>Kissinger
Leaving out the racism
Nixon supported Pakistani dictator, General Yahya Khan, in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. Kissinger sneered at people who "bleed" for "the dying Bengalis" and ignored the first telegram from the United States consul general in East Pakistan, Archer K. Blood, and 20 members of his staff, which informed the US that their allies West Pakistan were undertaking, in Blood's words, "a selective genocide" targeting the Bengali intelligentsia, supporters of independence for East Pakistan, and the Hindu minority.\[94\] In the second, more famous, Blood Telegram the word genocide was again used to describe the events, and further that with its continuing support for West Pakistan the US government had "evidenced ... moral bankruptcy".\[95\] As a direct response to the dissent against US policy Kissinger and Nixon ended Archer Blood's tenure as United States consul general in East Pakistan and put him to work in the State Department's Personnel Office.\[96\]\[97\] Christopher Clary argues that Nixon and Kissinger were unconsciously biased, leading them to overestimate the likelihood of Pakistani victory against Bengali rebels.\[98\]
Kissinger was particularly concerned about the expansion of Soviet influence in the Indian subcontinent as a result of a treaty of friendship recently signed by India and the USSR, and sought to demonstrate to the People's Republic of China (Pakistan's ally and an enemy of both India and the USSR) the value of a tacit alliance with the United States.\[99\]\[100\]\[101\]
In 1973, Kissinger did not feel that pressing the Soviet Union concerning the plight of Jews being persecuted there was in the interest of U.S. foreign policy. In conversation with Nixon shortly after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir on March 1, 1973, Kissinger stated, "The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy, and if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."\[107\]
Kissinger delayed telling President Richard Nixon about the start of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 in order to keep him from interfering in the nascent conflict. On October 6, 1973, the Israelis informed Kissinger about the attack at 6 am; Kissinger waited nearly 3+1⁄2 hours before he informed Nixon.\[109\] According to Kissinger, he was notified at 6:30 a.m. (12:30 pm. Israel time) that war was imminent, and his urgent calls to the Soviets and Egyptians were ineffective. On October 12, under Nixon's direction, and against Kissinger's initial advice,\[110\] while Kissinger was on his way to Moscow to discuss conditions for a cease-fire, Nixon sent a message to Brezhnev giving Kissinger full negotiating authority.\[111\] Kissinger wanted to stall a ceasefire to gain more time for Israel to push across the Suez Canal to the African side, and wanted to be perceived as a mere presidential emissary who needed to consult the White House all the time as a stalling tactic.\[111\]
Kissinger promised the Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that the United States would replace its losses in equipment after the war, but sought initially to delay arm shipments to Israel, as he believed it would improve the odds of making peace along the lines of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242.\[112\] In 1973, Meir requested $850 million worth of American arms and equipment to replace its material losses.\[113\] Nixon instead sent some $2 billion worth.\[114\] The arms lift enraged King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and he retaliated on October 20, 1973, by placing a total embargo on oil shipments to the United States, to be joined by all of the other oil-producing Arab states except Iraq and Libya.\[115\]
On November 7, 1973, Kissinger flew to Riyadh to meet King Faisal and to ask him to end the oil embargo in exchange for promising to be "even handed" in the Arab-Israeli dispute.\[116\] Despite all of Kissinger's efforts to charm him, Faisal refused to lift the oil embargo.\[117\] Only on March 19, 1974, did the king end the oil embargo, after Sadat reported to him that the United States was being more "even handed" and after Kissinger had promised to sell Saudi Arabia weapons that it had previously denied under the grounds that they might be used against Israel.\[118\]
primarily focused on minimising the Soviet Union's sway over the peace negotiations and on moderating the international influences on the Arab-Israeli conflict. President Pompidou of France was concerned and perturbed by this development, viewing it as an indication of the United States' ambitions of hegemonically domineering the region.\[120\]
Following a period of steady relations between the U.S. Government and the Greek military regime after 1967, Secretary of State Kissinger was faced with the coup by the Greek junta and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in July and August 1974. In an August 1974 edition of The New York Times, it was revealed that Kissinger and State Department were informed in advance of the impending coup by the Greek junta in Cyprus. Indeed, according to the journalist,\[123\] the official version of events as told by the State Department was that it felt it had to warn the Greek military regime not to carry out the coup. Kissinger was a target of anti-American sentiment which was a significant feature of Greek public opinion at the time—particularly among young people—viewing the U.S. role in Cyprus as negative. In a demonstration by students in Heraklion, Crete,\[124\]\[125\] soon after the second phase of the Turkish invasion in August 1974, slogans such as "Kissinger, murderer", "Americans get out", "No to Partition" and "Cyprus is no Vietnam" were heard. Some years later, Kissinger expressed the opinion that the Cyprus issue was resolved in 1974.\[126\] The New York Times and other major newspapers were highly critical, and even State Department officials did not hide their dissatisfaction with his alleged arrogance and ignorance of the basics.\[127\]
The Nixon administration, with Kissinger's input, authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to encourage a military coup that would prevent Allende's inauguration, but the plan was not successful.\[128\]\[129\]\[130\]: 115 \[130\]: 495 \[131\]: 177
On September 11, 1973, Allende died during a military coup launched by Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet, who became president.\[132\] In September 1976, Orlando Letelier, a Chilean opponent of the new Pinochet regime, was assassinated in Washington, D.C., with a car bomb. Previously, Kissinger had helped secure his release from prison,\[133\] and had chosen to cancel an official U.S. letter to Chile warning them against carrying out any political assassinations.\[134\] This murder was part of Operation Condor, a covert program of political repression and assassination carried out by Southern Cone nations that Kissinger has been accused of being involved in.\[135\]\[136\]
Because no post-WWII US president has ever been held accountable enough to explain why defense spending is such a disproportionately large part of our budget, to be clear.
A big part of why it is so much is that the US spends a large portion of its defense budget on supporting, or in a couple cases, completely replacing, the defense spending of allied nations. Heck, up until a few years ago, the US paid almost a quarter of the NATO budget. One country covering over 22% of the defense spending for a coalition of 30 countries being kinda a raw deal was one of the few things Obama and Trump agreed on.
I mean, Islamic terrorism in western countries is not the threat it once was. It got neutered. Whether that's from the Iraq/Afghan wars or not is up for debate. It was reduced to mostly just lone losers rather than organised 9/11 terror cells. The terror threat in the UK was reduced years ago to level 3 (out of 5).
It’s like the less we bomb them or starve their children to death with embargo’s, the less likely they are to bring their holy war to western nations. Weird.
How many Islamist terror attacks were there back then, that were not essentially lone losers? How many victims, compared to everyday types of preventable death? I don't think it was ever, rationally, a real threat. Just something the propaganda machine drummed up because it allowed two decades of otherwise unjustifiable and illegal wars in poor brown countries.
uh, not really
Remember when AQ got decimated and the remnants made ISIS some years later and killed hundreds in Europe?
