Iraq War Misconceptions
National Review Online has a tremendous piece by Frederick W. Kagan on Iraq. Specifically, the common myths associated with the war that many on the left side of the spectrum continually cite as reasons we have lost, will lose, or must withdraw from the present conflict.
Do the nattering nabobs really know the counterpoint to their arguments? I would think not. So often I see a parroted claim about the war that can be no more supported than the rantings of a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. Conservatives who have conviction but not the knowledge to back it up must educate themselves so as to better exploit this weakness. Liberals who wish to better defend themselves may also find the article useful.
Let's just ignore for now the sobering fact that no amount of information will make any of us actually change our minds, and just enjoy the opportunity to learn.
The article's long, as something like this would have to be, but it's not overlong. Five years of the left pulling out every conceivable objection to the war have left Kagan a big job. He tackles it handily and you should read the whole thing. However, I provide a snippet to draw you in:
The War Costs Too Much
An increasingly popular talking point of the antiwar party is that the war simply costs too much and that we must end it and refocus on domestic priorities. This talking point has a number of variants:The “$3 trillion war.” Simplistic economic analysis declares that the war has cost the taxpayers $3 trillion since its inception, implying that this is a $3 trillion dead loss to the economy — a price too high to pay.
- Modern economics has long understood that the notion of a one-for-one guns-versus-butter trade-off is simply wrong. A high proportion of money spent on defense goes back into the U.S. economy in the form of salaries paid to the more than 5 million Americans employed directly or indirectly by the Defense Department, and payments to the defense industry and the long and complex supply chains from which they draw their raw materials. Military spending has traditionally been a form of economic stimulus, and wars more commonly end recessions or depressions than start them. That’s not a good reason to start a war, but neither is it a good reason to lose one. The impact of the current war on the U.S. economy, finally, is far smaller than the impact of previous major conflicts. Military spending in World War II ranged from 17.8 percent of GDP to 37.5 percent; in Korea from 5.0 percent (in 1950 — 7.4 percent in 1951) to 14.2 percent; in Vietnam from 7.4 percent to 9.4 percent. Current expenditures on the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars bring total defense expenditures to something well below 5 percent of GDP. Even granting the simplistic and misleading $3 trillion figure, $3 trillion is about 5 percent of the nearly $60 trillion American GDP over the five years of the war.
Comments
When government spends money subsidizing any activity this is money, which cannot be spent on something else, i.e., the trade-off prioritizing one program over another. Money that is raised by taxation is taken from people who have earned it and they loose the enjoyment and individual improvement that this sum could have provided. I write this as a general statement not specifically about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In business, this is what is known as an opportunity cost - should you invest money in something that makes 10% or 8%? The 2% difference is the "cost" that you pay in order to meet other demands. Here, the $3 trillion that we aren't going to use on debt reduction is being paid to meet an assumed threat. Only time will tell if this was money invested or wasted.
John
As for 5% being minuscule - that depends on what it buys, doesn't it? If that 5% buys us more stability and greater influence when spent on war than on buying down the debt, then it may very well be worth it. But if it buys us less stability and less influence, then it isn't such a bargain.
John
Traditionally he is right, wars did spur the economy but that was before our government started outsourcing our defense contracts. Also that 5 million people employed by the DoD, that number seems extremely high, im wondering if he included enlisted servicemen. People in the military are employed by the DoD and included in their labor statistics but he really cant include those numbers to support his theory because that money was already going back into the economy before the war. It would be interesting to know how many of those 5 million are civilians and how many of them were hired after we declared war on Iraq. That would be a more telling number then the unspecific number he is quoting.
We can't afford another Jimmy Carter.
John
If it be Treason I'll make the most of it. I never expected Reagan to be perfect, I admire him warts and all. He had the best interest of America in his heart and mind.
FULL COST OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION TO U.S. TAX PAYERS
Illegal Aliens Cause Massive Cuts For US Seniors December 4, 2007
http://rense.com/general79/seniors.htm
1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year.
http://tinyurl.com/zob77
2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html
5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare and Social Services by the American taxpayers.
http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html"
10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two-and-a-half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html
11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border. Homeland Security Report.
http://tinyurl.com/t9sht
12. The National Policy Institute, "estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.
www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf
13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin.
http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm
14. "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States.
http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml
Total cost is a whooping... $338.3 BILLION A YEAR!!!
12 Americans are killed daily by ILLEGAL aliens. Many Children abused daily as well:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53103
Bank of America giving Credit cards to ILLEGAL Immigrants:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/bankofamerica.asp
Social Security Change For 2008
The United States Senate voted to extend Social Security Benefits to Illegal Aliens beginning in 2008. The following are the senators who voted to give illegal aliens Social Security benefits. They are grouped by home state. If a state is not listed, there was no voting representative.
Alaska: Stevens (R)
Arizona : McCain (R)
Arkansas : Lincoln (D) Pryor (D)
California : Boxer (D) Feinstein (D)
Colorado : Salazar (D)
Connecticut : Dodd (D) Lieberman (D)
Delaware : Biden (D) Carper (D)
Florida : Martinez (R)
Hawaii : Akaka (D) Inouye (D)
Illinois : Durbin (D) Obama (D)
Indiana : Bayh (D) Lugar (R)
Iowa : Harkin (D)
Kansas : Brownback (R)
Louisiana : Landrieu (D)
Maryland : Mikulski (D) Sarbanes (D)
Massachusetts : Kennedy (D) Kerry (D)
Montana : Baucus (D)
Nebraska : Hagel (R)
Nevada : Reid (D)
New Jersey : Lautenberg (D) Menendez (D)
New Mexico : Bingaman (D)
New York : Clinton (D) Schumer (D)
North Dakota : Dorgan (D)
Ohio : DeWine (R) Voinovich(R)
Oregon : Wyden (D)
Pennsylvania : Specter (R)
Rhode Island : Chafee (R) Reed (D)
South Carolina : Graham (R)
South Dakota : Johnson (D)
Vermont : Jeffords (I) Leahy (D)
Washington : Cantwell (D) Murray (D)
West Virginia : Rockefeller (D), by Not Voting
Wisconsin : Feingold (D) Kohl (D)
Steve Hampton
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/protectourbordernow
Admin@protectourborder.net
www.protectourborder.net
John
We will have to agree to disagree.
:)
Just trying to keep it civil without being sarcastic. ;)
Otherwise, I'll just keep bringing up Reagan's supplying arms to the same group of terrorists that we are currently fighting every time you bring up Carter's lusting in his heart after Dolly Parton....
John
Sobering indeed. What makes it sobering is the facts being ignored. Hopefully enough middle grounders will hear the evidence and be swayed by reason. Hopefully the party of defeat will be roundly exposed for ignoring the facts and standing on hypocrisy for their points of argument and debate.