Libya no-fly: $15 billion per year. Hungry children: shared sacrifice.

[MannyGoldstein]

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/149095-defense-think-tank-libyan-no-fly-zone-could-cost-up-to-300-million-a-week">Defense group: Libyan no-fly zone could cost $300 million a week

Establishing and taking control of the skies over Libya could cost the Pentagon up to $300 million a week – or around $15 billion a year – under mission scenarios formulated by a top Washington defense think tank.

The proposed cuts in WIC to prevent malnourished mothers and children amount to half of that cost. Wheeeeeeeeeeee.......

And our last no-fly adventure (Iraq) ran for about a decade, and turned into a multi-trillion-dollar war, so we're looking at some serious change here. (No, no that kind of change.)

I'm looking forward to an even-more-serious adult conversation where I can here about the shared sacrifices that need to be slashed from the poor, and from Social Security in order to pay for this. Meanwhile, the arms makers and their bankers will be feted at the White House in glorious affairs attended by all the very best people, drinking the finest wines and feasting on sumptuous meats.

Welcome to America, 2011.

[rug]

1. Why not just give them $15 billion to split if they stop fighting.

[katnapped]

2. Exactly what I'd been thinking

What will us pee-ons be shamed into sacrificing to pay for this?

[MannyGoldstein]

3. Ah, the unrec-ers are voracious

I'm flattered.

[dipsydoodle]

6. Probably the very same people

who whine incessantly about the cost of fuel amongst other things.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Misplaced priorities.

So what's new.

[malaise]

5. Imperialism on steroids

War profits forever!!!
:puke:

[Donnachaidh]

7. I've been mulling this over too this morning

And while I'm rooting for the rebels, I -still- see overflowing parking lots at the labour office, and lines out the door at our local foodbank.

But hey, our pres can fly off to Rio to give a speech, while the Pentagon is short-stroking it about opening up yet another war.

We're just the villagers the royals squeeze for pocket change. So -they- can polish their legacy and continue to allow the beatdowns on the populace by banksters and other corporations.

Change we can believe in, right? :sarcasm:

[MannyGoldstein]

8. If only we knew that the rebels were an improvement

Washington and Franklin were rebels once. So were Gaddafi, Saddam, and Hitler.

[Donnachaidh]

12. personally, our government doesn't give a shit who runs the country

As long as our oil companies have access to the oil fields. We all know that. This is probably looked at as a good excuse to get rid of that crazy sob now.

But how many are going to wind up homeless and hungry while we protect oil fields for companies that pay virtually no taxes?

[gratuitous]

9. Don't be so negative: The no-fly zone won't last for anywhere near a year

When it hasn't worked in three weeks or six weeks or some other artificial deadline (and it will for sure be less than a year), we'll be hearing the "we're the only country that can . . ." or "our national credibility is on the line if we don't . . . " You'll see a whole bunch of new ads for the military. Snappy uniforms. Soaring music. And hoo-ha! Johnny goes marching off to war again.

So that $15 billion price tag for a year's worth of no-fly zone? Chump change. We'll be spending at a rate four times that much on Libya by December 31, 2011.

[Spider Jerusalem]

10. These scenarios probably make faulty assumptions.

Which would be: a) the US will bear the brunt of enforcing the no-fly zone including sending a carrier battle group for basing (not true; at present there's a significant commitment of forces from the UK and France with smaller contingents from Denmark, Canada, and several other countries, and France and Italy are providing bases on the Mediterranean; the RAF also has a base in Cyprus, and another at Gibraltar; the RAF and French Air Force have midair refuelling capability as well.) and b) that the situation would go on for that long (which it won't).

[Fumesucker]

11. "No one could have predicted."

Will be the operative phrase five years from now while we are still militarily engaged in Libya.

Seriously, hasn't that become a bit of a one note samba by now?

[Aerows]

18. I'm waiting for that one, too

"No one could have predicted".

Sorry, poor children and people dying in the US from lack of medical care. It's far more important for us to get involved in yet another war in the Middle East than it is to worry about you!

[Ikonoklast]

21. Stop making sense. You're harshing the vibe.

Libya is the EU's problem, and for the most part, the EU will bear the brunt of trying to solve it.


But most here will ignore that.

[chill_wind]

13. Aw, buck up Manny. It'll be a cake walk.

Two-three weeks. Liberators. Flowers on our tanks. Bringin democracy and spreadin freedom.
You're with us or against us!

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

14. when you're so extreme in your beliefs that you piss on an international effort to save people from

imminent slaughter, you have gone off the deep end.

Welcome to Lunacy, 2011.

[MannyGoldstein]

15. Iraq was an international effort to save people from slaughter, too

"Doing something" is not the same as "improving the situation".

If we knew it would work, I'd be all in favor.

[ReturnoftheDjedi]

17. This is not even close to Iraq. There was no Civil War there.

Iraq wasn't a mercy mission.

It was a Neo-con Daydream.

[chill_wind]

16. The "Do-Something" Neocons have it all figured out, surely.

Libyan Intervention Ratcheted Up By “Do-Something” Neocons
By: David Dayen Thursday March 17, 2011 11:29 am

http://news.firedoglake.com/2011/03/17/libyan-intervention-ratcheted-up-by-do-something-neocons/


http://crooksandliars.com/jason-sigger/neocons-want-war-libya

[Distant Observer]

19. Libya is a 5m pop country with only 2 major cities, but $TRILLIONS. of untapped OIL and GAS reserves

The WESTERN powers will easily destroy the regime militarily. The only thing they have been waiting for over the last 40 year
has been world opinion and a suitable alternative Gov to put in place. Now they think they have
both.

[pampango]

20. This might be the best use of $300 million a week in the whole defense budget.

They should take the $300 million out of their budget not from social programs. The issue is not so much $330 million a week spent in a UN-sponsored operation to protect civilians, but the trillions wasted on other military expenditures including unilateral military adventures and unneeded and unwanted military hardware.