Where are the anti-war protestors?
Posted by Mike Sylvester - 9/19/09 @ 11:46 am - Filed Under National Politics
Many liberal groups (Often supported by Democrats) staged large anti-war rallies while former President George W. Bush was in office. Many of these rallies were large and many of those on the left made their hatred of this war known far and wide.
The unpopular conflict in Iraq is certainly one of the items that helped the Democrats gain majorities in the House and Senate in the 2006 mid-term elections, and the general anti-war sentiment helped the Democrats expand their house majorities in the 2008 election and gain the Presidency.
Since President Obama has been in office our troop levels in the middle east have INCREASED by 13,000 troops.
Where is the outrage from the left and from Democrats?
Is it OK to increase troops as long as Democrats are in charge?
Consider the funding of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan:
Fiscal year 2001 and 2002, 22 billion dollars Fiscal year 2003, 68 billion dollars Fiscal year 2004, 90 billion dollars Fiscal year 2005, 106 billion dollars Fiscal year 2006, 121 billion dollars Fiscal year 2007, 171 billion dollars Fiscal year 2008, 183 billion dollars (Democratic Majority) Fiscal year 2009, 157 billion dollars (Democratic Majority) Fiscal year 2010, 130 billion dollars projected (Democratic Majority)
Please realize that the Federal fiscal year ends on September 30th of the year. For example fiscal year 2009 ran from October 1st, 2008 through September 30th, 2009.
In 2009 in real terms (adjusted for inflation) the cost of these conflicts will officially exceed the cost of the Viet-Nam conflict! At this point the only war that has been more expensive in terms of money spent is World War Two.
Realize the the above numbers only count explicit costs. They do not include the future costs of health benefits for wounded soldiers, etc. The above costs also do not consider the fact that this money was all borrowed. We have to pay it back with interest…
Casualties are an even larger concern. Through today the US has had 4344 members of the military killed in Iraq and 838 in Afghanistan. We also have 31,494 soldiers who have been wounded in Iraq and well over 5000 wounded from Afghanistan.
Fewer of our soldiers are currently being killed in Iraq; in 2007 we lost 904, in 2008 we lost 314, and year to date we have lost 123 so far.
Unfortunately more of our soldiers are being killed in Afghanistan; in 2007 we lost 117, in 2008 155, and 208 have been killed so far this year.
Where is the outrage from the left? Where are the anti-war protesters?
According to recent media reports the US military may request that another 45,000 troops be sent to Afghanistan.
I was against the invasion of Iraq back when we invaded them. I wanted to bring our troops home in a somewhat rapid manner when former President George W. Bush was in office. I still want to bring our troops home in a somewhat rapid manner now that President Obama is in office.
I can more understand us going into Afghanistan; however, I am against an occupation of that country as well. I would have understood sending special forces and other covert operatives into that country to kill terrorists; however, I oppose an invasion and military occupation of that country.
We need to pull out of both countries immediately. I think we should pull out our troops over maybe an 18 month time period.
I opposed these conflicts with former President Bush was in office and I oppose them now that President Obama is in office.
The Democrats who protested these conflict under President Bush have apparently changed their minds now that we have Democratic majorities in Congress and a Democrat in the White House.
Good Grief…
Mike Sylvester
Comments
6 Responses to “Where are the anti-war protestors?”
Leave a Reply
LBJ seemed to have gotten away with a lot in his mismanagement of the Vietnam war. Seems to be symptomatic. LBJ=OBAMA? From a management style there may be some truth to that.
Luke;
We have had several terrible Presidents in the last few decades. In my opinion there are four that were REALLY bad and they were: LBJ, Nixon, Carter, and W. Bush. I am not sure which of them I dislike the most; however, I think all were terrible.
Notice that of the President’s I really dislike two were Republicans and two were Democrats…
I am not sure where President Obama will fall, it is hard to tell. I think he is on pace to join the four above as a terrible Preisdent; however, he has only been in office seven months so it is way too early to judge him…
Mike
Reminds me of a line from The American President:
Leon Kodak: You see, the country has mood swings.
Lewis Rothschild: Mood swings? Nineteen post-graduate degrees in mathematics, and your best explanation for going from a 63 to a 46 percent approval rating is mood swings?
Leon Kodak: Well, I could explain it better, but I’d need charts, and graphs, and an easel.
Regarding the anti-war demonstrations: mood swings.
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2009/09/murtha-no-more-troops-for-afgh.html
Often people will overlook the President’s foreign policy if they benefit from his domestic policy.
I guess they were just opposed to killing the Iraqi brown people. But those Afghani brown people, maybe they just had it coming?
We should bring all the troops back now. And while we’re at we should bring back the troops we have stationed in Germany, Japan, Korea, etc.
Besides who are we going to send to kill the Venezuelan brown people when the time comes?