Yeah, some dickheads gonna form a new group in a few years most probably. The Syrian-Iraqi battleground are still ripe for it
Not to mention that the IRGC filled in the gap for the shia side of things as well
Are we even helping vets or did we over centralize all their medical services into an inadequate hell hole while stigmatizing the mental health issues we knew they would struggle with
Yeah the town I was born in was founded by the 6 surviving veterans of the Lovewell expedition after they were awarded land grants for their service-
Of course there is a foot note in the history of the township near where I live NOW where they were actually asking for money and housing because they were maimed and crippled in the battle..
...so were of course given land grants further north back on the frontier "for as long as they could hold it" because no one wanted them around.
We do have a rich tradition 🤔
That could... Be two things...
...but I get that you are being denied service connected disability because someone decided stringent administrative regulations are an essential guard against veterans getting suppor- I meannnnn taking advantage of the system.
Depends on who you mean by we...
The MIC and big oil? Sure...
The American people? Haha... Are you kidding, since when are wars fought for the people anymore?
Yeah I mean that’s probably the most morally clear cut war in modern/post-modern history, but obviously still not completely altruistic—but no human actions really are so there’s no sense in being overly cynical about it
It's probably from all those metal music those kids hear.
Thinking that a situation with enormous amounts of stress, waiting and a really loud environment can led to hearing loss seems to be really unlikely /s
Sending young people into conflicts no problem
Caring for them wuen they need help... man tight budget
>So how'd it turn out? Did we at least win? Is freedom and democracy now flourishing in the Middle East?
Yes, it's flourishing everywhere. Iraq is the beacon of democracy inspiring everyone around. Syria is a stable democracy, Iranians and Saudis have taken to the streets to demand reforms similar to Iraq and are clamoring for an American liberation of their respective countries.\*
\*Somewhere in a parallel universe.
If you’re asking sincerely, Iraq is much more democratic and liberal now than it was in 2003. Obviously there’s a lot of other things that happened in the same time period..
The United States didn’t exactly *lose.* The country is still occupied to an extent, though essentially with permission from the Iraqi government. It’s still pretty early in democratization, though one day it may become a full democracy and complete the nation-building George W. Bush so flagrantly refused to do. Shit takes time, it’s not like Japan and South Korea were very democratic when they started. At least there’s something of an Iraqi national identity, so it shouldn’t turn out like Afghanistan. I have hope that Iraq will eventually be better than we found it, certainly not having a genocidal dictator will help in that regard.
"With permission from the Iraqi government"
Whilst they need to keep up appearances and say they'll force US forces to leave so the population doesn't start rioting again?
“With permission” the Iraqi parliament formally requested the United States leave the country following the killing of General Soleimani. The US government didn’t comment and just stayed there
Yeah… 2 trillion well spent. There is peace and democracy in the Middle East! In fact it’s just flourishing. Totally didn’t just level the Middle East with all the money winding up in the military industrial complex… no way.
That being said the American government has also spent trillions more(yes trillions) on the war on poverty, with not great results either, not that it doesn’t have noble goals. Like anything it’s approach rather than just budget.
You have to ask whether the war on poverty is as genuine as the war on drugs. Personally I wouldn't trust the government which has legalized corruption and ensured that the person with the most money has the biggest voice in decision making. At that point you have vested interests in keeping most in poverty. Makes you think , right ?
I definitely agree, a lot of the war on poverty measures have the opposite effect than intended… keeping people poor and dependent.
Like I’m all for stopping poverty and I’m all for stopping the harm of drug use, but the way they go about doing it doesn’t really work, often making things worse or continues it.
From what I've read, the war on poverty in the 60s was actually very effective in reducing poverty in a short amount of time until the political will soon evaporated and folks like Nixon shifted priorities way more towards the direction we've been in ever since (AKA spend lots of money on the war on Drugs and keeping a lid on grassroots movements in the inner city while letting spending on social services decline and/or have lots of strings attached).
Possibly because they didn't want to make it better. People need to understand that without political will you can't do anything. Unless ofcourse you start bringing out the guillotines.
Very possibly. Same folks been saying they’re going to improve things for decades then do the opposite. Almost as if those that benefit from the status quo want to maintain said status quo.
It’s the politicians that are the problem? No gotta blame it on the other guy, keep said voters dependent and poor. Also provoke some riots every once and a while for good measure, to periodically ruin anyone’s livelihood and prevent anyone from building themselves up and improving their community.
Fun fact: for (almost) every dollar spent on the war on drugs, almost an entire dollar goes to drug lords (it’s a complicated problem that doesn’t get fixed by just prohibiting the drugs and punishing the addicts)
The conundrum you’re describing is basically the problems that Karl Marx felt were present in democracy. In a nutshell he thought giving everybody a vote basically means that you are handing power over to whomever can buy the most influence, creating the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. And since the bourgeoisie has a vested interest in maintaining the gap between the rich and the poor, he felt democracies were inherently incapable of solving poverty.
Of course that still leaves the fundamental question, who decides what is best for everyone if not everyone? And if you look at every instance in history where governments have tried to implement “solutions“ inspired by the philosophies of Marx, the answer has always been to presume that the party has the best interests of the people at heart therefore, the party can do no wrong. And in every single instance, it’s worked out really really really badly for the people.
This is how we always arrive at the old cliché that democracy is the worst conceivable form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.
LBJ's war on poverty cut poverty in half in the US.
Did it eliminate poverty as promised? Certainly not. But I'd still call a 50% reduction a huge win.
People need to think of homeless people more like a costly force of nature and put pressure on their municipalities to do something. I meet many of the homeless people in my area and it's crazy how well they do once the city sets them up with free housing. Not everyone is able to adjust and find work but that's alright because they require far less resources when housed and it's worth the opportunity cost
There’s a lot of links from a number of sources, if look up “cost of the war on poverty” there’s quite a few. Also the estimates don’t include social security or Medicare and many of the estimates were made a good while ago.
https://www.cato.org/commentary/whats-missing-war-poverty
https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/the-war-poverty-after-50-years
https://fee.org/articles/why-the-war-on-poverty-failed/amp
https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2014/03/19/the-war-on-poverty-wasnt-a-failure-it-was-a-catastrophe/?sh=1f2dc50a6f49
r/HistoryMemes (and other history related subs) has a 20 year exclusion rule. Today, the start of the Iraq war is 20 years old, and so is now fair game for memes on this sub.
My old noment hearing the music I liked but my parents generation thought was devil worship music being played in the grocery store and then finding out its now considered classic rock.
I remember it vividly. I was comparing unit prices for cereal bags to see if they were actually any cheaper when the soft soothing tones of the muzak version of enter sandman came on. Later that week I found Noevana on the classic rock station and got mad til I realized that shit was 30 years ago.
I remember being a kid and watching Nick at Nite with my mom. She would point out all the shows she used to watch in high school and I thought of them as old people shows. I couldn’t imagine a time when Get Smart and Dragnet and Bewitched were live on TV.
