Obama on Campaign Trail - Pay Down The Debt by Ending Iraq War?

[texdav]

Originally Posted by afoigrokerkok

You mean the Afghanistan War, not Iraq War. (That's what Obama was talking about...and the Iraq War is already over anyway.)

Anyway, this is hilarious. Ending the Afghanistan War wouldn't even come close to eliminating our deficit - even if we didn't increase spending on other things like Obama wants to do. And, it's even more preposterous to suggest we can "pay down" our $15+ trillion or, by now, maybe even $16+ trillion debt by ending the Afghanistan War.

The Afghanistan War is costing only about $100 billion a year. I think we should get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible and shouldn't even wait until 2014 for other reasons, but getting out would not allow us to pay down our debt, much less allow us to pay down our debt AND spend money on something else. It would do virtually nothing for the debt.

You have that rigt as its nt even busgeted spending.We no long have budegted defesne spendig to really cut much since Clinton idd that when he wqas president;it held to right at 4% of GDP since.They are goigto cut but like CBO warned its not much copared to debt and i can already see people being layed off fight defense budgtet cuts wihich will happen. Just like the base closing where Democrats faught every base closing in their states.

[skoro]

Originally Posted by michiganmoon

Could you please provide a link?

Of course.

The only Republican I could find making a comment was that oil would pay to rebuild Iraq.

I would like you to provide some links to elected Republicans that made such a claim that Iraq's oil would pay for the US to wage the war. Unless you would like to distinguish funding the war and rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure.

Rove Falsely Claims Bush Administration Never Said Iraqi Oil Revenue Would Help Pay For War | ThinkProgress

Maybe you're too young to recall the neocon hype prior to the 2003 invasion. And now you're reduced to arguing over semantics. Elected Republicans aren't the only ones who advocated for the war or influenced the cluster---- that followed.

The statement was made by Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secy of Defense.

He is a leading neoconservative.[5] As Deputy Secretary of Defense, he was "a major architect of President Bush's Iraq policy and ... its most hawkish advocate."

"The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years. Now, there are a lot of claims on that money, but ... We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon."

Paul Wolfowitz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Now if the distinction between "the cost of the war" and "financing its own reconstruction" allows you to avoid some measure of cognitivie dissonance, good for you.

The fact that nothing of the kind occurred reinforces my point that the Bush/Cheney neocons would say (and they did say) almost anything to sell this invasion to the public. And further, ten years later, hyperpartisan Bush apologists are still supporting this disastrous fiasco.

Neither Bush nor Cheney will ever be honest about why they were so eager to invade. Neither will ever justify this ruinous action that served no national interest. They can't. Because there is no ethical justification.

The most plausible explanation is that by invading, Iraq's oil production would be disrupted for a considerable length of time, causing world oil prices to spike. This would benefit big oil, Bush's Saudi pals and Cheney's Halliburton cronies. And this is in fact what occurred. But there was no national interest served and the taxpaying public will be footing the bill for decades to come.

Furthermore, removing Saddam effectively made Iran the power in the Persian Gulf. And we now hear the neocons itching for another war.

All this right wing huffing anfd puffing about debt rings hollow.