How the US Government Could Save Money--and Save You on Your Taxes

Conservatives don't want to pay taxes that fund social-welfare programs. I know this because I have heard at least a few individuals say that to me, face-to-face.

They say that money is taken from them in the form of taxes and given to people who don't want to work. (At heart this idea is racist: They are really talking about African-Americans and the sentiment relies on the old racist canard that African-Americans don't want to work--never mind pointing out to them that huge numbers of job applicants have turned out, with lines going around the block, when there has been a widely announced hiring event in their communities, as shown in photos and video clips.

I will tell you, them, whomever—where tax dollars are really going to waste.

For one thing, the United States sends billions of dollars to the government of Afghanistan; and in turn, in the course of just one year, a billion dollars of Afghan aid was "lost to corruption." For another thing, Afghan President Karzai is an opportunist who has given power—and immunity from prosecution—to men who in another time and place would be counted as war criminals.

Much as I might support the aspirations of women in Afghanistan to have those rights which Taliban rule in Afghanistan would deny them, I see a relic of the cold war here: The United States got involved in Afghanistan after the country was wrecked and ruined by civil wars, fighting between war lords and factions that followed the withdrawal of the Soviets. (To remember our history: In Vietnam, the French lost and pulled out and America thought it could do better, but could not and lost also. Similarly, the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan and apparently the US felt it could do better, and the final results of that may not be in but it does not look optimistic.)

So, I have to suspect that US efforts in Afghanistan have been a waste of your and my tax dollars. And here is another one: Businesses like Walmart, and fast-food companies like McDonald's who pay their workers inadequate wages.

These companies are allowed to pay their workers a minimum wage which has not gone up, in real dollars (or even in nominal dollars) for decades.

A Walmart worker who is single earns a wage which puts her at about the poverty level. If a Walmart, or McDonald's, worker earns minimum wage but supports a family of four on his or her income, that worker's income is supplemented by aid from the government which costs us an average of about $1700 for that family. So, what Walmart or McDonald's does not pay the worker, you and I pay.

Walmart is making huge profits. Basically every American taxpayer, by having to add to the insufficient income that the Walmart or McDonald's worker receives from her employer, is paying his taxes ultimately into the pockets of the owners of Walmart and McDonald's. It would save us, the middle-class Americans who pay taxes, money if those companies were compelled to pay a living wage.

Copyright © 2013.

Two More Wars in the Offing?

It's no secret—or should not be any secret—the Republicans and conservatives like war. Well, maybe that's not a way of phrasing it that they'd agree with. How about, they are more prone to favor the use of military force?

That is why we've been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, with a loss of over 4000 American lives—arguably in both cases for at best a very unclear purpose. Supposedly America is always trying to export "freedom"—meaning, presumably, its brand of democracy—to other countries, whether they want it or not. Iraq is not and is not going to be a democracy after the American model, and heaven only knows what can be accomplished in Afghanistan, where we cannot even free the country from the influence of war lords.

Anyway, those are wars that commenced, and that fact cannot be changed. I must acknowledge that the US has supposedly largely exited from Iraq, thanks to a Democratic president—whether or not we have left the country any better off. (For one thing, I'd like an update on whether the Iraqi people yet have reliable, 24-hour electrical service, or whether they feel secure outside of their homes.)

So really, there is only a point in talking about the future. Currently Republicans and other "hawks" (we don't hear that word much, anymore) want the US to attack Syria and Iran. President Obama evidently is not very keen on doing either one; but if a Republican gets elected president in November, we may indeed find ourselves in the midst of yet another war.

The US has an all-volunteer military services. I don't understand why young American men want to join the military and go and fight. Evidently they feel they are being patriotic and "serving their country"; but when America has not been clearly attacked by these countries; and when the connection between these wars and America's welfare is similarly not clear; I have to think they may be misguided. (Remember, George W. Bush sold us on the Iraq war by falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein was developing "weapons of mass destruction." Many other wars, such as the Vietnam War, were also based on lies.) Those in Iraq who were attacking American troops did not view Americans as their saviors but as foreign invaders.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

The Mess in Afghanistan

The United States at least partly has itself to blame for the mess that Afghanistan is in.

