Let's take a moment to look at our last war against an ideology and compare with our current ideological war with particular focus on how much of our funding is vanishing, even according to our own Department of Defense records.
The following is conservatively accepted history of the Vietnam War; that is, information in agreement with admissions from our own government reports and unchallenged (as far as I know) by any professional historian. The understanding of this history by those of us who study it does not guarantee that many Americans will recognize the poignant facts. Please feel free to verify these high/low lights. In one paragraph:
After the “War to make the World Safe for Democracy,” Ho Chi Minh’s petition for a democratic Vietnam was denied by the victors of WW1. Vietnam remained under France’s dictatorship for economic and political colonial domination. The US supported Minh during WW2 in his guerilla warfare against Japan, only to deny his petition for Vietnam’s independence at the end of the war. The US paid for up to 80% of France’s military costs to keep Vietnam enslaved by the French. The US supported the cancellation of an ELECTION in Vietnam when it became clear that Minh’s socialistic economic plan was more popular than a Western-friendly leader. The Vietnam War exploded with McNamara’s contrived reporting of the Gulf of Tonkin incident; manipulated intelligence at best, and an outright false-flag attack at worst. The war escalated with invasions and attacks into Laos and Cambodia, dropping more bombs than from all sides of WW2 combined on a country smaller than California that killed perhaps 10% of their civilian population – 3.5 million. The irrational goal was to “defeat terrorism”, excuse me, “defeat communism” by winning the hearts and minds of civilians while we killed over 1,000 civilian children, women and the elderly daily through high-altitude bombing. The war only ended through massive US demonstrations.
What were we really buying with this war given the above facts?
Through our own government’s admissions, all the reasons to go to war in Iraq in 2003 were known to be false at the time they were told to the American public. If you’re not sure about this, your ignorance contributes to continuing misery for millions of your fellow human beings. Harsh but true, yes? To read our own government’s reports and evaluate the evidence for yourself, either read the evidence in smaller sections here, or the entire brief. The war in Iraq has now shifted emphasis to Afghanistan and Pakistan and maintaining its high level of funding. Obama’s stated goal is to “defeat Al Qaeda.” The strategy includes high-altitude bombing, “prolonged detention” (and video here), and torture as conservatively defined by existing case law. The long-term costs according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard’s Linda Bilmes will be greater than $3 trillion.
What are we getting for our money given the avalanche of verifiable facts falsifying the government's explanations?
Included with what we’re buying are two items we should more greatly appreciate: an international reputation and undisclosed Black Operation projects. The UN Charter, a current Treaty in Force registered in our State Department, outlaws all war other than defensive. Vietnam posed zero risk to US national security – how was a new democracy under UN-supervised elections a threat just because they promised a higher level of taxes and government services followed by further elections if the people wanted change? According to the unanimous reports of all 16 US Intelligence Agencies in their October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, Iraq posed no threat to US national security. The reputation we are collectively buying is that the US is an international aggressor, for the rule of international law that the US signed as treaties and approved in the Senate is that non-defensive wars not authorized by the UN Security Council are Wars of Aggression. The second underappreciated item is that the wars might be an excuse to frighten the American public into paying for secret government projects. News to you? Better read our own government disclosures that perhaps 25% of all money going to military projects is being skimmed to go somewhere else and watch this 3-minute CBS report.
Trillions of our dollars are vanishing from official Defense Department accounting books. It’s tremendously important to know what we’re buying in our wars. It might be even more important to disclose what we don’t know we’re buying. For additional information, try here.
Thank you for all you do to demand accountable government limited by the US Constitution.
As always, please share this information with all who say they want to be accountable citizens.
Comments
Carl,
Great article and thanks for doing the research. That's the 1st I recall hearing about a missing $2.3 trillion. And that information came directly from Donald Rumsfeld's own mouth, as shown in the video. Apparently that $2.3 trillion got lost in the shuffle after we invaded Iraq. (Kind of like the Al-Qaqa explosive cache).
We're destroying both our international reputation and our military reputation by continuing wars we can't win, and wars that would have little benefit even if we did win.
It was $2.3 Billion w a "B" not TRILLION
The entire Iraq War from Mar03 to July08 cost about $660 Billion w a "B" according to the Congressional Research Service's 2008 report.
Opponents of the war (consummately prone to distorting facts to fuel their catalyst for venting Bush hatred and political partisanship) often linked the cost of the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and the global war on terror together. By late 2006, some defeatists had taken the sum of all those operations and argued that the cost was likely 3-5x more ($2 TRILLION w a "T"), but those numbers weren't even speculation; just pure propaganda/deliberate distortion for sake of politics.
Thanks, Mike.
Scott, thank you for expressing the true character of many enthusiasts for the current wars. Yes, I'll stand with two professional's LONG-TERM cost analysis over your apparent confusion between expenditures and long-term costs:
"The long-term costs according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard’s Linda Bilmes will be greater than $3 trillion."
(1) "The UN Charter, a current Treaty in Force registered in our State Department, outlaws all war other than defensive."
Nice try, but Saddam bought off France, Germany, Russia and China with lucrative oil deals. Remind me again why we should even bother to listen to what the UN says? Europe is practically in the pockets of the Middle East - don't believe me? How about the recent release of the Lockerbie bomber? The UK did it to appease Muammar Khadafy so that he wouldn't block UK oil contracts. Europe has always kow-towed to aggressive powers and we have always bailed them out.
2. You're estimation of the "war on terror" expenditures is a gorss exaggeration. Furthermore, we spent roughly 1.3 TRILLION (not even counting outlays to state governments!) on entitlements last year! Defense was only 613 billion. And NOW Obama has put us on track to be 9 trillion in debt! Where's your fiscal concern NOW???
Many in the 9/11 truth movement were the ones to expose this information. It was September 10th that ol Rummy went on TV to say 2.3 trillion was missing from their records. Only on the 10th, would something so big become so small on the 11th. He knew what was happening on 9/11 just like Cheney, Gulianni, and Lary Silverstein.
Part 2 of 2: Eugene, why we need the legal agreement to prevent Wars of Aggression is because you and I were born in a century of over 100 million humans killed in world wars. We need the rational limitation of Wars of Aggression to prevent people like the leadership of the Democratic and Republican parties, and people like you, from unleashing the hell of war.
Eugene, you should read the professional LONG-TERM cost analysis by a Nobel Laureate in Economics and a Harvard professor in that field and criticize them, if you can, not me. You should read my article on reclaiming a trillion every year through monetary reform. This ends the national debt and deficit spending. I agree that Obama is a tool of the plutocrats. I just see the leadership of both parties as the left and right sides of the same oligarch.
Part 1 of 2: Hi Eugene. Are you referring to the “oil for food” scandal? In my article on Iraq WMD evidence part 2: “What isn’t discussed is that the agency of the UN managing this program that diverted funds to Saddam was the UN Security Council. A principle member of the Security Council is the US. Another guilty party was Chevron, who paid a $25 million fine in response to being charged under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. ”
Sure, Eugene, I’ll remind you. First, if a nation is under attack or under imminent threat of attack by another nation, the UN Security Council isn’t needed. Self-defense is legal, but the US didn’t even submit an argument of imminent threat while all 16 US intelligence agencies in the October 2002 NIE concurred that Iraq posed no imminent threat even if they had the chemical and biological weapons that the US originally gave them.
Reportedly, the area of the Pentagon that was hit was where the auditors looking for the missing money were sitting. It would have been far easier for the incoming aircraft to hit the area where Rumsfeld and the Generals were...
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