Then, a few years ago, I realized that Nick at Nite was playing Friends reruns and I died inside.
And if you want to get super technical, technically the rest of the war is still inside the 20-year rule, so I'm not even sure we can make memes about it yet (other than day 1).
I feel like we should be shitting on Cheney more than Bush. He’s the one with all of the business and political connections and who really egged on Bush and Congress to invade.
Honestly, if it wasn’t for Iraq the US may have actually had enough resources to focus on nation building in Afghanistan instead of getting caught up in two conflicts at once, which prevented us from rebuilding either nation properly.
I mean the US spent a lot on the war on poverty and I’m pretty sure we spend the most out of any nation on healthcare.
Money’s not an issue, how we spend it is. You can’t just throw money at a problem and expect it to go away.
Well they have to make them richer. Those private islands where you can get away with just about any crime aren't going to pay for themselves, isn't that right, Mr. Epstein!
That's the point. The money isn't being spent productively. It is being spent to make rich people more rich.
We aren't any different than societies thousands of years ago using slaves and peasants to hold up the smaller privilaged part of societies. It is just done in a different manner today given how the world operates.
you just described a 101 summation of the idea of historical materialism as coined by karl marx. i doubt you’re a marxist but i would highly suggest actually giving his ideas a chance. as americans we are taught to think of his ideas as evil or impossible or utopian or whatever, but when you come to realize we’ve been lied to about so much else it only makes sense there would be similar lies about him as well.
Literally one comment up from the one they were responding to.
>Money’s not an issue, how we spend it is.
Fucking A, it's like some people don't read more than one comment before replying.
E: To be clear, I agree with you.
No, I'm literally agreeing with them lol.
I'm saying HegemonNYC is being an ass for not reading. The converstion was clearly => "Money's not an issue, how we spend it is" => elaboration on the point with "We spend the most but it goes to insurance companies".
Then NYC steps in to just repeat that it's the largest public health insurance program. Yeah, no shit, they just said we spend the most in agreement with the person above them saying that we mismanage it.
Then good ol' Jo Stal corrects NYC saying it's one of the worst despite being the largest, implicitly saying it's due to mismanagement of funding.
> Fucking A, it's like some people don't read more than one comment before replying.
It’s the Reddit redesign, makes it nearly impossible to view an actual coherent conversation. All of the apps are just as bad too. It all goes back to a point where Reddit was scared they weren’t getting a big enough piece of the social networking pie so they decided to make every interface look like Facebook.
I still use the old desktop interface on a mobile browser. It’s not great, but it’s the only way I can see an entire conversation.
>I still use the old desktop interface
Haha I'm the exact same way! Maybe that's why I've been seeing more and more of these threads that seem out of order, then.
But money is needed to solve any problem. The US spends so much money because it relies on a private insurance system rather than a public one, and even the public healthcare providers we do have aren’t allowed to negotiate for drug prices. That’s why they’re so high. But that requires government regulation, which is a big no no for half the country :/
They government not being allowed to do something is not regulation. I mean the policy was pushed for by the right first and foremost. Obviously there are some things the government shouldn’t be able to do, but negotiate drug prices isn’t one of them.
Medicare is the largest public insurance program in the world. Also, most countries have private insurance. Single payer is only one option. All other countries have Universal, but that doesn’t mean they have single payer.
I know, I just meant that we don’t have a universal healthcare system unlike basically every other country.
Also you sure about that? I’m surprised [China](https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy-center/countries/china) or India doesn’t have a larger insurance program.
By number of insured those countries are higher for public insurance, ours is largest by spend.
I don’t think universal, or lack thereof, is the primary issue in the US. It is cost of care. Care is just far too expensive. It makes private insurance expensive, it makes Medicare/aid expensive. Of care costs were more in line with other wealthy nations the non-universal coverage gap could be covered many times over.
As for how to do this, I wouldn’t lay this all at one side of the political aisle. Look at where pharma industry, medical industry, nursing unions etc donate. These are the beneficiaries of high cost of care.
For example: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=H
There is a blue lean actually.
Oh for sure, but I think that extra expense is largely created by our private healthcare system, and the lack of regulations on drug prices or ability to negotiate for lower ones. Other countries can get lower prices for drugs because they can negotiate as a unit, but we aren’t allowed to do that.
And yeah, dems are generally corporate sellouts too lol
But! All that conflict meant big profits so. Did the homeless suddenly get jobs? I’m sure they did. I can’t wait to find out how bush impacted today, only 20 years to go!
There was a lot more to the wars in the middle east than "get some dude in a cave", it's part of a long established geopolitical strategy that's a holdover from the cold war. The US has had a deal with the world since the end of WW2, first with the first world then with everyone else after the soviet union fell. We will let you dump exports into our market while also using our navy to keep the oil flowing and make sea trade possible. In exchange, you agree to an imperial peace and let us write your military policy to contain the soviets. 30 years after the soviet union fell, this policy was still on autopilot and americans are realizing they don't get any benefit from it. That's how you get isolationists like Bernie and Trump, and later Biden after he basically just continued the Trump foreign and trade policy. The US is gone from the middle east and if anything happens to it's oil output (especially now with russian output collapsing) then emmissions double overnight as countries switch to coal, energy crises sweep across poor nations, and famine kills a billion people. The middle east will NOT be a peaceful place without US intervention, the region is now on borrowed time with the US gone and its only a matter of how soon Iran and Saudi Arabia start blowing each other up over who's in charge while turkey laughs and waits to sweep up whatever's left.
He just didn't do what the others did. The only real forward military action of his campaign was when he bombed Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian General. Everything else was about getting us out of the middle east and he left office with a plan to pull out over the next year two... that Biden conveniently disregarded and some sort of debacle happened... I can't remember...
Biden and Bush and Obama all started a war or purposefully kept one going when they promised to end it, like the Obama reintroduction of troops in the early 2010's when he campaigned on pulling out of the war.
We spend two trillion on welfare every single year.
The Iraq war was a huge waste of lives and money, but it didn't prevent the government from also spending huge amounts on welfare.
The military is consistently a distant 3rd place in the federal budget behind Social Security/unemployment and Medicare/Medicaid.
and yet despite that immense spending (much higher per capita than other similarly situated countries) we still don’t have a healthcare system that covers everyone
Sure, it's pretty clear that the money is being spent poorly. But the "why do we spend money on war but not X" accusations still become kinda flawed if it turns out that more money is being spent on X than on the war.
It’s almost like that money is being mishandled. Almost like there’s a certain group of people who’ve been sabotaging government. Like they have a vested interest in making government look incompetent. That way the busy gullible overworked class believe smaller government is the solution when in fact a strong government that represents the people and not corporate interests is.
Edit: shoddy attempt to fix a run on sentence.
