WEBVTT NOTE Iraq, Afghanistan, War and Money: A Look at Two Presidencies 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.600 I have the paper here, I have a bunch of copies, it's an Independence Institute working paper, 2 00:00:05.600 --> 00:00:12.020 and I think that the real critique of the wars certainly goes beyond all this and I touch 3 00:00:12.020 --> 00:00:20.360 on that very briefly at the end, but this is kind of a wonkish treatment on the question 4 00:00:20.360 --> 00:00:29.560 because I wanted to look at some of the specifics because we know that Bush and Obama, we know, 5 00:00:29.560 --> 00:00:33.960 Everyone here knows and most people in the country know that Obama hasn't exactly ended 6 00:00:33.960 --> 00:00:44.960 the wars, but insofar as it matters for people who, insofar as it matters, the details, I'm 7 00:00:44.960 --> 00:00:51.440 sure people will say, yeah, but Obama is ending the wars or whatever. 8 00:00:51.440 --> 00:01:02.540 And the thing is, the claim as such is not obviously 100% false in every respect, perhaps. 9 00:01:02.540 --> 00:01:05.840 And I think we need to be careful when we get into the details, and so there are some 10 00:01:05.840 --> 00:01:06.840 details here. 11 00:01:06.840 --> 00:01:14.040 So during the run-up to the ascension of Obama to the throne, when he was running for office, 12 00:01:14.040 --> 00:01:16.280 he was critical of the Iraq War. 13 00:01:16.280 --> 00:01:23.040 He said things like, this war has lasted longer than World War I, II, the Civil War, 4,000 14 00:01:23.040 --> 00:01:26.840 Americans have died, and of course those are the only people that matter in the war, more 15 00:01:26.840 --> 00:01:31.960 than 60,000 have been injured, we've spent trillions of dollars, we're less safe. 16 00:01:31.960 --> 00:01:35.800 These were very correct critiques of the Iraq War. 17 00:01:35.800 --> 00:01:41.760 A lot of us stooped to the level of making these kinds of utilitarian critiques. 18 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:43.520 They're almost utilitarian anyway. 19 00:01:43.520 --> 00:01:47.520 I don't think they're the most important reason to oppose the Iraq war, but they're important reasons. 20 00:01:47.520 --> 00:01:49.520 They're sufficient reasons on their own, certainly. 21 00:01:49.520 --> 00:01:54.520 And he did sound better on the Iraq war than Bush or McCain. 22 00:01:54.520 --> 00:02:00.520 At the same time, he always, and this is something forgotten, he always was worse on Afghanistan. 23 00:02:00.520 --> 00:02:06.520 And the Democrats, from Kerry to Obama, and most mainstream Democrats, were always worse on Afghanistan. 24 00:02:06.520 --> 00:02:10.680 He, you know, his position paper said, you know, he's been calling for more troops and 25 00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:17.040 research or resources for the war in Afghanistan for years. He and Obama will divert resources 26 00:02:17.040 --> 00:02:28.040 from Iraq to Afghanistan. And so, to his everlasting shame, he has not broken this promise. Now, 27 00:02:28.040 --> 00:02:35.020 another point I want to make is on Iraq, he wasn't as anti-war. He was always slippery 28 00:02:35.020 --> 00:02:36.020 on this war. 29 00:02:36.020 --> 00:02:40.260 And I'm sure most people here kind of know this, but I want to just relate a couple of 30 00:02:40.260 --> 00:02:42.860 these interesting points. 31 00:02:42.860 --> 00:02:47.520 In 04, you know, the position of the Democrats was always, we shouldn't have, well not always, 32 00:02:47.520 --> 00:02:52.820 but at the best, minus like Kucinich, the position was we shouldn't have gone in. 33 00:02:52.820 --> 00:02:57.900 Now we're in, we're going to have to get out one day, but it sure is irresponsible 34 00:02:57.900 --> 00:02:59.300 to talk about getting out now. 35 00:02:59.300 --> 00:03:01.320 We need, you know, because we need to be responsible. 