We're fifteen years into nation building (and probably narcotics trafficking) in the "Graveyard of Empires", and Afghanistan is still f#@$ed up. Not to worry, it was f#@$ed up long before we invaded after the 9/11 attacks. We demanded that the Taliban government turn over Osama bin Laden, and they had the nerve to ask us to provide evidence of his guilt prior to extradition. Being the "Rule of Law" nation that we are, we invaded Afghanistan pursuant to the Paperwork Reduction Act.
Nevertheless the invasion worked out fine. In a mere decade we nabbed Osama! Yup, we got 'em. Well, we sort of got 'em. We didn't actually grab or nab him prior to ventilating his face, neck, chest, remaining torso, and about everything else Osama owned with bullets. Then, we nabbed his body and gave it a burial at sea because that's a Muslim tradition.
It's not really a Muslim tradition according to Muslims, but Barack Obama said it was. Who cares, really, we KIA'd that bastard! (Osama, not Obama.) At least we're kinda sure that we killed him. He (Obama, not Osama) released the photo of Osama's corpse to the world. So, what if it was a fabricated photo? Obama is bringing a manufacturing job back to the USA!
I know, it all seems kinda sketchy, but what we can be certain of is that Osama was found shacked up in a windowless three-flat which reflected that all five of his wives shared a particular disdain for housework. That we are positive about. For sure, dirtbag, for sure.
Oh, yeah, and we are also damn sure that the unkempt dark hulk of a building in which Osama was ripped to shreds by flaming (Made in the USA) lead was located in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Which you will know, assuming that you're reasonably competent in geography, is not in Afghanistan.
Oops! We invaded the wrong country. Our bad, but we got the right guy, probably maybe, for sure!
Another thing we're pretty darn sure about is damn few Al Qaeda honchos were ever killed or captured in Afghanistan. It seems most of them had a Pakistan mailing address and Pakistan is one of our partners in the War on Terror. Weird, huh?
Maybe they're partners like Saudi Arabia is in the fight against ISIS? It sure seems like all our partners in the Middle East are inclined to work against our partnership's stated goals. That's weird, too. Oh, well.
So, we are still there (Afghanistan, not Pakistan) occupying the wrong country years later. We're fighting tooth and nail against the Taliban, who are not terrorists, so I'm not sure why we're fighting them, but we are. Oh, well. It seems that along the way to invading the wrong country and maybe bagging the potential mastermind of 9/11 we will have spent somewhere between $4 to $6 trillion dollars* on this imbroglio, but who is counting? That may seem an expensive entry fee for an ass kicking contest with the varsity team of Pakistani madrassas, but we're the away team and it's always pricey when you wander down the Silk Road to the "Graveyard of Empires". That works out to be about $40,983.61 per US taxpayer, but like I said who's counting?
Here's the bad news. It looks like the match is going to end up a draw. How unAmerican is that? Anything that can end in a tie is inherently against American principles. Draws are expensive in the global cops and robbers game. Thanks for playing! So, the reasonable and mature way to respond to this expensive disappointment is to affix blame. The problem is that there is so much to go around, yet predominantly it all has a mailing address in the United States with a 20500 ZIP code. They don't care. We don't care. It's a thing of ugly.
And now for the really bad news, the only time when a vastly superior force fights for this many years and the conflict ends in a tie is when that vastly superior force is fighting against (and been killing) the indigenous people (not insurgents). Oh, well. The shit we're blowing up looks great on the T.V.!
Areas in red are controlled by Afghan Army (United States armed and funded) Areas in white are controlled by the Taliban (Probably Saudi funded, another one of our Middle East partners.)
* $4 to $6 trillion dollars includes total costs such as economic impact of wounded and lost life value. Like real costs, not just the costs we want to count to justify bullshit like this war.
The Left uses a convenient method to prove a point. First, take the facts, then remove any data which contradicts your claim and provide what is "Left". Here are some examples of how this is done.
Example 1: Budget Spending
Leftist Premise: Defense spending is the biggest part of the Federal Budget.
They will present a budget chart that looks like this to support their premise...
Leftist Conclusion: Clearly, Pentagon spending is more than half of our budget spending. Therefore my argument is valid and anything that follows it is also true, such as...
That's too much to spend on defence
Military contractors are overpaid
We don't need a big military
We are an unethical global hegemony
We're racist
It's all perfectly logical, right?
No, it is built on a foundation of bull and the substance of their argument drops in quality from there on. Some of their conclusions may have merit, but by using deceptive evidence they errode the value of their own argument.
The graphic is not the "Federal Budget", it's only the "Discretionary Spending" portion of the Federal Budget. The full budget looks like this...
Defense spending drops to a distant third place at 16% of total spending after Social Security with 33% of total spending and running a close second is Medicare at 27% of total spending.