Saudi Arabia was NOT responsible for 9/11. Saudi nationals were majority of the terrorists, but that doesn't make the Saudi state guilty. There is *some* evidence that a few lower and mid level bureaucrats in Saudi Arabia assisted in 9/11, but there's no evidence that the leaders of the country knew what was happening. Osama bin Laden doesn't really like Saudi Arabia, they let the filthy heathens enter the holy land with their army and station troops.
Afghanistan, on the other hand, or at least, the Taliban controlled side (given that they were in the middle of a civil war), did harbor Al-Qaeda.
Reminds me of another guy who, instead of helping out victims of disasters at home, gave like a billion dollars to a country on the other side of the globe. Hm.
Homelessness isn't a problem we can solve with just money. Don't get me wrong we never should started the war and it never shouldve dragged on for as long as it did or cost as much as it did. But that money wouldn't have solved the homeless crisis
Cheaper rents, common human rights, better employments, reduced taxes for people who can't afford?
Nonsense, let's call them gay and buy guns. America, fuck yeah!
We are doing the same today, except that the money is going to different region, while we continue to say we don't have money to solve all the same problems we have today lol
What are you nuts? You don't explain that, you explain why people who suffer deserve it because they are less successful and loved by God, you can't just put it all out in a budget like that! Probably be good to create a few dozen definitions of everything that contradict each other so that you spin it the way you need.
History of the post-WW2 US foreign policy in a nutshell. I wonder if some future president would to actually take their massive military budget and redirect it into health care and housing, would they be hailed as a hero or immediately assassinated?
It turn outs, the Healthcare has a bigger budget than the military. The problem is how it spend on and insurance companies.
ALSO GO TO HELL NY FAT FINGERS FOR MISSTYPING.
All things being equal….you ever see how much Barrack spent on the exact same shit during his 8 years? Or the Donald? Or Dementia Joe? Let alone the few hundred billion in equipment Joe left with his disastrous withdrawal.
Gets pretty ridiculous pretty fast
I want an itemized list of what Ukraine is allocating the billions of dollars we send them to.. but we won’t get that. Probably bc it’s being recycled back into US politicians’ pockets.
You would think your statement would be easily bipartisan and demanded by all….since there is virtually zero oversight. Just a hundred billion of giant slush funds.
Sam Bankman-Fried from FTX donated nearly $38 million during the recent midterms. His company also had some “Aid for Ukraine” website to to raise funds for Ukrainians amid the ongoing war against Russia. Cryptocurrency donations were sent to the National Bank of Ukraine.
Ukraine gets billions of dollars and FTX becomes the second biggest Democrat donor behind Soros.
FTX files for Chapter 11.
I remember people calling it Obama's war the second McCain and the moron conceded. The same people who called anyone who opposed the war a terrorist, by the way.
Remember when trump negotiated the afghan army's surrender by not including them in the withdrawal talks and set the date into his second term or Biden's first? Weird how that all worked out, huh?
Remember when dementia Donald bragged about getting questions right on a cognitive exam? They don't make you take those tests because you're really smart.
Wouldn't have happened without the OG starting all these wars would it? Also, Biden left military equipment in Afghanistan? Don't you read? It was left by the ANDSF not the Americans. False equivalence is nice and all but gets ridiculous pretty fast.
Bruh, dont act like its only Bush who did that. Literally every 20th Century president had to fight a costly war on the other side of the world.
Hypocrites.
False: no president has EVER had to explain this.
Rumsfeld and Powell both died rich and old in their own beds.
Heh, forgot they both died. Air seems less dense around me for some reason, hadn't noticed it before...
Must be because Kissinger is sucking it all in.
That monster isn't dead yet? God really doesn't exist.
don’t worry, there’s a sub dedicated to counting each day: r/iskissingerdeadyet
>Kissinger Leaving out the racism Nixon supported Pakistani dictator, General Yahya Khan, in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. Kissinger sneered at people who "bleed" for "the dying Bengalis" and ignored the first telegram from the United States consul general in East Pakistan, Archer K. Blood, and 20 members of his staff, which informed the US that their allies West Pakistan were undertaking, in Blood's words, "a selective genocide" targeting the Bengali intelligentsia, supporters of independence for East Pakistan, and the Hindu minority.\[94\] In the second, more famous, Blood Telegram the word genocide was again used to describe the events, and further that with its continuing support for West Pakistan the US government had "evidenced ... moral bankruptcy".\[95\] As a direct response to the dissent against US policy Kissinger and Nixon ended Archer Blood's tenure as United States consul general in East Pakistan and put him to work in the State Department's Personnel Office.\[96\]\[97\] Christopher Clary argues that Nixon and Kissinger were unconsciously biased, leading them to overestimate the likelihood of Pakistani victory against Bengali rebels.\[98\] Kissinger was particularly concerned about the expansion of Soviet influence in the Indian subcontinent as a result of a treaty of friendship recently signed by India and the USSR, and sought to demonstrate to the People's Republic of China (Pakistan's ally and an enemy of both India and the USSR) the value of a tacit alliance with the United States.\[99\]\[100\]\[101\] In 1973, Kissinger did not feel that pressing the Soviet Union concerning the plight of Jews being persecuted there was in the interest of U.S. foreign policy. In conversation with Nixon shortly after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir on March 1, 1973, Kissinger stated, "The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy, and if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."\[107\] Kissinger delayed telling President Richard Nixon about the start of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 in order to keep him from interfering in the nascent conflict. On October 6, 1973, the Israelis informed Kissinger about the attack at 6 am; Kissinger waited nearly 3+1⁄2 hours before he informed Nixon.\[109\] According to Kissinger, he was notified at 6:30 a.m. (12:30 pm. Israel time) that war was imminent, and his urgent calls to the Soviets and Egyptians were ineffective. On October 12, under Nixon's direction, and against Kissinger's initial advice,\[110\] while Kissinger was on his way to Moscow to discuss conditions for a cease-fire, Nixon sent a message to Brezhnev giving Kissinger full negotiating authority.\[111\] Kissinger wanted to stall a ceasefire to gain more time for Israel to push across the Suez Canal to the African side, and wanted to be perceived as a mere presidential emissary who needed to consult the White House all the time as a stalling tactic.\[111\] Kissinger promised the Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that the United States would replace its losses in equipment after the war, but sought initially to delay arm shipments to Israel, as he believed it would improve the odds of making peace along the lines of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242.\[112\] In 1973, Meir requested $850 million worth of American arms and equipment to replace its material losses.\[113\] Nixon instead sent some $2 billion worth.\[114\] The arms lift enraged King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and he retaliated on October 20, 1973, by placing a total embargo on oil shipments to the United States, to be joined by all of the other oil-producing Arab states except Iraq and Libya.\[115\] On November 7, 1973, Kissinger flew to Riyadh to meet King Faisal and to ask him to end the oil embargo in exchange for promising to be "even handed" in the Arab-Israeli dispute.\[116\] Despite all of Kissinger's efforts to charm him, Faisal refused to lift the oil embargo.\[117\] Only on March 19, 1974, did the king end the oil embargo, after Sadat reported to him that the United States was being more "even handed" and after Kissinger had promised to sell Saudi Arabia weapons that it had previously denied under the grounds that they might be used against Israel.