First, the United States partly funded the radical Islamic schools where the Taliban learned their extreme brand of Islam.

Second, in 2001 the United States actually funded the Taliban to the tune of $43 million dollars.

Also, the U.S. aided the warlords (later to become known as "The Northern Alliance") when they were fighting the Taliban for control of the country.

Both the warlords and the Taliban have ruled with brutality, for example beating women for not wearing the burqa or even for wearing noisy shoes.

The present government of Hamid Karzai, as has been frequently stated, is corrupt and weak, and has had to be very cozy with those same warlords.

The country has been in a state of civil war for decades. If the U.S. pulls out it will be in a state of civil war. But I have to wonder, how, or to what extent are we helping anything? The U.S. efforts have maimed and killed civilians, even children. To understate, that is no way to win the hearts of the people or to help the country. How much worse off could the country be if we simply pulled out?

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Strict Interpretation - When It Suits 'Em

Republicans and religious conservatives may advocate a strict interpretation--of the Constitution in the one case, and of the Bible in the other.

But they seem to me to be hypocritical because they can be shown to favor strict construction only when it is in their interests; and otherwise, they just ignore whatever they prefer to ignore.

Former US President George W. Bush effected "substantial military actions" in Afghanistan and Iraq "that under any traditional reading of the Constitution [would have] required a declaration of war" (Robert Dallek, "Power and the Presidency," Smithsonian, January 2011); but, as is implied, these actions were done without a declaration of war. But I don't recall Bush's conservative supporters crying foul, complaining about his possibly unconstitutional actions--even though they are always saying that they favor strict interpretation of the Constitution.

And I think it's somewhat analogous when religious conservatives point to the Bible as justification for their condemnation of homosexuality and gay people. They need to remember that the Bible was used to justify slavery in the decades preceding the Civil War.

Also, they point to a passage in the Old Testament book of Leviticus that calls homosexuality an "abomination." Leaving aside the fact that abomination may not have meant, when the Old Testament was written, what they would have us believe it means, Leviticus also calls the eating of shellfish and pork an abomination. It also forbids wearing clothing made of mixed fibers, and prescribes particular sacrifices for many types of sins and crimes.

Not only do these people not make the sacrifices that Leviticus says we need to perform, I'd wager they also eat pork and shellfish, and don't give any thought to whether their clothing is a mixture of fibers.

So it looks like the Constitution, and the Bible, must be strictly adhered to only when to do so happens to harmonize with the aims of Conservatives.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Richard Stein

Mr. Obama and Afghanistan

I am very disappointed in President Obama's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. He has promised to get us out of Afghanistan. I hate to have to tell him, but sending in more troops is the opposite of pulling out.

As I have pointed out before, it greatly saddens me to see the parallels with the Vietnam War. Then the generals, and the Commander-in-Chief, kept saying, "If we just send in x thousands more troops, we will win this war." And this happened I-don't-know-how-many times, until over 56,000 American soldiers had been killed.

In Afghanistan as in Vietnam, we are propping up a corrupt government that does not have the backing of its citizenry.

Just as in Vietnam, the game plan was supposed to be that we would help to train that country's own soldiers so that they would be able to defend their own country—and then we could pull out.

In case anybody has forgotten—and can you remember, Mr. Obama?—it didn't work in Vietnam.

Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein

Voices Opposing More Troops for Afghanistan

A gentleman named Hoh, a civilian career diplomat stationed in Afghanistan, recently resigned his post because he does not believe that current U.S. policy in Afghanistan is productive, and he does not support increasing troop levels. He has stated that he feels that the Afghan population views U.S. troops as military occupiers.

And another voice of opposition comes from U.S. Representative Jane Harmon of California, who seems to be saying that, since the administration of Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai is corrupt and riddled with cronyism, it does not have the backing of the Afghan people; and that the U.S., in backing Karzai, thus cannot have the support of the Afghan people either.

As I have said before, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have parallels in the Vietnam war, from which we apparently learned little or nothing. In Vietnam (if anyone still remembers), the French had pulled out after being defeated at Dien Bien Phu. They were succeeded by the Americans. This parallels Afghanistan in that the Russians were in Afghanistan and pulled out; and somehow, the U.S. now is there to again show the Afghans that foreigners want to control their country.