36 00:03:01.320 --> 00:03:03.940 We need to fix the country and then we'll get out. 37 00:03:03.940 --> 00:03:07.640 And so in 2004, in the Chicago Tribune, he says, there's not much of a difference between 38 00:03:07.640 --> 00:03:13.620 my position on Iraq and George Bush's position at this stage. Throughout the years, he voted 39 00:03:13.620 --> 00:03:18.200 for war funding once he was senator, and he defended his votes for war funding because 40 00:03:18.200 --> 00:03:23.300 it would be wrong to defund an immoral war. That's not what he said. Sorry, I'm a little 41 00:03:23.300 --> 00:03:29.680 flippant about these. And in 2008, this was one of the most disgusting things after the 42 00:03:29.680 --> 00:03:35.560 The Democrats somewhat heroically were calling Petraeus General Petraeus and opposing the 43 00:03:35.560 --> 00:03:45.200 surge of 07. He said to Bill O'Reilly, this surge succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. 44 00:03:45.200 --> 00:03:48.560 This is important to note too. It's very important. In December of 08, when he was 45 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:55.080 the lame duck president, this is often forgotten, Bush signed the status of forces agreement 46 00:03:55.080 --> 00:03:57.640 with Iraqi Leadership and so forth. 47 00:03:57.640 --> 00:04:01.040 And what it did was it set the timetable for withdrawal. 48 00:04:01.040 --> 00:04:08.000 And the timetable for withdrawal that Bush signed was almost precisely – it was very 49 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:15.280 close to the timetable for withdrawal that Obama had proposed within a couple of months. 50 00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:21.840 And so the official US policy by the time Obama took office was that – the official 51 00:04:21.840 --> 00:04:29.940 Bill Bush policy was that the US would withdraw the troops from the cities by June of 2009 52 00:04:29.940 --> 00:04:36.100 and by the end of this year, 2011, the troops would leave Iraq entirely. That was the policy 53 00:04:36.100 --> 00:04:46.260 when Obama took power. He did not expedite that. To his credit, he hasn't put all his 54 00:04:46.260 --> 00:05:03.180 Now, it is true that the troop levels in Iraq, I don't pronounce it the way they do on NPR, 55 00:05:03.180 --> 00:05:07.340 I don't know, I pronounce it like an American, but unlike the people at NPR, I'm opposed 56 00:05:07.340 --> 00:05:15.200 to killing them no matter what. So, in Iraq, at the height of the surge, which worked beyond 57 00:05:15.200 --> 00:05:22.720 Under Wildest Dreams, there were 170,000 troops, US troops in Iraq, and now there's 58 00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:29.200 under 50,000, which by the way, the number of troops in Iraq now is about the number 59 00:05:29.200 --> 00:05:34.720 that Rumsfeld and those clowns said that we would need for the war. So now that the war 60 00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:38.400 is kind of wrapping up, we're at the level that they thought we'd need to invade and 61 00:05:38.400 --> 00:05:41.200 and Conquer and Occupy and Win. 62 00:05:41.200 --> 00:05:50.680 Afghanistan, meanwhile, Obama has fulfilled his promises, the monster, before 2006, except 63 00:05:50.680 --> 00:05:56.960 for a blip in July, there were about 10,000 to 20,000 troops, it varied, and then by the 64 00:05:56.960 --> 00:06:03.240 time Bush left office, unfortunately, he ramped up Afghanistan a bit too, to 33,000 troops. 65 00:06:03.240 --> 00:06:07.800 By mid-last year, there were almost three times as many, 91,000 troops. 66 00:06:07.800 --> 00:06:08.800 and Human Action. 67 00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:13.680 So in 2009 Obama kept, you know, he's almost tripled down in Afghanistan. 68 00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:17.960 This is of course, this is just gives you an idea. 69 00:06:17.960 --> 00:06:22.760 Now the total number of troops which is that top line, it has declined in the last several 70 00:06:22.760 --> 00:06:27.960 months and we don't know yet whether he's going to fulfill the Iraq promise. 71 00:06:27.960 --> 00:06:32.520 And right now his administration, Gates, who by the way was Bush's defense secretary too 72 00:06:32.520 --> 00:06:39.200 2, of course. Gates has floated the idea we might have to stay beyond 2011. And some Democrats 73 00:06:39.200 --> 00:06:43.920 in the Armed Services Committee are saying, yeah, we can't just withdraw all willy-nilly. 