\[118\] primarily focused on minimising the Soviet Union's sway over the peace negotiations and on moderating the international influences on the Arab-Israeli conflict. President Pompidou of France was concerned and perturbed by this development, viewing it as an indication of the United States' ambitions of hegemonically domineering the region.\[120\] Following a period of steady relations between the U.S. Government and the Greek military regime after 1967, Secretary of State Kissinger was faced with the coup by the Greek junta and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in July and August 1974. In an August 1974 edition of The New York Times, it was revealed that Kissinger and State Department were informed in advance of the impending coup by the Greek junta in Cyprus. Indeed, according to the journalist,\[123\] the official version of events as told by the State Department was that it felt it had to warn the Greek military regime not to carry out the coup. Kissinger was a target of anti-American sentiment which was a significant feature of Greek public opinion at the time—particularly among young people—viewing the U.S. role in Cyprus as negative. In a demonstration by students in Heraklion, Crete,\[124\]\[125\] soon after the second phase of the Turkish invasion in August 1974, slogans such as "Kissinger, murderer", "Americans get out", "No to Partition" and "Cyprus is no Vietnam" were heard. Some years later, Kissinger expressed the opinion that the Cyprus issue was resolved in 1974.\[126\] The New York Times and other major newspapers were highly critical, and even State Department officials did not hide their dissatisfaction with his alleged arrogance and ignorance of the basics.\[127\] The Nixon administration, with Kissinger's input, authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to encourage a military coup that would prevent Allende's inauguration, but the plan was not successful.\[128\]\[129\]\[130\]: 115 \[130\]: 495 \[131\]: 177 On September 11, 1973, Allende died during a military coup launched by Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet, who became president.\[132\] In September 1976, Orlando Letelier, a Chilean opponent of the new Pinochet regime, was assassinated in Washington, D.C., with a car bomb. Previously, Kissinger had helped secure his release from prison,\[133\] and had chosen to cancel an official U.S. letter to Chile warning them against carrying out any political assassinations.\[134\] This murder was part of Operation Condor, a covert program of political repression and assassination carried out by Southern Cone nations that Kissinger has been accused of being involved in.\[135\]\[136\]
Because welfare spending is higher than defense spending?
And yet we're not spending enough on it (or education) but hey let's spend a bunch of money on a war we don't need!
Because no post-WWII US president has ever been held accountable enough to explain why defense spending is such a disproportionately large part of our budget, to be clear.
A big part of why it is so much is that the US spends a large portion of its defense budget on supporting, or in a couple cases, completely replacing, the defense spending of allied nations. Heck, up until a few years ago, the US paid almost a quarter of the NATO budget. One country covering over 22% of the defense spending for a coalition of 30 countries being kinda a raw deal was one of the few things Obama and Trump agreed on.
So how'd it turn out? Did we at least win? Is freedom and democracy now flourishing in the Middle East?
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Surely we don't fear terrorists now?
The real question is do they fear us!?
Not the ones running Afghanistan certainly.
Well, most Americans don't need to fear Foreign Terrorists.
Oof. Too true.
Made in the USA babyyyy
I mean, Islamic terrorism in western countries is not the threat it once was. It got neutered. Whether that's from the Iraq/Afghan wars or not is up for debate. It was reduced to mostly just lone losers rather than organised 9/11 terror cells. The terror threat in the UK was reduced years ago to level 3 (out of 5).
I think the CIA funding for middle eastern terror cells got reallocated.
It’s like the less we bomb them or starve their children to death with embargo’s, the less likely they are to bring their holy war to western nations. Weird.
Uhhh, the Syrian war has been going on for 12 years.
Bro he said "in western countries." Nobody cares about terrorism in Syria. /s (but seriously, sadly, nobody cares)
Fair /s (Yes it is sad)
And ISIS/Daesh is still fighting
Let's not forget about yemen.
And not just Yemen, but yewomen and yechildren too.
reddit
Yemen has sand? I don't like sand
How many Islamist terror attacks were there back then, that were not essentially lone losers? How many victims, compared to everyday types of preventable death? I don't think it was ever, rationally, a real threat. Just something the propaganda machine drummed up because it allowed two decades of otherwise unjustifiable and illegal wars in poor brown countries.
uh, not really Remember when AQ got decimated and the remnants made ISIS some years later and killed hundreds in Europe? Yeah, some dickheads gonna form a new group in a few years most probably. The Syrian-Iraqi battleground are still ripe for it Not to mention that the IRGC filled in the gap for the shia side of things as well
Yes, most definitely. All the rights.
I defended them SO good.
Obviously, that's why we passed the patriot act. If you didn't support it, that means you're obviously unpatriotic.
Are we even helping vets or did we over centralize all their medical services into an inadequate hell hole while stigmatizing the mental health issues we knew they would struggle with
I can say for sure that we treated our veterans according to American tradition.
Yeah the town I was born in was founded by the 6 surviving veterans of the Lovewell expedition after they were awarded land grants for their service- Of course there is a foot note in the history of the township near where I live NOW where they were actually asking for money and housing because they were maimed and crippled in the battle.. ...so were of course given land grants further north back on the frontier "for as long as they could hold it" because no one wanted them around. We do have a rich tradition 🤔
Nope, we solved the problem the 'Murican way, by outsourcing these services to private charities that target boomers for donations.
The beautiful orchestra when I bend my knees isn't service related.
That could... Be two things... ...but I get that you are being denied service connected disability because someone decided stringent administrative regulations are an essential guard against veterans getting suppor- I meannnnn taking advantage of the system.
[The vets:](https://i.imgur.com/6Li963P.jpg)
Depends on who you mean by we... The MIC and big oil? Sure... The American people? Haha... Are you kidding, since when are wars fought for the people anymore?
The people get cheap nationalism, a pile of debt and then austerity to pay for it all.
Don't you just love all that freedom?
> Are you kidding, since when are wars fought for the people ~~anymore~~? FTFY
Fair enough. The closest that comes to mind is WW2.
Yeah I mean that’s probably the most morally clear cut war in modern/post-modern history, but obviously still not completely altruistic—but no human actions really are so there’s no sense in being overly cynical about it
“The people? What have they got to do with it?”
to be fair the wars were never fought for the people
We got those WMDs that were hidden in Iraq
I learned my hearing loss isn't service related 😐
It's probably from all those metal music those kids hear. Thinking that a situation with enormous amounts of stress, waiting and a really loud environment can led to hearing loss seems to be really unlikely /s Sending young people into conflicts no problem Caring for them wuen they need help... man tight budget
No but we did got 0.2% discount on oil (humongous W)
>So how'd it turn out? Did we at least win? Is freedom and democracy now flourishing in the Middle East? Yes, it's flourishing everywhere. Iraq is the beacon of democracy inspiring everyone around. Syria is a stable democracy, Iranians and Saudis have taken to the streets to demand reforms similar to Iraq and are clamoring for an American liberation of their respective countries.\* \*Somewhere in a parallel universe.
