May 11, 2010
Tomgram: David Swanson, Did You Say $33 Billion?
In case you hadn’t noticed, our Afghan War, like some oil-slicked bird in the Gulf of Mexico, has been dragged under the waves. It’s largely off front pages and out of the TV spotlight (despite the possible linkage of the Times Square failed car bombing to the Pakistani Taliban). As a result, most Americans undoubtedly have little idea just how large the American war effort there has grown. The president’s massive surge -- not just of troops, but of State Department civilians, CIA agents, drones, contractors, base building, and who knows what else -- is actually going (if you’ll excuse the phrase) great guns.
As it turns out, however, not everyone is quite as enthusiastic about the surge as Washington. NATO allies have not provided the expected number of trainers for the Afghan police and military in the expected period of surge time. They're dragging their feet over a war that is far less popular and more controversial in Europe than here. Because the almost hopeless task of standing up a vast, effective Afghan military (which that impoverishe d country has no way of affording) and an incorruptible police force (an oxymoron when it comes to Afghanistan) is considered so crucial to Washington's war strategy, the Pentagon has stepped in. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently announced a further micro-surge. It seems that 850 U.S. military trainers will be dispatched to Afghanistan, supposedly for only 90-120 days, as a “stopgap measure.” This evidently doesn’t qualify as an actual part of the surge plan -- or as much in the way of news. On the heels of another grim Pentagon assessment of the war effort, the Obama administration continues to escalate.
And consider this proposition: no one ever surged for free. Or how about, in Field of Dreams movie-style, this: If they surge, sooner or later we must pay.
During the 2008 election campaign and after, Barack Obama promised that he would turn off the well-paved war-funding road the Bush administration had driven down many times in which requests to Congress for more war-fighting money were made as “supplementals,” outside the annual Pentagon budget request. Once Obama decided to surge in a big way, however, it was a foregone conclusion that that vow would be broken. And, though (again) it’s gotten remarkably little attention, his administration is now asking for an extra $33 billion (plus a couple of billion dollars more for the State Department) to hel p cover soaring Afghan war costs. This is, of course, the proverbial road to Hell, as David Swanson, the author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union, who covers Washington and our wars like a blanket at his website War Is a Crime (formerly After Downing Street), makes all too painfully clear. By the way, to catch Timothy MacBain's TomCast audio interview with Swanson on the media, Congress, and the administration's latest request for escalation funding, click here or, to download to your iPod, here. Tom
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