74 00:06:43.920 --> 00:06:53.040 I mean, you can't just go into a country and bomb it and stay there for only eight years. 75 00:06:53.040 --> 00:07:03.760 be Reckless. So the troop level has declined a bit, but if you look at it, the total number 76 00:07:03.760 --> 00:07:09.380 of troops under Obama for most of it has been higher than it was under Bush, except at the 77 00:07:09.380 --> 00:07:15.240 end of Bush. And the first half of the Bush administration, which is when there were people 78 00:07:15.240 --> 00:07:21.840 in the streets, Bush is a war criminal, when the left was correct about something, there 79 00:07:21.840 --> 00:07:33.960 were fewer troops. There were more US fatalities in Iraq, but if you look at fatalities even, 80 00:07:33.960 --> 00:07:42.160 the total number of US fatalities in 2009 and 2010 was higher than it was in 2003, and 81 00:07:42.160 --> 00:07:46.880 it was still pretty high, and higher than it was in 2008, the last Bush year. In fact, 82 00:07:46.880 --> 00:07:51.140 since Bush was planning, let's say we had a third Bush term, which is actually the position 83 00:07:51.140 --> 00:07:58.900 I advocated to keep Bush in office. No one liked him, and how much worse could it get? 84 00:07:58.900 --> 00:08:03.780 If he was planning to withdraw gradually from Iraq and leave Afghanistan alone, there's a 85 00:08:03.780 --> 00:08:07.820 lot of other considerations, of course. I think the trajectory would have been much better 86 00:08:07.820 --> 00:08:11.980 than we are today, where Iraq is about where I think it would have been, and Afghanistan's 87 00:08:11.980 --> 00:08:20.460 much worse. Private contractors, another thing the left used to talk about, and some of them 88 00:08:20.460 --> 00:08:26.460 There's three good leftists in America who talk about this, but it used to be a common talking point. 89 00:08:26.460 --> 00:08:35.460 After he took office, he boosted private contractors by about a quarter in both Iraq and Afghanistan. 90 00:08:35.460 --> 00:08:41.460 As of January 2011, of course, this is government data, and you'd be surprised how much they don't know what they're talking about. 91 00:08:41.460 --> 00:08:48.460 Every month it goes up and down, but there's 87,000 contractors in Afghanistan, 71,000 in Iraq. 92 00:08:48.460 --> 00:08:55.020 And what's interesting is in the first half of 2010, now these aren't all Americans, so 93 00:08:55.020 --> 00:09:00.220 people, you know, Americans don't really care, but there was a time, it does, it gives some 94 00:09:00.220 --> 00:09:05.000 idea of what's going on with the occupation and everything. There were more civilian contractors 95 00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:10.860 that died in the first half of 2010 than there were soldiers. And some people are pointing 96 00:09:10.860 --> 00:09:17.700 out that by shifting some of the burden to contractors, it obscures what's going on. 97 00:09:17.700 --> 00:09:21.780 And this only, mostly this counts Defense Department contractors. There's also State 98 00:09:21.780 --> 00:09:28.300 Department contractors. There's supposed to be 17,000 of these people within, you know, 99 00:09:28.300 --> 00:09:31.540 by the end of the year or in a couple of years or something. 100 00:09:31.540 --> 00:09:36.580 Now war funding, Obama always said that we're spending way too much, we're going to go 101 00:09:36.580 --> 00:09:41.760 line by line in the budget. And one of the only things he said that sounded like if he 102 00:09:41.760 --> 00:09:46.220 went, came through with it, it'd be good, is that we could save money on Iraq. That's 103 00:09:46.220 --> 00:09:50.460 And that's how we're going to feed everyone from cradle to grave. We'll just stop the 104 00:09:50.460 --> 00:09:55.220 Iraq war. And it doesn't really add up that way, but at least cutting the spending. And 105 00:09:55.220 --> 00:10:01.980 he did cut the spending in Iraq, but the spending has gone up so much in Afghanistan that other 106 00:10:01.980 --> 00:10:08.180 than the last two, this is adjusted to inflation to make Bush look worse because I want to 107 00:10:08.180 --> 00:10:13.280 give Bush, I'm trying to give Obama the benefit of the doubt because I'm arguing against Obama. 