cosmic poaching

In his Afghanistan war speech the other night President Obama said the 30,000 additional troops he was sending to that violence-plagued country would cost about $30 billion. He also pledged to work with Congress “openly and honestly” to figure out how to pay for this costly deployment.

That was an extremely lame comment. The President and Congress know they have two options when it comes to paying for the war on terror: borrow more money (and dramatically increase our already massive deficit) or raise taxes.

I favor the tax option, but a selective one. To pay for the war on terror we should raise taxes on three entities:

1. Every idiotic member of the 107^th Congress who voted for the Iraq war
2. Every citizen who voted for and supported Bush in 2004, along with every corporate campaign contributor
3. Every politically-connected company that received a fat, Iraq war-related contract from the Bush administration

1. We should first quadruple the taxes of every idiot of the 107^th Congress who voted to invade Iraq. Keep in mind Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 and Saddam Hussein was in power for 29 years and never attacked America once. Congress, Bush and Cheney knew all of this on September 12, 2001. 

Remember the infamous report titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.” Condoleezza Rice had the nerve to call an “historical document?” Our government and then-President Bush had that report in the summer of 2001, before the 9-11 attacks. And the report doesn’t mention Iraq as being a threat to America.

To pay for the Iraq war our government bankrupted the country and borrowed trillions of dollars from China, which now firmly owns America. It would be a miracle if our debt to China is paid off in fifty years. And if you think Bush and Cheney kept America safe by invading Iraq and borrowing all that cash from China think again. China owns us and that does not bode well at all for our future.

2. I would then triple the taxes of every American citizen who voted for or gave campaign contributions to George W. Bush in 2004, along with all of Bush’s corporate contributors. No offense but if you couldn’t tell what a corrupt, inept and arrogant moron Bush is by the end of his first term then tough, you lose.

The scariest thing about Bush is how well he hides his past. Bush and his disgusting, heinous father conducted business with the Saudi Royal Family for decades. The Saudi Royal Family is Islamic radicals who have supported terrorism for decades, including the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden. The Saudi Royal Family was also one of only three countries on the entire planet who officially recognized the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan when those Islamic radicals took over that country in the late 1990s.

George H.W. Bush worked as a lobbyist for the Saudis, flew around the globe and told governments everywhere what wonderful people the Saudis were and they should do business with them. His equally corrupt, power-hungry son allowed three planeloads of Saudi citizens to flee the country two days after 9-11, when most flights were still grounded, so W. wouldn’t be embarrassed by his ties to these radical, bloodthirsty animals (15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi citizens.)

W. and his father have both constantly called the Saudi Royal Family our “friends and allies.” With friends like the Saudis we don’t need enemies. For an excellent account of the Bush-Saudi relationship see the book House of Bush House of Saud by Craig Unger. The photograph on the cover, of George W. Bush holding hands with a member of the Saudi Royal Family, should be enough to make you lose your lunch.

If you voted for or supported W. in 2004 you should be paying extra for the war on terror. W. invaded Iraq for all the wrong reasons. W. and his friends made billions off the invasion of Iraq while the real enemies, the Taliban and al-Qaeda, escaped our military and set up shop in Pakistan. And again, and it’s so sad, W. knew along with our government that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11.

We lost eight long years in the war on terror because W. and Cheney were more interested in profiting off of Iraqi oil than going after the real bastards who attacked us. Bush also ignored Afghanistan so much that in January of 2008, when his last year in office began, there were only 27,000 American soldiers in the country that harbored bin Laden and launched the 9-11 attacks (see The Afghanistan Speech, NY Times editorial, 12-2-09.)

It is absolutely criminal and disgusting we haven’t captured or killed Osama bin Laden by now. And most Americans don’t even know who two of the other real bastards are (who were also ignored by W. and Cheney because they weren’t sitting on billions of barrels of oil), al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri and former Taliban leader Mullah Omar, who we also haven’t captured or killed yet.

3. Quadruple the taxes on every politically-connected company that received a fat, Iraq war contract. The Iraq war is the most outsourced war ever fought by America. It marks the epitome of how our government, intelligence agencies and military-industrial-complex manipulate people, events and information to profit from war. Watch the trailer for the great documentary Why We Fight and listen to what an ex-CIA agent says about war profiteering.

Prior to becoming vice president Dick Cheney ran the world’s biggest oil services company, Halliburton. As vice president he gave his friends at Halliburton a $10 billion no-bid contract to provide several services to both our military and the Iraqi oil fields. It was also a massive conflict of interest. To see just how heinous (and what a chicken-hawk) he is read Why Dick Cheney Should be put on a Spaceship and Launched Into Outer Space. Here’s a guy who is so pathetic that when he ran Halliburton he not only did business with the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, but actually lobbied Congress to lift sanctions on that country so his company could do more business with the corrupt, religious extremists who run Iran.

But raising taxes on Halliburton is going to be tough, given how good the company is at not paying them in the first place. See: Top Iraq Contractor Skirts US Taxes Offshore, The Boston Globe, 3-6-08 or Halliburton’s Tax Haven Explained, Halliburton Watch, or Washington Watch; Halliburton’s Libyan Taxes, NY Times, 5-5-86 or – I think you get the picture.

Halliburton could also contribute better financially to the war on terror if it stopped overcharging the government (really us taxpayers) on everything from importing gasoline into Iraq (see High Payments to Halliburton for fuel in Iraq, NY Times, 12-10-03) to meals for our troops (see Halliburton Will Repay U.S. Excess Charges for Troops’ Meals, NY Times, 2-3-04).

Unfortunately there are far too many other Iraq war contractors who also avoided paying taxes and overcharged for their “patriotic” services.

Let’s finally make them pay for the war on terror, too.

This entry was posted on December 4, 2009 at 8:28 pm and is filed under Iraq, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.