Consider for a moment what this means,
60% of all Federal spending does nothing except rob Peter to pay Paul. That is the vast majority of "work" that our Federal government does.
This activity produces no real wealth it merely transfers ownership of wealth while taking a substantial cut for overhead costs.
These programs have no actual accounts or deposits for the beneficiaries. They are both effectively Ponzi schemes.
Neither Social Security or Medicare are mentioned in the Constitution, while a Common Defense (the military) is specifically mentioned.
So, the Constitutionally mandated military has taken a back seat to some creative financial products that are not mentioned in the Constitution. Weird, right?
It's not that I am against a social safety net or senior citizens. I realize they worked hard all their lives for their Social Security benefits. The problem is the architecture of the system. We pay it in reverse. We should be "investing" for the future, rather than paying off the past. This allows small sums regularly invested over a couple decades to grow into a sizable sum, and the investor can retire on the principle plus interest.
Social Security takes money from worker's checks and pays that money directly to beneficiaries. There is no "investment", nothing to grow, and no principle for interest to accrue upon, instead we are just performing account swaps. As long as the workforce is growing at a healthy pace, account swaps work fine. Unfortunately, we have a stagnant work force and a growing number of increasingly compensated beneficiaries. That is unsustainable.
I'm not for punishing grandma and grandpa. I'm against fraud, and that is what the Leftist Budget Spending argument is based upon. Any system that requires constant rescue is not financially sound. The Social Security architecture must be changed in a fundamental way to address its structural deficiency. Adjusting this requirement or tweaking that benefit only prolongs the systemic failure and allows the resulting damage to grow exponentially.
Example 2: The Clinton Budget Surplus
Leftist Premise: Bill Clinton produced a budget surplus.
Speaking of fraud, here is another accounting irregularity. How many times do you have to repeat a lie before it becomes true? Infinity + 1, but you can make a bunch of wishful thinking people believe it's true way before you reach that critical mass.
Simply follow this recipe...
First, propose that there is going to be a surplus
Third, claim there was a surplus. Even a decade later...
Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat...Draw it in a chart! Or two, or three hundred...
As long as the chart includes a surplus, then there had to be one! Yes, sirree. There had to be a surplus. Liars can figure, but charts can't lie!
Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat...
Leftist Conclusion: The "investments" (Pronounced: spending) and "cuts" (Pronounced: reduced increases) that Bill Clinton succeeded in placing in the budget did what no President had accomplished in decades.
In truth (the untarnished variety), a budget surplus" should (theoretically) produce a REDUCTION in national debt, just as the inverse a "budget deficit" produces an INCREASE in the national debt. This is fairly basic arithmetic. If the surplus fails to REDUCE the national debt, I argue that the surplus is imaginary, accounting hocus-pocus, or just damn good propaganda.
If we are shoveling more debt on our unborn children many generations hence, then a surplus is nothing to brag about and it certainly is not a surplus of anything but all-natural organic bovine produced fertilizer.
So, let's take a look at the effects of the Clinton Surplus....
Ta-Da! No budget surplus. None at all. The "surplus" is accounting flim+flam=fertilizer. For an explanation of how the equation worked out to be flim/flam= (half) truth, see Bill Clinton says his administration paid down the debt.
Example 3: Right Wingers are Sociopaths
Leftist Premise: Those espousing Right wing ideas are murderous neo-nazis, while the Left is the abode of loving, maternal farm folk and working class heroes.
Look at the death toll results for Left wing dictatorships vs. Right wing dictatorships in the Western hemisphere the Left has a much lower body count. (Paraphrased)
- Claim made by Thom Hartmann on his RT show The Big Picture
Okay, Thom, you have me there! You are absolutely correct. No doubt about it, the facts are behind you on the claim that Leftist dictators have killed far less than Right wing dictators in the Western hemisphere. You win!
However, when we remove your "Western hemisphere" filter and look at THE REAL BIG PICTURE rather than what is left, you're full of all-natural organic bovine produced fertilizer...
When we look at the BIG PICTURE, Right wing dictators are monsters following in the footsteps of Elmo!
But now for the only question that I have LEFT, what kind of asshole justifies any dictators and calls himself a patriotic American, Tomm?
Okay, she's acting like a dictator but that's as reprehensible as you playing apologist for one. You and Nancy Pelosi suck, Tomm, and here is why...
Left wing, Right wing, East wing, Wingding, or Chicken wing, we should tolerate no dictators! We're Americans, Tomm! We believe in Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness! Not the Nancy Pelosi Nanny State, Equality of Outcome, and Universal Healthcare.
Oops! I forgot that this is How to Argue like a Lefty, not with a Lefty. Anyways, that's how you do both.
