OT: New book "We Meant Well"

[Higgs Boson]

Not going to weigh in on that endless "Lib" thread which I started sometime back in the Pleistocene..Bobby G. is holding his own. But Bobby, mon cher, you're dealing with people who are off in their own fantasy world. More power to you for hanging in there -- but they need their myth.

NOW: Addressing the obscene costs of the "wars" in AfPak, a new book has just come out, title as in subject. It gives chapter and verse, from an eyewitness and (unwilling) participant, on how our tax dollars are spent Over There. Money that should be going to your children's schools, inter alia. Not to mention care for the heroic

9/11 First Responders who are being screwed by subhumans such as Eric Cantor and his ilk, who are holding care hostage for cuts in the most- needed social programs.

Book is a classic indictment of stuff that we do FOR OURSELVES, not for the objects of our largesse, due as always to our near-total ignorance of our vis-a-vis. The few who, like author of ""We Meant Well"" try to deal in reality, are quickly sidelined, if not worse.

Scroll down to the media interviews, of which I heard one live, in excruciating detail.

HB

[Higgs Boson]

This is a good link. Transcript of important passages.

HB

[HeyBub]

There's the fatal flaw. There is NO evidence that had the money not been spent on wars, the funds would have gone to other, worthwhile, endeavors like the Battle Monuments Commission or establishing a national stickiness scale for glue products.

Our government does not tally up how much money is coming in and then decide how to divvy it up. Our government decides how it wants to spend money and then, well, spends it. That more money is not devoted to schools or first responders is a reflection that the public - or at least the legislators - don't WANT to spend more money on classrooms for firefighters.

[Country]

Libs were called traitors for being against those wars and now ole Higgy comes on here complaining about both "obscene cost of war" and libs.

And we are still complaining about those wars even tho a Dem is in the White House. I hardly saw a single conservative except for Ron Paul complain about those expenditures when Bush was in office.

-C-

[Higgs Boson]

Oh, please! You need to get a handle on the AMOUNTS being pissed away Over There. We are talking over a trillion! See Congressional Research Service table, projecting through FY 2012 -- $1.414.48 BILLION, or over ONE TRILLION FOUR HUNDRED FOURTEEN BILLION!

The public ***does not know*** where the money is going. I suspect some, if not most, legislators don't know either. They are just afraid to not keep funding AfPak. Or rather, the Chinese keep funding it, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will still be paying.

If the public had a clue as to what the govt -- the runaway military and the corporate contractorate and their lackeys in Congress-- are spending, they might even rouse themselves from their somnolence. But probably not enough to throw the Congressional rascals out, and deal with the corporate plutocracy.

HB

[Frank]

That leaky toilet of yours - did you plug it with your head?

[trader4]

I'd say the other fatal flaw is that Eric Cantor is not holding up any funding for 911 responders. That funding was passed months ago, as I recall. Also, it's easy to come up with a long, long list of totally stupid lib programs the govt is spending money on. So, why single out Afghanistan to bitch about? We just saw $500mil go down the lib rat hole at Solyndra. Why not ask why that Solyndra money did not go to 911 responders, vets, etc?

[trader4]

The public has figured out that govt spending and this administration are out of control. It started with Scott Brown's election. It continued with the Congressional whooping of the last 75 years last Novemeber and the recent loss in NYC of Anthony SeeMy Weiner's seat to a Republican with no politica experience. A seat that had been held by Dems for 90 years.

The only ones who haven't gotten the message are the libs, who focus on only one component of spending, while advocating even MORE spending on more big govt programs. Stimulus 1, $830bil didn't work. So let's do Stimulus light 2, $500bil. That's $500 bil MORE right now. The Afghan/Iraq war cost $1.3 bil over a decade. How's that for getting a grip?

[krw]

Can't tell.

[Higgs Boson]

Ad hominem attacks tell a great deal about their source.

HB