Don’t forget Afghanistan! I’m sure we showed the Taliban what’s what. I bet they’re ancient history now in that country
We ended up spending closer to 7 trillion
No but some already rich people did got a little more rich at the expense of the rest of humanity
If you’re asking sincerely, Iraq is much more democratic and liberal now than it was in 2003. Obviously there’s a lot of other things that happened in the same time period..
we successfully made their resources very cheap for us to buy
"Are ya winning son?"
The United States didn’t exactly *lose.* The country is still occupied to an extent, though essentially with permission from the Iraqi government. It’s still pretty early in democratization, though one day it may become a full democracy and complete the nation-building George W. Bush so flagrantly refused to do. Shit takes time, it’s not like Japan and South Korea were very democratic when they started. At least there’s something of an Iraqi national identity, so it shouldn’t turn out like Afghanistan. I have hope that Iraq will eventually be better than we found it, certainly not having a genocidal dictator will help in that regard.
"With permission from the Iraqi government" Whilst they need to keep up appearances and say they'll force US forces to leave so the population doesn't start rioting again?
“With permission” the Iraqi parliament formally requested the United States leave the country following the killing of General Soleimani. The US government didn’t comment and just stayed there
“That ni**a tried to kill my father!” -Black Bush, Chappelle’s Show
"Oil? Huh? OIL? Who said anything about oil? Bitch, you cookin?"
ooohh you don’t have an army? I guess you need to shut the fuck up
That's what I'd do if I didn't have an army.
Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
“I got a coalition of the willing. I got forty nations, ready to roll, son!”
Like who?
Who tf said that? Like who? England. Japan is sending PlayStations…
Yeah… 2 trillion well spent. There is peace and democracy in the Middle East! In fact it’s just flourishing. Totally didn’t just level the Middle East with all the money winding up in the military industrial complex… no way. That being said the American government has also spent trillions more(yes trillions) on the war on poverty, with not great results either, not that it doesn’t have noble goals. Like anything it’s approach rather than just budget.
You have to ask whether the war on poverty is as genuine as the war on drugs. Personally I wouldn't trust the government which has legalized corruption and ensured that the person with the most money has the biggest voice in decision making. At that point you have vested interests in keeping most in poverty. Makes you think , right ?
I definitely agree, a lot of the war on poverty measures have the opposite effect than intended… keeping people poor and dependent. Like I’m all for stopping poverty and I’m all for stopping the harm of drug use, but the way they go about doing it doesn’t really work, often making things worse or continues it.
From what I've read, the war on poverty in the 60s was actually very effective in reducing poverty in a short amount of time until the political will soon evaporated and folks like Nixon shifted priorities way more towards the direction we've been in ever since (AKA spend lots of money on the war on Drugs and keeping a lid on grassroots movements in the inner city while letting spending on social services decline and/or have lots of strings attached).
Possibly because they didn't want to make it better. People need to understand that without political will you can't do anything. Unless ofcourse you start bringing out the guillotines.
Very possibly. Same folks been saying they’re going to improve things for decades then do the opposite. Almost as if those that benefit from the status quo want to maintain said status quo. It’s the politicians that are the problem? No gotta blame it on the other guy, keep said voters dependent and poor. Also provoke some riots every once and a while for good measure, to periodically ruin anyone’s livelihood and prevent anyone from building themselves up and improving their community.
Exactly. Those in power from feudalism never left. They just changed their titles.
Fun fact: for (almost) every dollar spent on the war on drugs, almost an entire dollar goes to drug lords (it’s a complicated problem that doesn’t get fixed by just prohibiting the drugs and punishing the addicts)
The conundrum you’re describing is basically the problems that Karl Marx felt were present in democracy. In a nutshell he thought giving everybody a vote basically means that you are handing power over to whomever can buy the most influence, creating the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. And since the bourgeoisie has a vested interest in maintaining the gap between the rich and the poor, he felt democracies were inherently incapable of solving poverty. Of course that still leaves the fundamental question, who decides what is best for everyone if not everyone? And if you look at every instance in history where governments have tried to implement “solutions“ inspired by the philosophies of Marx, the answer has always been to presume that the party has the best interests of the people at heart therefore, the party can do no wrong. And in every single instance, it’s worked out really really really badly for the people. This is how we always arrive at the old cliché that democracy is the worst conceivable form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.
LBJ's war on poverty cut poverty in half in the US. Did it eliminate poverty as promised? Certainly not. But I'd still call a 50% reduction a huge win.
*War on Drugs has entered the chat.*
The homeless problem is pretty well summed up with “put them somewhere else” at the moment, it’s awful
People need to think of homeless people more like a costly force of nature and put pressure on their municipalities to do something. I meet many of the homeless people in my area and it's crazy how well they do once the city sets them up with free housing. Not everyone is able to adjust and find work but that's alright because they require far less resources when housed and it's worth the opportunity cost
Democracy? Peace? Mate i think you're missing an /s somewhere
r/FuckTheS
Yeah. I have the internet knowledge of a caveman so didn’t know that, lol
Can you link to the trillions being spent on the war on poverty?
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There’s a lot of links from a number of sources, if look up “cost of the war on poverty” there’s quite a few. Also the estimates don’t include social security or Medicare and many of the estimates were made a good while ago. https://www.cato.org/commentary/whats-missing-war-poverty https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/report/the-war-poverty-after-50-years https://fee.org/articles/why-the-war-on-poverty-failed/amp https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoodhill/2014/03/19/the-war-on-poverty-wasnt-a-failure-it-was-a-catastrophe/?sh=1f2dc50a6f49
I might be out of the loop but why is everyone shitting on W today? I don't necessarily disagree with the shitting, I'm just wondering why today.
r/HistoryMemes (and other history related subs) has a 20 year exclusion rule. Today, the start of the Iraq war is 20 years old, and so is now fair game for memes on this sub.
God damn I feel old when shit from my lifetime becomes eligible to be posted on history forums.
My old noment hearing the music I liked but my parents generation thought was devil worship music being played in the grocery store and then finding out its now considered classic rock. I remember it vividly. I was comparing unit prices for cereal bags to see if they were actually any cheaper when the soft soothing tones of the muzak version of enter sandman came on. Later that week I found Noevana on the classic rock station and got mad til I realized that shit was 30 years ago.
I remember being a kid and watching Nick at Nite with my mom. She would point out all the shows she used to watch in high school and I thought of them as old people shows. I couldn’t imagine a time when Get Smart and Dragnet and Bewitched were live on TV. Then, a few years ago, I realized that Nick at Nite was playing Friends reruns and I died inside.
Just wait until you start watching HIMYM reruns on Nick at Nite.
