It was recently reported that the US would scrap or leave around $7 billion dollars worth of war equipment over in Afghanistan. Apparently it's too expansive to ship it all home. Besides, some of it is outdated. So, rather than leave it in working order, they'll blow it up or tear it apart over there. I'm not sure what we're talking about, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess we're not leaving behind or wrecking any B-2 bombers or Nimitz class aircraft carriers. (I did read where some of the items being left behind are newer mine sweepers that cost $1 million each.) Don't get me wrong, $7 billion dollars is a lot of money. I could retire tomorrow if I had that kind of dough. This amount of money is just the tip of our foolish spending over there. Allow me to jog your memory.
It has been reported that between 2003 and 2012, we spent $60 billion rebuilding Iraq. Maybe that figure is slightly lower 'cuz $8 billion just kind of disappeared. Poof. Gone. Now how does that happen? Is this a case of the fox watching the hen house?? By the way, why do we always have to rebuild the places we go and blow up? Is this our attempt at showing the locals that we're really not bad guys? It has also been reported that many of the projects that the money was "supposed" to be used on, were abandoned.
Depending on what source you use, the war could cost US maybe as much as $3 trillion dollars. Now I don't know about you, but I can't afford to pay any more in taxes. Just where do you think we're gonna get that kind of money? We're probably going to borrow it from China, pay interest on it and then what did we get for our time and trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan? We get to feel good about our efforts to bring democracy to that region of the world. Ain't happening folks. Before the last plane leaving there touches down back home, things will pretty much be back to what they know as normal. That part of the world has been fighting for 100's if not 1,000's of years. How silly of us to think we're going to go in there and change them. There are way too many factions that want a piece of the action. The only way they know is to fight. Maybe we should ship the Crips and the Bloods over there. Could throw in MS13 for good measure.
For some reason, president Bush was given a free pass on the war in Iraq. As recently as 6/22/2013 he still defends his decision to invade Iraq. Around 150,000, give or take 15,000, Iraq civilians have died. Over 8,000 US soldiers have died. I still remember him and Tony Blair standing before Congress telling them and US about all the weapons of mass destruction Saddam had. Not one thing was ever found. Not one! So what did we go over there for? Was our intended goal to just free the Iraqi people of Saddam's rule? I think this president Bush felt the prior president Bush didn't finish the job. (He did what he said he was going to do and nothing more.) Lots of people were saying we were in it for their oil. Whether you want to believe it or not, China is getting half of Iraq's oil production and Iraq is one of the worlds highest producing countries! The report I read said 1.5 million barrels a day are going to China, not us. Perhaps we struck a deal with China. We get them access to oil and they take a little off the amount we owe them.
I think if historians ever take a good hard look at how we got into the economic mess of the early 2000 - 2012 years, I think you'll find this little trip into the Middle East was a big part of it. Granted, you don't just wake up one morning and you're fat. We were due for a correction, but this time it's lingering. We really over extended ourselves and maybe the only way out is bankruptcy. Sooner or later the bills will come due. You can't hide forever. China will some day no longer loan us money. Then what do we do? I don't want to sound like an alarmist, but I'd put a little food aside, stack up some firewood and fill a few jugs with water 'cuz one of these days the shit IS going to hit the fan!
Big Dogg Out!
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