President Joe Biden, a very decent, humane, empathetic, compassionate man, told us yesterday in his speech to the nation the absolute truth about the end of the Afghanistan War, our longest war at 20 years.
Biden made clear we had lost 2,461 men and women, including 13 last Thursday; 20,561 wounded with many still disabled by physical injuries, and untold others by emotional and mental injuries; and had spent $2.3 trillion over 20 years, about $300 million for every day of the past 7,300 days since the war began. Also, 18 veterans a day on the average commit suicide, many of them due to their involvement in Afghanistan, or the even more heinous Iraq War!
We had two generations killed and wounded, and the money spent on the war could have been utilized to deal with poverty, discrimination, health care, education, infrastructure, the environment, and so much else.
So we need to spend $700 billion a year on defense spending?
Do we need to spend on all kinds of weapons that enrich politicians through bribes paid to promote production of them as part of the defense budget annually?
Do we need to have more than 800 military and naval bases in dozens of nations around the world, and lots of corruption going on in the process?
And of course, many wealthy industrialists and others became super wealthy and benefited financially from the war, most noticeably former Vice President Dick Cheney, who had connections with the corrupt organization, Halliburton, so no wonder that his daughter, Congresswoman Liz Cheney, would be super critical of the war that benefits her and her family members. And these are people who resist the thought of any payment of taxes personally or through their corporations, despite the massive tax cuts under George W. Bush and Donald Trump!