugees, live with nothing, are starving, have no clean water, no medical, no hope, no protection, live in constant terror and deprivation caused by the U.S. War against the people of Afghanistan. A war which was wrong from the beginning, has been wrong throughout, and which the Democrats have enthusiastically supported from the beginning in exchange for big bribes they get from the defense industry.

The cost of both of the current wars, against Afghanistan and Iraq, has just reached One Trillion Dollars. While all our money, the wealth of our nation, our taxdollars, our savings, our future, has been pissed away by the politicians on needless wars, we folks back at home are beginning to pay the price.

Unemployment is officially 10% which means it is actually closer to 20% when you include people who have been forced out of full-time work and into part-time work, which does not earn them enough money to pay their bills, and you include people whose unemployment compensation benefits ran out, but they still don't have a job.

Foreclosures continue, the banks are hiding the actual number of homes they have taken back so they can try to artificially boost up the fair market value of the homes they list, once again suckering people into paying more than they can afford for shelter. If the banks listed for sale all of the homes they have taken back in foreclosure, the value of housing would fall dramatically.

There is no help -- none -- for people who can no longer afford housing. While the Democrats were handing out billions to their friends on Wall Street, they set up some stupid little program with paltry funding, and said that would help people in foreclosure, but it has done nothing to help the people.

Food banks are overrun by people who cannot afford food. And tens of millions of Americans cannot afford healthcare or, if and when they get sick, will end up losing everything they have trying to pay the doctors and the drug companies. Yet the Democrats refuse to provide us with a national healthcare program. They oppose "socialized" medicine, yet they are running a "socialized" criminal enterprise by which they allow the corporations to steal all our money and give a percentage to the politicians, sending ther members out to collect the payoffs from the criminals in wall street, while the citizens of this country fall into a pit of despair.

The Democrat who recently said that the Republican healthcare plan was that if people get sick, they should die quickly. He should have added that the Republicans and Democrats together have an economic plan which is that the people of this country should find a space on the sidewalk where they can sleep, and get up early to go dumpster diving to get some food.

One Trillion Dollars of our money, the citizens' money, the taxpayer's money, thrown away on pointless wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, wars designed to let oil corporations steal the oil from other countries, wars designed to let the defense industry steal every panny of our money, while politicians in both parties get rich taking bribes and kick-backs. Chuck Schumer, leading liberal Democrat, is the biggest recipient of money from Wall Street in Congress. Bag man, in other words, for the Democrats. Rahm Emanuel, practically running the white house if you listen to him, was formerly the biggest recipient of Wall Street money when he was in Congress. Is there any wonder that the citizens are broke when the criminals steal our money and then pay off our politicians to avoid prosecution?

So Happy Anniversary America. Eight Years of Murder, Mayham and Corruption. Oh well, at least it's a Bi-Partisan War. That should make Obama happy.