Jacqueline Marcus: The Disastrous War Economy, Bread NOT bombs

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Jacqueline Marcus

When I listened to President Obama's Cairo speech, I felt as if we elected our very own Mahatma Gandhi.  Obama reminded Americans and the world that we need to work together for peace.  Unlike most politicians, Obama's speech was authentic, enlightening, and reflective of humane principles, which we longed to hear after eight dark years of shock & awe.

My only complaint is the same complaint being voiced by the majority of Democratic voters.  If President Obama doesn't stop the Bush/Cheney policies of giving 80 percent of our tax dollars to U.S. war contractors while our national parks are forced to shut down because there isn't federal funding for maintenance, while millions of Americans are losing jobs and their homes, in short, while our dysfunctional congress, to borrow P.M. Carpenter's description, continues down the same corporate path of draining every last drop without putting anything back into the nation's public services, no one is going to have the heart and spirit to vote again.

When President Obama announced that they have plans to build new schools and highways in Afghanistan, the obvious question came to mind: Do we have to move to the Middle East to get jobs, new schools and hospitals, to get the benefits of our hard-earned tax dollars?  Obama argued: No government should steal from the nation's treasury.  President Obama cannot have it both ways.

Obama is our last chance.  That's what we repeated during his campaign.

It would be a miracle if our brilliant politicians applied a dash of common sense to the obvious problem: the U.S. occupation of Iraq and escalation of troops in Afghanistan are draining the nation's budget dry.  For example, it never made sense to immediately attack Afghanistan, much less Iraq, from the get-go.  Instead, we should have put our money to work right here in the U.S. by keeping our National Guard at home to secure our borders.  After all, it's called National Guard for a reason, not Foreign Guard.  If you want to solve the Al Qaeda problem in the Middle East, then withdraw from their country i.e., if it's true that "we're not there to exploit their resources."

If you believe that U.S. oil and pharmaceutical corporations could care less about the largest source of oil and opium derived from the notorious Afghanistan poppy fields, then the problem is simple: Send our troops home, stop giving $10 billion in taxes away every month to war contractors and use the money to restore OUR schools, roads, infrastructure, and security.

We all know that Iraq was annihilated because Dick Cheney gave the orders to invade that country; billions of dollars disappeared or were channeled through Halliburton and to war contractors who are still profiting from Cheney/Bush's immoral invasion.  President Obama spoke passionately about the 3,000 Americans that died from the September 11 attack. But eight years later, possibly up to a million Iraqis were killed as a direct result of the U.S. invasion. That's inconceivable genocide -- and, it's worth repeating, those poor people had NOTHING to do with the 9/11 attack, which is perhaps the worst war crime committed in our U.S. history. Hence, the media's audacity of promoting Cheney's torture practices and war profiteering, such as a patriotic ad for the military, are unconscionable and sickening. 

As Michael Winship pointed out in his BuzzFlash commentary, "The Privatization of Obama's War" instead of withdrawing completely from that region of the world, President Obama is still providing the same amount of federal tax dollars to war contractors in the name of Afghanistan.  I didn't buy Bush's line that "We have to get 'em first before they get us..." because it sounded like a brainless, irrational explanation then, and it still does.  So why should I buy it now simply because Obama is repeating it?

Our country is going belly-up.  How many ways can we say it?  This war is breaking our economy from the bottom up.  While working on solar projects in Kauai, I never thought I'd see so many valuable beachfront homes for sale on the north shore.  It's shocking. These folks bought their homes for retirement and now they must sell their homes not because of bad investments or phony loans, rather, on account of a collapsed economy that has far-reaching consequences. 

Since the federal government can no longer provide funding to the states for schools, hospitals, medical, infrastructure, which is what our tax dollars are SUPPOSED to be used for, then the state governments raise more property taxes to try to make up for the lack of federal assistance.

When average, wealthy Americans are forced to sell their most valuable properties, you know that our federal government at every level has been insanely careless, selfish to the core, and absolutely irresponsible by betting/blowing the whole enchilada on this god-forsaken, war-profiteering madness for Cheney's Halliburton, oil, drugs & war contractors.

It MUST stop.  Obama is (or was) our last chance.  That choice is now up to our President.  We did our part by voting Obama in.  If it doesn't stop, I for one, will find it exceedingly hard to vote for anyone again.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Jacqueline Marcus is the author of Close to the Shore (poems) Michigan State University Press and editor of ForPoetry.com. Her political commentaries/letters have been published in BuzzFlash.com, CommonDreams.org, Slate, The Washington Post, New Times' cover story: "The Politics of Restraint," and elsewhere. She taught philosophy at Cuesta College and is currently working on promoting solar energy on the Hawaiian Islands. Solar@GoSolarMaui.com.

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