No More FU's

Here's what I think the truth is:
We are all addicts of fossil fuels
in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey
--Kurt Vonnegut

When it comes to the Saudi-American relationship,
the White House should be called the "White Tent"
--Mohammed Al-Khilewi,
Saudi diplomat who defected to the United States[1]
____________

Following New York Times writer Thomas Friedman spins the head faster than Regan's in The Exorcist. He of the 6-month Friedman Unit (FU) fame just wrote, there's a country in decline, and it's ours:

"My fellow Americans: We are a country in debt and in decline — not terminal, not irreversible, but in decline. Our political system seems incapable of producing long-range answers to big problems or big opportunities. We are the ones who need a better-functioning democracy — more than the Iraqis and Afghans. We are the ones in need of nation-building. It is our political system that is not working (Anxious in America.)"

While Friedman has been banging his War on Terror drum these past four years, some of us saw it for what it is -- a Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©). We are glad you have received your wake-up call, Mr. Friedman; welcome to the Monkey House.

Friedman discusses GM's 34-year low market value of $6.47 billion versus Toyota's value of $162.6 billion. Contrast that with President Bush's recent signing of $162 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This figure will run out his presidency, which spent $650 billion in Iraq and $200 billion in Afghanistan. At least that's what we are told.

The Enron bookkeeping practices of the Fed hide the real, long-term costs of the war, costs like interest on the war debt and health care and disability payments to our vets that will stretch out to the 2070's. That is a sobering thought that none of our Presidential aspirants will discuss anytime soon.

Putting the figures into perspective, rounding the GM stock market value to $6.5 billion (what is a give or take of $ .03 billion these days?) we have: The price of one year of our elective aggressive wars costs almost 25 times the total value of all GM stock.

Looked at another way,

• The Afghan war would buy 30.7 GM's.
• The Iraqi war would buy 100 GM's
• The total cost of the wars thus far would buy 130 GM's.

After signing the funding legislation Bush said, "Our nation has no greater responsibility than to support our men in women in uniform — especially because we're at war (Bush Approves $162B for War.)" And with whom are we at war? Endless wars are not the hallmark of democracies.

The conventional thinking is that the next president will resolve the issues of Iraq and Afghanistan, but in fact, this falls to Congress -- a Congress which has shown no resolve to do so thus far. If they don't make a move to end them, the bank will bust and the U.S. will follow in the steps of all former empires.

When will America emerge from this artificially manufactured nightmare?