108 00:10:13.280 --> 00:10:18.080 But I don't believe in the consumer price index, but whatever. 109 00:10:18.080 --> 00:10:23.920 Other than Bush's last two years with the Surgeon All, total spending was lower for 110 00:10:23.920 --> 00:10:27.120 most of the Bush term than here on the two wars. 111 00:10:27.120 --> 00:10:33.040 And as you can see, these are all in billions, it's not even real money anymore. 112 00:10:33.040 --> 00:10:34.600 It's all Fed money. 113 00:10:34.600 --> 00:10:41.000 But the bottom line is that I don't see much spending there, nothing that can pay for national 114 00:10:41.000 --> 00:11:11.000 I want to just mention a couple of the more important things. This is important when you're trying to show someone what's really going on, if people are curious about troop levels, and there's a significance. I certainly don't think that American soldiers having to be there, I don't want to come off like that's not a big issue, and I don't want to come off like the money's not a big issue. 115 00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:14.000 And that's why I just made a big issue of both of them. 116 00:11:14.000 --> 00:11:20.000 But at the same time, there's other more fundamental things going on right now that we should all keep in mind. 117 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:25.000 On the war funding, not just the fact that it's out of control, 118 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:30.000 Obama criticized Bush for doing it kind of on the side by not putting it in the budget. 119 00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:35.000 Well, his first year Obama had a big supplemental war funding bill, another broken promise. 120 00:11:35.000 --> 00:11:42.000 The withdrawal plan in Iraq, as I said, is basically on course of what it was anyway. 121 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:47.600 Yes, we can do what Bush was going to do anyway. 122 00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:53.480 We have the same defense secretary, which I think says something, doesn't it? 123 00:11:53.480 --> 00:11:59.500 I mean, call me crazy, but change that we can believe in when your biggest change that 124 00:11:59.500 --> 00:12:04.680 people care about, or one of the biggest changes is the war, to have the same guy, you know, 125 00:12:04.680 --> 00:12:09.540 I don't know. Just call me old fashioned. I think you fire the guy in charge if the whole 126 00:12:09.540 --> 00:12:16.260 operation is a stinky mess. The Afghan war has expanded out of control and the war makes 127 00:12:16.260 --> 00:12:22.820 no sense. The government says there's a hundred al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. And so we've got, 128 00:12:22.820 --> 00:12:27.200 you know, the troop levels are higher, more people are dying. They want to stamp out the 129 00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:32.500 opium trade. They can't even stop people from buying crack four blocks from the White 130 00:12:32.500 --> 00:12:41.940 House. Not that they should try, but they can't do it. I mean, this is the most ridiculous 131 00:12:41.940 --> 00:12:47.500 war. It's even a more ridiculous war than the Iraq war in terms of the idea behind it, 132 00:12:47.500 --> 00:12:53.780 I think. Meanwhile, Pakistan, he's drone-attacking Pakistan. He's expanded this war greatly. 133 00:12:53.780 --> 00:12:57.460 One or two million Pakistani refugees have had to leave the Swat Valley. It's one of 134 00:12:57.460 --> 00:13:08.460 The greatest refugee crisis since Rwanda. He's bombed Yemen, Obama has bombed Somalia, even threatened Eritrea, this tiny little country near Ethiopia with invasion. 135 00:13:08.460 --> 00:13:19.460 In a normal country, when your government says it might invade a country, people have the clue. But it's war so much with so many countries, no one even knows any of this stuff. 