Over the past several years, we have lost that balance, and failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy. In the wake of an economic crisis, too many of our friends and neighbors are out of work and struggle to pay the bills, and too many Americans are worried about the future facing our children. Meanwhile, competition within the global economy has grown more fierce. So we simply cannot afford to ignore the price of these wars.
All told, by the time I took office the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan approached a trillion dollars. Going forward, I am committed to addressing these costs openly and honestly. Our new approach in Afghanistan is likely to cost us roughly 30 billion dollars for the military this year, and I will work closely with Congress to address these costs as we work to bring down our deficit.
But as we end the war in Iraq and transition to Afghan responsibility, we must rebuild our strength here at home. Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy. It taps the potential of our people, and allows investment in new industry. And it will allow us to compete in this century as successfully as we did in the last. That is why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended – because the nation that I am most interested in building is our own.
No matter what we do in Afghanistan it can't be emphasized enough that we can not just keep spending all this money for that war with no real way to pay for it. There are some jack asses who think we should cut domestic spending to pay for this war abroad. Exactly what kind of sense does that make? As President Obama said in that last line, we should ALL be more interested in building up America than we are about building up Afghanistan. Yeah I know we bombed the shit out of them and we can continue to give them aid. But don't act like they didn't have the option of handing over Bin Ladin and avoiding a lot of that. And rebuilding Afghanistan does not require our troops to be over there in harms way.
Now I for one have thoughts on how a time line might actually be beneficial in building momentum against the Taliban eventually but that is just my opinion and may or may not work out that way. But regardless of all that the one thing that is true is that we can't keep putting this war on a credit card. So unless these same hawks like John McCain who are against a withdrawal timeline are ready to impose a hefty tax increase to pay for these wars, please do us all a favor and shut the fuck up!
It might be nice if some of the outlets who rush to kiss McCain's ass every time there is a decision on foreign policy actually point out that he ALSO was against a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq and was wrong then too. But I know that is just wishful thinking...
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"..I know that is just wishful thinking... "
ReplyDeleteWell, of course. You know how what we believe becomes our reality. "The media" believe that John McCain is his own PR. That he's a wise, thoughtful, even-handed master of foreign policy, instead of an erratic, self-serving, reckless, thoughtless simpleton. Nothing he says or does can easily change that. Factor in the "Emperor's New Clothes" phenomenon and you get what we have - nobody is willing to be the first to go against what Everybody Knows.