The US can not afford the war in Afghanistan and plans to withdraw within eight year

[garyd]

If we don't have the 10 or twenty billion a year Afghanistan will cost us we sure as hell don't have the 200 to 300 billion a year health care will eventually cost us or the more than double that in jobs and revenue cap and trade will cost us over time.

Afghanistan is costing us almost nothing compared to the trillion or more we will spend on everything else.

Yes we have, or at least, had a plan in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have essentially acheived our goal already in Iraq. We would like to acheive the same goal in Afghaistan.

9/11 already told us that ignoring the rest of the world whenever possible is a loser - hell any reasonable study of history will tell you that tyrants always require a scapegoat and that they will always find one regardless of how innocent that scapegoat is of wrong doing.

 

[Toronado3800]

Healthcare costs are a different discussion. They can be funded by health taxes or whatever.

What is the goal in Afghanistan? What is the goal in Iraq? There are none.

The goal in Iraq may be to install a strong friendly government which will police it's own extremists and try to convince OPEC to sell oil to us cheaply.

Afghanistan, similar but w/o the oil benefit.

I'm not dead certain I would have went into either country the same way, we probably agreed at that point. But that was a discussion for a few years back. Now we're there so I have a different OPINION. Who knows how it will work out.

 

[garyd]

Sorry no they can't taxation is subject to the law of diminishing returns.