Cutting the deficit without looking at the wars is an abomination.

[mother earth]

Are there any real numbers of the fraud, waste and increase on billions spent on the wars we were lied into?

Jeremy Scahill seems to be the only one speaking of this, yet billions are spent with seemingly no end in sight, and somehow no politician is questioning this. I guess the real evils are SS and Medicare. On a daily basis we are told how everything has to be on the table for budget cuts. Well, where are the numbers on the cost of privatizing war(s)? We're ten years after 9/11 and still no victory, and NO one ever mentions the constant drain in billions and billions on homeland security and war?

We can fund death and destruction and do so happily, but yet we dare not question the war machine & privatizing those profits??? Not only are we privatizing war, we even have the audacity to outsource that! (80% foreign nationals)

http://rebelreports.com/post/121172812/u-s-war-privatization-results-in-billions-lost-in

Half of the personnel the US has working on its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are private contractors. A new report reveals how much of a rip-off this system has been to US taxpayers.

By Jeremy Scahill

At a hearing in Washington today, the federal Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan is releasing a 111-page report that represents its “initial investigations of the nation’s heavy reliance on contractors.” According to a release on the hearing:

More than 240,000 contractor employees, about 80 percent of them foreign nationals, are working in Iraq and Afghanistan to support operations and projects of the U.S. military, the Department of State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Contractor employees outnumber U.S. troops in the region. While contractors provide vital services, the Commission believes their use has also entailed billions of dollars lost to waste, fraud, and abuse due to inadequate planning, poor contract drafting, limited competition, understaffed oversight functions, and other problems.

[phantom power]

1. The military industrial complex is the only third rail in American politics

[villager]

It sure as hell isn't some paltry citizen benefit, like Social Security

n/t

[FiveGoodMen]

7. And what does that say about the average American?

[ProSense]

2. Defense cuts

are part of the package, which is why Jon Kyl is having a hissy fit.

[mother earth]

3. Part of the package, meaning they will speak of it. No

done deal. We've yet to see what, if anything, will be sliced from defense. It's absolutely the biggest drain on this country, and it's rife with fraud, waste, and a never-ending time frame. Military spending is the sacred cow and definitely is a third rail.

Edit: After reading your "hissy fit" link, if he quits and no agreement actually triggers automatic cuts, I hope he does just that.

[indepat]

15. I would proffer any defense cuts will only comprise a smidgen of the

total needed in the grand bargain which targets the big three as the panacea to solve all the nation's deficit problems. :patriot:

[Cali_Democrat]

4. Shhhhhh!!!

Stop making so much sense :)

[duhneece]

5. My new mantra, "Cutting the deficit without looking at the wars is an abomination."

Cutting the deficit without looking at the wars is an abomination.
Cutting the deficit without looking at the wars is an abomination.
Cutting the deficit without looking at the wars is an abomination.
Cutting the deficit without looking at the wars is an abomination.
Cutting the deficit without looking at the wars is an abomination.

[FiveGoodMen]

6. At the very least

Continuing the wars we never should have started is an abomination all by itself.

Those who keep the wars going? Yup. They are an abomination, too.

[Honeycombe8]

8. This is so true. I hope the country addresses this...it's in the mood, I think. nt

[daa]

9. Its a shame how monied interests have ruined this country

Netflix lobbying to get rid of Saturday mail delivery. Hospitals lobbying to raise Medicare to 67. And of course the war machine with troops in 120 countries.

[glowing]

10. Contractor's are extremely costly, but make the #'s of US ground troops

look smaller and allow for the US to pay off groups and politicians on the ground. That way they allow the US troops can continue to stay longer and not be in "combat", even though they operate in similar manners.

[bhikkhu]

11. 600 billion in cuts just got passed

...and the expectation is for another 1 trillion, based on the end of the Iraq war and the draw-downs in Afghanistan. If you had asked me a year ago whether I would be happy if the defense budget were trimmed 1.6 trillion over the next decade, I'd have said "Hell Yes!". So I'm satisfied,

If you can't be satisfied by any possible change or improvement on an issue, then people tend to lose interest in your opinion.

[mother earth]

12. I'm all for any and all cuts, but as far as I know the $600

billion is not a done deal. Let me know when it is. It seems cuts to everything else are on the table while the biggest drain on our resources continues to be this sacred cow while every threat and fear is a constant in the media.

http://thehill.com/news-by-subject/defense-homeland-security/180271-sen-kyl-ill-quit-supercommittee-if-it-mulls-more-defense-cuts (one day ago)

[Igel]

13. Exactly.

In a nutshell, the OP is upset that future cuts don't reduce current budgets or past expenses, so we don't discuss how horrible the expenditures were from 2001 to 2011 and how if we could only reduce, say, the 2007 budget allocation for the military the 2012 budget deficit would be markedly smaller.

I go one step further, though.

The Iraq/Afghanistan military budget cuts are evergreen and protean. They're all things to the administration.

They'd be accounted for honestly, unlike under *. Good.

We'd be out of Iraq in 2012 and out of Afghanistan by 2015. We'd save a bundle. Good.

Then the spending for the wars were included in the budget projections for 2012 and 2013 and 2014 and 2015 and 2016 and 2017. We'd be out, but the budget had placeholders. Not so great, it fails the honesty test by inflating the budget *or* implying that we really wouldn't be out of the wars as promised.

Then the spending included in the budget for the wars we wouldn't be fighting was offered as a new idea for a budget cut. This requires that we forget the first set of praise for these particular budget cuts. It also requires that we think of reducing spending for nonexistent wars as some kind of painful sacrifice.

So the military budget will be cut in winding down the wars. He gets credit for that. Once.

[Mimosa]

14. Good point about the contractor employees

I doubt they'll be wound down. They're hiring more, according to a friend of mine who follows the hiring sites.

Mother Earth, could it be we have a war based economy? Or do you think we (the US) wants to control supplies of raw materials?