Pitiful Party Politics

We’re spending $10 million per hour, and $81 billion in the new annual budget, on an operation that many top officials and experts have said generates hostility toward our country.

(MANAMA, Bahrain) - In America, Republicans generally prefer to spend money on wars; Democrats on public needs—food, housing, education.

Democrats have proposed extending federal unemployment benefits for an additional year at $25 billion. Many Republicans have opposed an extension, calling it too costly.

Noel Brinkerhoff says “the U.S. military has decided to scrap nearly half a billion dollars worth of aircraft purchased for Afghanistan’s air force because the planes couldn’t handle the climate, among other problems.” That expense could have fed a lot of hungry people.

An article by Mike Ludwig points out that “The [US] government spent nearly $11 billion last year on classifying and declassifying documents.” How many educations could have been bought with that money?

“Our Pentagon spending is vastly larger than the rest of the world's,” writes Executive director for National Priorities Project Jo Comerford.”In fact, we're more than the next 15 nations combined.”

According to a recent poll conducted by Americans for Tax Fairness, 67 percent of Americans want to see a closing of corporate tax loopholes and an increase on taxes for the wealthy.

The money in many of those loopholes could pay for a lot of bad housing mortgages created by American bankers.

Michael Lehnert, Joint Task Force Commander in Guantánamo reflects:

“Here's why it's long past time that we close Guantánamo: In retrospect, the entire detention and interrogation strategy was wrong.

“Keeping the detention center open will cost the government $5.2 billion by the end of next year...the cost of keeping Gitmo open for just 2013 will top $454 million, amounting to roughly $2.7 million for each one of the detainees held on the United States military base on the Cuban coast.”

The Democrats believe it would be better to spend the same money feeding the poor.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called operating the prison “a massive waste of money.”

Notes Elias Harb of Intifada, “The US Congress has authorized $284 million to fund Israel’s missile systems program, triple the amount the Obama administration had requested.”

Israel’s missile system is more important than feeding hungry Americans.

Adds Elias, “The House moves to increase US aid to Israel even as the United States is struggling with domestic economic issues and safety net programs like food stamps and unemployment benefits are being cut or reduced.”

Who controls American life?

“The new aid package” says Elias, “is in addition to the $3.1 billion in military assistance that Washington provides to the Zionist regime annually.”

In the U.S. Congress, it’s the same for Republicans or Democrats: everything for Israelis, nothing for Americans.

For years now, the U.S. public has been telling pollsters they want all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan “as soon as possible”. We’re spending $10 million per hour, and $81 billion in the new annual budget, on an operation that many top officials and experts have said generates hostility toward our country.

It appears that America prefers to generate hostility than care for its citizens.

War hawk Norman Podhoretz wants to Strike Iran Now to Avert Disaster Later. According to Podhoretz "A conventional-weapons attack is preferable to the nuclear war sure to come."

Podhoretz argues that Obama would not agree to attack Iran, and therefore Israel should bomb Iran. Never mind the cost in both lives and money.

Podhoretz knows, full well, that America, under Zionist control, could never avoid taking part in such an attack and the retribution to follow.

The cost to America of such a venture? Trillions more in war costs, preferable to the war hawks to spending on feeding and housing the poor.

Throughout his life as an educator, Dr. Paul J. Balles, a retired American university professor and freelance writer, has lived and worked in the Middle East for 40 years - first as an English professor (Universities of Kuwait and Bahrain), and for the past ten years as a writer, editor and editorial consultant.

He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month. He writes a weekly op-ed column for Akbar Al Khaleej (Arabic). He has also edited seven websites, including bahrainthismonth.com, womenthismonth.com