Cost of war : 225,000 killed .. $ 3.2 - 4 Trillion

[AzariLoveIran]

[the glowing carp]

Bin Laden wins, he has drawn America into a eternal war that feeds it's addiction to Weapon manufacture but at the same time bankrupts the country and leads to the rise of fundamentalism, ie Bachmann, Cain, Palin, Perry etc. Of course in the Fundamentalist race he wins, even more.

From the NYT,

"The clandestine American military campaign to combat Al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen is expanding to fight the Islamist militancy in Somalia, as new evidence indicates that insurgents in the two countries are forging closer ties and possibly plotting attacks against the United States, American officials say.

An American military drone aircraft attacked several Somalis in the militant group the Shabab late last month, the officials said, killing at least one of its midlevel operatives and wounding others."

So we see an expansion of this eternal war into Yemen and now Somalia, breeding new African soldiers who will bring this war back to America one day, so that still more Americans can get upset wondering why somebody would want to bomb them, leading to further expansion, and so on, and so on. In this race of Jihad, the experts win, America doesn't have the experience.

The only solution is isolationism and adoption of sustainable Energy, once America withdraws Militarily from the Globe, like every other country, it can invest this massive expense into development of an economy free from Oil and Coal, thus free from the need for supporting corrupt Medieval enforcers ie Saudi Arabia to protect their supply chain. Of course this won't happen due to corrupt Democrats and Republicans protecting the vested interest of a Trillion dollar Fossil fuel and Arms industry.

American isolationism may well lead to Chinese expansion, as seen in the South China sea, such expansion is nothing in comparison to the the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and the bombing of Libya, Yemen and Somalia, it is high hypocrisy to demand China not expand it's sphere of influence while America expands it's own. Once America withdraws, legitimate claims can be made for China to desist expansion and as China's population becomes more afluent and less prone to Communist propoganda they become more responsive to such calls. There are also old impediments to overt Chinese expansion, India, Vietnam, South Korea and Japan all have vested interest in seeing China in it's current borders.

People may question Vietnams military capabilities against China, the defeat of America by half of the population thirty five years ago should provide confidence in their abilities.

[skyhook77sfg]

the old soldier says:


Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people...

This is one of those times in the affairs of nations when the gravest choices must be made, if there is to be a turning toward a just and lasting peace. It is a moment that calls upon the governments of the world to speak their intentions with simplicity and with honesty. It calls upon them to answer the questions that stirs the hearts of all sane men:

is there no other way the world may live?

AND THIS OLD SOLDIER HAD 5 STARS