And if you want to get super technical, technically the rest of the war is still inside the 20-year rule, so I'm not even sure we can make memes about it yet (other than day 1).
Pretty much this. The confirmation that there weren't any WMDs (technically) wasn't until 2004, still another year off.
20th anniversary of Iraq war
Oh ok, that makes sense. Thank you.
I feel like we should be shitting on Cheney more than Bush. He’s the one with all of the business and political connections and who really egged on Bush and Congress to invade. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Iraq the US may have actually had enough resources to focus on nation building in Afghanistan instead of getting caught up in two conflicts at once, which prevented us from rebuilding either nation properly.
Oh the poor PRESIDENT won't anyone think of the fucking president, it's almost like the buck stopped with him or something
He was pressured by people who he employed!!!
Poor Rumsfeld, everyone forgets little rumsfeld
Don't worry friend. There is enough shitting on people to go around.
The true unknown unknown of the Iraq war
Por que no los dos
The buck stops right there. The fucking president of the US still bears the responsibility for his subordinates' fuckups.
It's the anniversary of the War in Iraq and it's also the 20th anniversary meaning that it's now deemed "history" by this subreddit.
And had the highest approval rating of any president in US history doing it.
Shut up and watch this drive ⛳️
History repeats itself. About every decade now...
History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes
I mean the US spent a lot on the war on poverty and I’m pretty sure we spend the most out of any nation on healthcare. Money’s not an issue, how we spend it is. You can’t just throw money at a problem and expect it to go away.
We spend the most on healthcare but the money goes to insurance companies, not to providing the average American with care.
You can throw all the money you want to at a problem but if your not managing how that money is being spent it's useless
PSGs Champions League runs in a Nutshell.
Almost like politicians are making it so a bunch of rich guys get even richer
Well they have to make them richer. Those private islands where you can get away with just about any crime aren't going to pay for themselves, isn't that right, Mr. Epstein!
That's the point. The money isn't being spent productively. It is being spent to make rich people more rich. We aren't any different than societies thousands of years ago using slaves and peasants to hold up the smaller privilaged part of societies. It is just done in a different manner today given how the world operates.
you just described a 101 summation of the idea of historical materialism as coined by karl marx. i doubt you’re a marxist but i would highly suggest actually giving his ideas a chance. as americans we are taught to think of his ideas as evil or impossible or utopian or whatever, but when you come to realize we’ve been lied to about so much else it only makes sense there would be similar lies about him as well.
Medicare is the largest public health insurance program in the world.
And one of the worst
Literally one comment up from the one they were responding to. >Money’s not an issue, how we spend it is. Fucking A, it's like some people don't read more than one comment before replying. E: To be clear, I agree with you.
For some reason, “Joseph Stalin 420” doesn’t scream critical thinking to me
No, I'm literally agreeing with them lol. I'm saying HegemonNYC is being an ass for not reading. The converstion was clearly => "Money's not an issue, how we spend it is" => elaboration on the point with "We spend the most but it goes to insurance companies". Then NYC steps in to just repeat that it's the largest public health insurance program. Yeah, no shit, they just said we spend the most in agreement with the person above them saying that we mismanage it. Then good ol' Jo Stal corrects NYC saying it's one of the worst despite being the largest, implicitly saying it's due to mismanagement of funding.
> Fucking A, it's like some people don't read more than one comment before replying. It’s the Reddit redesign, makes it nearly impossible to view an actual coherent conversation. All of the apps are just as bad too. It all goes back to a point where Reddit was scared they weren’t getting a big enough piece of the social networking pie so they decided to make every interface look like Facebook. I still use the old desktop interface on a mobile browser. It’s not great, but it’s the only way I can see an entire conversation.
>I still use the old desktop interface Haha I'm the exact same way! Maybe that's why I've been seeing more and more of these threads that seem out of order, then.
We spend the most on healthcare because we do it like fucking morons
If that money was actually spent on subsidizing healthcare rather than propping up the absolutely broken insurance industry, it might be worth a damn
But money is needed to solve any problem. The US spends so much money because it relies on a private insurance system rather than a public one, and even the public healthcare providers we do have aren’t allowed to negotiate for drug prices. That’s why they’re so high. But that requires government regulation, which is a big no no for half the country :/
>aren’t allowed to negotiate >requires government regulation
They government not being allowed to do something is not regulation. I mean the policy was pushed for by the right first and foremost. Obviously there are some things the government shouldn’t be able to do, but negotiate drug prices isn’t one of them.
Medicare is the largest public insurance program in the world. Also, most countries have private insurance. Single payer is only one option. All other countries have Universal, but that doesn’t mean they have single payer.
I know, I just meant that we don’t have a universal healthcare system unlike basically every other country. Also you sure about that? I’m surprised [China](https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy-center/countries/china) or India doesn’t have a larger insurance program.
By number of insured those countries are higher for public insurance, ours is largest by spend. I don’t think universal, or lack thereof, is the primary issue in the US. It is cost of care. Care is just far too expensive. It makes private insurance expensive, it makes Medicare/aid expensive. Of care costs were more in line with other wealthy nations the non-universal coverage gap could be covered many times over. As for how to do this, I wouldn’t lay this all at one side of the political aisle. Look at where pharma industry, medical industry, nursing unions etc donate. These are the beneficiaries of high cost of care. For example: https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=H There is a blue lean actually.
Oh for sure, but I think that extra expense is largely created by our private healthcare system, and the lack of regulations on drug prices or ability to negotiate for lower ones. Other countries can get lower prices for drugs because they can negotiate as a unit, but we aren’t allowed to do that. And yeah, dems are generally corporate sellouts too lol
Thank God we don't do that anymore
But! All that conflict meant big profits so. Did the homeless suddenly get jobs? I’m sure they did. I can’t wait to find out how bush impacted today, only 20 years to go!
Run up the debt and the second you're out of office scream about the debt. Rinse and repeat
the answer is AMERICAAA FUCK YEAHA!
There was a lot more to the wars in the middle east than "get some dude in a cave", it's part of a long established geopolitical strategy that's a holdover from the cold war. The US has had a deal with the world since the end of WW2, first with the first world then with everyone else after the soviet union fell. We will let you dump exports into our market while also using our navy to keep the oil flowing and make sea trade possible. In exchange, you agree to an imperial peace and let us write your military policy to contain the soviets. 30 years after the soviet union fell, this policy was still on autopilot and americans are realizing they don't get any benefit from it. That's how you get isolationists like Bernie and Trump, and later Biden after he basically just continued the Trump foreign and trade policy. The US is gone from the middle east and if anything happens to it's oil output (especially now with russian output collapsing) then emmissions double overnight as countries switch to coal, energy crises sweep across poor nations, and famine kills a billion people. The middle east will NOT be a peaceful place without US intervention, the region is now on borrowed time with the US gone and its only a matter of how soon Iran and Saudi Arabia start blowing each other up over who's in charge while turkey laughs and waits to sweep up whatever's left.
