Lowering America's War Ceiling?

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truth-out.org/lowering-americas-war-ceiling/1312293573

By now, it seems as if everybody and his brother has joined the debt-ceiling imbroglio in Washington, perhaps the strangest homespun drama of our time. It's as if Washington's leading political players, aided and abetted by the media's love of the horserace, had eaten LSD-laced brownies, then gone on stage before an audience of millions to enact a psychotic spectacle of American decline.

And yet, among the dramatis personae we've been watching, there are clearly missing actors. They happen to be out of town, part of a traveling roadshow. When it comes to their production, however, there has, of late, been little publicity, few reviewers, and only the most modest media attention. Moreover, unlike the scenery-chewing divas in Washington, these actors have simply been going about their business as if nothing out of the ordinary were happening.

On July 25th, for instance, while John Boehner raced around the Capitol desperately pressing Republican House members for votes on a debt-ceiling bill that Harry Reid was calling dead-on-arrival in the Senate, America's new ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, took his oath of office in distant Kabul. According to the New York Times, he then gave a short speech "warning" that "Western powers needed to 'proceed carefully'" and emphasized that when it came to the war, there would "be no rush for the exits."

More at the link --

[eleny]

1. amen

[FormerDittoHead]

2. The wars+military *is* the problem. If we "match" military cuts with other cuts, the military wins.

In these post debt crisis days, it's been said that "even" the military "may" be put on the chopping block along with other discretionary spending.

But here's the problem.

If we were to COMPLETELY ELIMINATE ALL the discretionary programs out of the budget (all education, FDA, USDA, EPA, etc) which aren't independently funded (like how Social Security and Medicare are taxed separately) and then match those cuts with the military, we'd STILL be spending more for our military than China and Russia combined.

After WWII, we cut military spending by like 75%!

THAT'S the kind of cuts we need to phase in instead of these other programs which actually DO something for the money...

[ixion]

3. I think he means raising the war ceiling

We already go to war at the drop of a hat.