http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1851258,00.html<<Then, there's the financial crisis and looming global recession that will inevitably impose a far greater austerity on Washington. America's military deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan are expected to cost close to $200 billion for 2008 alone, and maintaining that commitment will become considerably more burdensome as Washington is forced to funnel many hundreds of billions of dollars into simply averting financial collapse. The looming global economic recession will further slash tax revenues available to the U.S. government.
<<A year ago, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost of funding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars from 2001-2017 to be around $2 trillion, or more — factoring in some $705 billion in interest payments in recognition of the fact that the war is being funded with borrowed money. (Nations typically increase taxes in order to finance protracted military conflicts; the Bush Administration, having cut taxes, has had to rely on the credit of others to wage its wars.) The current credit crisis and economic slowdown will considerably raise the pressure on the U.S. national debt, which had already grown from around $6 trillion in 2001 to near $10 trillion today.
<<Financial pressure is not, in itself, sufficiently strong right now to hasten a pullout from Iraq. But the fact that it coincides with a gloomy intelligence assessment of that country's political prospects, growing demands for U.S. reinforcements in Afghanistan, and the elected Iraqi government's insistence on a withdrawal deadline, suggests that the end of the U.S. mission in Iraq may be coming into view — and that its terms may fall short of victory as defined by the war's authors.>>
The war in Iraq was a major transgression of international law and a moral, political and strategic disaster for the U.S. Talk of "turning the tide" was offensive, in that it was the bad guys boasting that they would get away with their violations of law and morality and would "win" the war, which would have been a huge setback for the cause of international law. NOBODY should be allowed to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in a war of unprovoked aggression and get away with it.
It's funny, but every time somebody, whether it's Adolf Hitler or George W. Bush, thinks that might makes right, that they can violate international law with complete impunity because of their unrivaled military strength, they appear for a time to be winning. People who believe in international law and justice are thrown into despair - - the Rule of the Gun is superseding the Rule of Law, the torturers and murderers are winning - - and yet each time, from the ruins of Berlin to the rooftops of Saigon and now to the back alleys of Baghdad, we are going to see, that for different reasons each time, the aggressor comes to grief. He loses. The United States, in this case, is at the brink of fiscal ruin and deservedly so. Almost makes you think there might be a God after all.