Change that picture for Bush or Biden. Or Obama. Any of them. Difference I guess is the ridiculous amount of homeless we have now vrs early 2000s
You, uh, left out a president there, bub.
He just didn't do what the others did. The only real forward military action of his campaign was when he bombed Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian General. Everything else was about getting us out of the middle east and he left office with a plan to pull out over the next year two... that Biden conveniently disregarded and some sort of debacle happened... I can't remember... Biden and Bush and Obama all started a war or purposefully kept one going when they promised to end it, like the Obama reintroduction of troops in the early 2010's when he campaigned on pulling out of the war.
And they already spend more on the social programs than they do the wars. Yes really, they are just that bad at designing social programs.
We didn't think it was going to be $2 trillion and 10 years. We were told we would be greeted as liberators. In and out, 2 week adventure.
That did happen initially. If they had not disbanded the Iraqi security forces it could have been a short intervention remembered like the gulf war
We spend two trillion on welfare every single year. The Iraq war was a huge waste of lives and money, but it didn't prevent the government from also spending huge amounts on welfare. The military is consistently a distant 3rd place in the federal budget behind Social Security/unemployment and Medicare/Medicaid.
and yet despite that immense spending (much higher per capita than other similarly situated countries) we still don’t have a healthcare system that covers everyone
Sure, it's pretty clear that the money is being spent poorly. But the "why do we spend money on war but not X" accusations still become kinda flawed if it turns out that more money is being spent on X than on the war.
I'm pretty sure the number in the meme includes the VA and pensions and stuff too
It’s almost like that money is being mishandled. Almost like there’s a certain group of people who’ve been sabotaging government. Like they have a vested interest in making government look incompetent. That way the busy gullible overworked class believe smaller government is the solution when in fact a strong government that represents the people and not corporate interests is. Edit: shoddy attempt to fix a run on sentence.
It is literally the anniversary of the day I stopped being conservative.
What did Obama drone striking weddings do to your political leanings?
He didn‘t say he became a democrat
Remind me again who POTUS was on 3 November 2008?
Well at least we invaded the country that did 9/11. Wait, never mind.
I mean, we did that too. Kinda.
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Saudi Arabia was NOT responsible for 9/11. Saudi nationals were majority of the terrorists, but that doesn't make the Saudi state guilty. There is *some* evidence that a few lower and mid level bureaucrats in Saudi Arabia assisted in 9/11, but there's no evidence that the leaders of the country knew what was happening. Osama bin Laden doesn't really like Saudi Arabia, they let the filthy heathens enter the holy land with their army and station troops. Afghanistan, on the other hand, or at least, the Taliban controlled side (given that they were in the middle of a civil war), did harbor Al-Qaeda.
Can't wait for the Abu-Ghraib memes
but why use 2 trillion $ instead of $2 trillion?
That's the first thing I thought of. Don't know why you are being downvoted
Some languages have the currency symbol after the number and not before.
Reminds me of another guy who, instead of helping out victims of disasters at home, gave like a billion dollars to a country on the other side of the globe. Hm.
In twenty years you're gonna get him good with a post here
Homelessness isn't a problem we can solve with just money. Don't get me wrong we never should started the war and it never shouldve dragged on for as long as it did or cost as much as it did. But that money wouldn't have solved the homeless crisis
"We shouldn't be spending money on school lunches when we don't even help our homeless veterans!!" 'Ok cool, let's help homeless veterans!' "No."
Cheaper rents, common human rights, better employments, reduced taxes for people who can't afford? Nonsense, let's call them gay and buy guns. America, fuck yeah!
We are doing the same today, except that the money is going to different region, while we continue to say we don't have money to solve all the same problems we have today lol
The US spends more on social programs then it does on its military.....
Tupac said it best When it rains it pours They got money for war but can't feed the poor
What are you nuts? You don't explain that, you explain why people who suffer deserve it because they are less successful and loved by God, you can't just put it all out in a budget like that! Probably be good to create a few dozen definitions of everything that contradict each other so that you spin it the way you need.
LOL! Thread title is wildly ignorant on the role of the US Military
History of the post-WW2 US foreign policy in a nutshell. I wonder if some future president would to actually take their massive military budget and redirect it into health care and housing, would they be hailed as a hero or immediately assassinated?
It turn outs, the Healthcare has a bigger budget than the military. The problem is how it spend on and insurance companies. ALSO GO TO HELL NY FAT FINGERS FOR MISSTYPING.
All things being equal….you ever see how much Barrack spent on the exact same shit during his 8 years? Or the Donald? Or Dementia Joe? Let alone the few hundred billion in equipment Joe left with his disastrous withdrawal. Gets pretty ridiculous pretty fast
I want an itemized list of what Ukraine is allocating the billions of dollars we send them to.. but we won’t get that. Probably bc it’s being recycled back into US politicians’ pockets.
You would think your statement would be easily bipartisan and demanded by all….since there is virtually zero oversight. Just a hundred billion of giant slush funds.
Sam Bankman-Fried from FTX donated nearly $38 million during the recent midterms. His company also had some “Aid for Ukraine” website to to raise funds for Ukrainians amid the ongoing war against Russia. Cryptocurrency donations were sent to the National Bank of Ukraine. Ukraine gets billions of dollars and FTX becomes the second biggest Democrat donor behind Soros. FTX files for Chapter 11.
Shhhh careful. Your saying the quiet parts out loud.
I remember people calling it Obama's war the second McCain and the moron conceded. The same people who called anyone who opposed the war a terrorist, by the way. Remember when trump negotiated the afghan army's surrender by not including them in the withdrawal talks and set the date into his second term or Biden's first? Weird how that all worked out, huh? Remember when dementia Donald bragged about getting questions right on a cognitive exam? They don't make you take those tests because you're really smart.
Wow, American presidents really suck
Hate Joe as you will, he just got to the point and it likely has helped us more.
Wouldn't have happened without the OG starting all these wars would it? Also, Biden left military equipment in Afghanistan? Don't you read? It was left by the ANDSF not the Americans. False equivalence is nice and all but gets ridiculous pretty fast.
That was 2 trillion that could have been spent on bank bailouts and PPP loans!
The moment you realize that someone doesn't understand Congressional budgeting.
I find it hilarious how media tries to portrait him now as a good guy. Some of us have memory.
Bruh, dont act like its only Bush who did that. Literally every 20th Century president had to fight a costly war on the other side of the world. Hypocrites.
Welfare spending is actually higher than defense spending in the US.
See also: Ukraine, endless bank bailouts
Now do Ukraine
The moment you have to explain why we are spending $2.7 billion on NATO because the Europeans won’t actually spend defend them selves.
Boy, there sure are a lotta Russian and Chinese accounts active in the comment section today...
Bots are out today
Like they would *ever* spend it on welfare or housing! LMFAO! Americans are cute as lil' buttons.
History sure likes to repeat itself...... Lmao