In Vietnam, the U.S. just increased and increased troop levels. Now we are doing that in Afghanistan. Also, the U.S. was propping up the unpopular, dictatorial government of Ngo Dinh Diem which violated the Geneva Accords on Vietnam that were established when the French withdrew. (Source: Encarta Encyclopedia s.v. Ngo Dinh Diem)

Another parallel: U.S. forces are supposedly training Afghan forces so that they will be better able to fight the Taliban. In Vietnam, U.S. troops supposedly were to be withdrawn once South Vietnamese army forces had become able, with U.S. training, to take over the battle against Communist forces. It didn't work then; is it going to work this time? Can you say "rhetorical question"?

Also, note that we are not fighting al-Quaeda in Afghanistan, we are fighting the Taliban. These are bad guys, I'd agree. They want a fundamentalist theocracy in Afghanistan, and these are the boys who blew up the ancient, colossal Buddhist statues--surely a crime against world culture. And they keep infiltrating Pakistan, or have bases in Pakistan. But these are issues for the Afghan and Pakistani governments. It's not clear that the U.S. has a direct interest here, in spite of what American soldiers believe because they have been told so.

Again, I can't wholeheartedly support "our troops" when, remember, they are volunteers and they are doing what they are doing under the mistaken idea that they are fighting for their country or, at least, their country's interests.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Richard Stein

U.S. Involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan

Before the Vietnam War ended, some 56,000 American soldiers had been killed, to say nothing of a perhaps-unknown number—but hundreds of thousands--of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. Plus enormous suffering and property damage—loss of families' homes and environmental devastation.

And what was gained in return for all this loss? If anyone can still recall, or even care, 30 or 40 years later, the purpose of the Vietnam War was supposed to be to keep South Viet Nam from being taken over by the communists of North Vietnam. And what happened in the end, after all that loss? No one seems to like to think about it, but Vietnam was reunified. In other words, the North Vietnamese did in fact take over the South, the very thing the war was supposed to prevent. So, to put it very plainly and even harshly, the war was for nothing. But no one wants to dwell on the fact that many American lives were sacrificed for, in the end, no purpose.

During the Bush years I kept thinking of parallels between the Vietnam War and the Iraq war. In both wars, Congress and the American Public had been manipulated by the White House and the Defense Department into supporting the war by means of false and distorted information. It became clear that the danger to America from Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction" was trumped up. (And Colin Powell, who was U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, has said he regretted the speech he gave to the U.N. about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" because he was unwittingly basing it on incorrect information.) Plus, another reason the Government used to try to sell the war, the link between Saddam Hussein and al Quaeda, was also very dubious.

So the original rationale for the war was very questionable. Yet once Hussein was toppled, we had to keep Iraq from descending into a religious civil war. Thus we are still there, after—what is it now, eight years? And we no longer even hear the statistics on how many Americans have been killed in Iraq. Last I heard, it was over 4,000, but that was quite a while ago.

And there's Afghanistan. How many Americans could immediately and clearly tell me why we are fighting in Afghanistan? Waging a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan might have a little more direct connection to the security of the U.S. than was the case with invading Iraq. But again, consider this: The Russians left Afghanistan in defeat and the U.S. succeeded them. It's too similar to the U.S. taking over in Vietnam after the French withdrew in defeat. It's a very sad fact that the lessons of history are not learned.

Living in an area which is in some ways rather conservative—it's pretty much believers in "God and Country"—I see a lot of bumper stickers saying "Support Our Troops." Since I was opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq from the very beginning, some people would say to me, Well, you can support the troops even if you don't support the war.

I have a problem with that logic. I'd say Yes, I agree—if the troops were all there involuntarily. Then they'd just be poor pawns, as was the case in the Vietnam War. However, remember that we do not presently have a draft. Every Army soldier, National Guardsman, Marine in Iraq is a volunteer. Many of these men enlisted because they felt their country called, and they should respond. That's putting the best construction on it—rather than saying, for example, that their belief that they were defending their country was based on incorrect information they had been fed by the Government.

Copyright © 2009 by Richard Stein