A LIBERAL VIEW OF THINGS: Stop our warring ways

This title sounds like a cry from the early 1970s, but the fact remains we’re still fighting wars in underdeveloped countries that continuously drain our treasury and human resources. When will we ever learn? Isn’t there someone somewhere who can influence our “leaders” to disentangle ourselves from corrupt governments and ancient cultures, neither of which we understand?

Who gave us the “Police the World” card? Nobody. We did it on our own.

Yes, we are s-l-o-w-l-y extricating ourselves from Iraq, while the corrupt politicians we put in place still plead for more money and more American lives to risk at their behest.  We’ve been in there longer than in Vietnam. Why doesn’t someone in Washington and/or the Pentagon just order up all the C-17s and fly everybody the heck out of there? The British evacuated an entire army from Dunkirk in three days in 1940. They did it with private pleasure craft as well as the Navy ships they could spare. Three days! It’s still costing us around $2 billion a month in Iraq while we trickle people out of there.

On top of that, we are spending $2 billion a WEEK in Afghanistan. The original goal for invading this hostile, backward country was to defeat the Taliban and capture/kill Osama bin Laden. We helped the Afghans defeat the Taliban in pretty short order, and managed to miss bin Laden the first time at Tora Bora due to Pentagon bungling. We killed bin Laden this year. Mission accomplished, right? Not quite.

We still have to “train” the Afghans to take care of themselves while everybody keeps trying to kill one another along the border with that other wholly "trustworthy" ally Pakistan.

Note:  These tribes have been fighting each other for about 7,000 years.

Ah, Pakistan:  A nuclear power that harbored our arch enemy for eight years. We need friends like this like we need weaker consumer confidence. Two billion dollars per week … Think what it could do here.

The national average salary for school teachers at home is about $45,000 per year.  That means that one week of war could pay for almost 45,000 teachers. The average salary for an employed worker is about $42,000 per year. You get the idea. Think of it, though: A year in Afghanistan amounts to about $105 billion, all of which we borrow from other countries.  Do you think they’d still loan us the money if we invaded them?  One hundred five billion dollars produces 2.5 million jobs. So, if we suddenly made 200,000 soldiers unemployed by quitting these two stupid wars, we’d have enough money to employ 2.3 million additional people out of the nearly 20 million who are still unemployed.

We’re supposed to be a practical nation:  fiscally conservative and frugal in our avoidance of waste – except when it comes to wars and the military-industrial complex. Then we become fiscally irresponsible and radically generous. Why? Isn’t it interesting that almost every state has a major military base and/or factories and businesses that support that complex? I guess it has become political suicide to cut all that military-oriented business, so I guess we’ll just keep wasting our treasure and our people because politicians just can’t say no.

We can now define ourselves as a country that is more geared to blowing up sand than taking care of its citizens and allowing them to enjoy the “pursuit of happiness."  With all the braggadocio about “exceptionalism," I wonder why we are so reluctant to innovate and expand new industries that will serve a much nobler purpose than war.

There are at least a dozen industries in our country just waiting for the capital to employ millions. Instead, we waste it on battle machines and fighters in wars that have long outlived their purpose and usefulness to anyone.

Some military “experts” are suggesting that we remain in Afghanistan for another 10 years.  With the way things are looking in our national finance picture, those troops will certainly come home to a different country.

The next time you contact your Congress critter, mention the numbers:  $2 billion per week for 520 weeks. How many jobs will that money create? Go ahead. Ask him/her.  Then dial 911.

Turner is a retired teacher and industrial engineer who lives near Marble Falls. He is an independent columnist, not a staff member, and his views do not necessarily reflect those of The Tribune or its parent company. "The Voter’s Guide to National Salvation" is a newly published e-book from Turner. You can find it at www.barnesandnoble.com/ebooks. He can be reached by email at vtgolf@zeecon.com.