136 00:13:19.460 --> 00:13:49.460 And on Iran, although people think he's like this Muslim selling out or whatever, he sounds a little less belligerent, but he continues to lie about stuff, like when they caught Iran red-handed with that calm nuclear facility, and by catching them red-handed, Iran reported that they had this facility, which they didn't really start working on yet, according to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the national intelligence estimate, the administration, 137 00:13:49.460 --> 00:13:54.940 pin down on the question and the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, they all 138 00:13:54.940 --> 00:14:02.340 say Iran's basically following the law. So he's basically lying about that. We've got 139 00:14:02.340 --> 00:14:07.060 on civil liberties and human rights, it's basically, some things are slightly better, 140 00:14:07.060 --> 00:14:11.820 some things are worse and most things are the same. Warrantless surveillance has continued 141 00:14:11.820 --> 00:14:17.060 and it's been normalized because now it's just, of course they can do that. The TSA 142 00:14:17.060 --> 00:14:23.300 Outrages have gotten worse and it's really sad that now the left thinks that you're crazy 143 00:14:23.300 --> 00:14:28.100 if you oppose the police state and the right, which I'm glad the right is finally realizing 144 00:14:28.100 --> 00:14:32.700 the federal government shouldn't get to touch us like this. 145 00:14:32.700 --> 00:14:39.060 Detention without charge, which is a big deal, I mean only very, very briefly, it's continued. 146 00:14:39.060 --> 00:14:42.180 The habeas corpus is basically just as gutted. 147 00:14:42.180 --> 00:14:46.100 On Guantanamo he was supposed to close it within a year, now it looks like they're never 148 00:14:46.100 --> 00:15:03.100 The administration's position was, we'll try him and we'll convict him. And if we don't convict him, we'll still detain him. 149 00:15:03.100 --> 00:15:09.100 So, of course, the American right-wing goes crazy because, you know, how dare he be soft on terrorism. 150 00:15:09.100 --> 00:15:39.100 Renditioning, you know, this outsourcing of people to be tortured. I don't know if it's quite as severe, but one example, I'll just very briefly, in 2009, they renditioned a guy. He wasn't even accused of terrorism. He was accused of knowing about supposed fraud related to defense contracting that involves something like $100,000. So they tied him to a chair, they deprived him of sleep. 151 00:15:39.100 --> 00:15:41.820 They tell him his family's in danger or he'll never see him again. 152 00:15:41.820 --> 00:15:44.940 You know, all the horrible stuff that happened under Bush. 153 00:15:44.940 --> 00:15:48.180 But he was basically like a Martha Stewart level. 154 00:15:48.180 --> 00:15:51.260 I mean, Martha Stewart did nothing wrong. 155 00:15:51.260 --> 00:15:52.980 This guy, you know, worked with the government. 156 00:15:52.980 --> 00:15:59.820 But this guy was, I mean, knowing about defense fraud of 100,000 being tortured, the defense, 157 00:15:59.820 --> 00:16:03.980 I don't know, just, it's disgusting and, you know, there's less concern about it. 158 00:16:03.980 --> 00:16:05.900 The drone attacks are through the roof. 159 00:16:05.900 --> 00:16:08.260 There's robot killing. 160 00:16:08.260 --> 00:16:17.260 You know, Bradley Manning, the likely whistleblower with WikiLeaks, he's being detained and Obama 161 00:16:17.260 --> 00:16:22.540 used to say, we're going to protect whistleblowers and I guess they mean protect them with steel 162 00:16:22.540 --> 00:16:33.560 cages or whatever, but basically we have the same basic trajectory on war, on spending, 163 00:16:33.560 --> 00:16:39.400 on Civil Liberties, on Foreign Policy, the Defense Department is as bloated as ever, 164 00:16:39.400 --> 00:16:48.400 and I think that we got to just never forget this because people forget that both parties 165 00:16:48.400 --> 00:16:53.920 are the same on pretty much everything and foreign policy may be more than anything else. 166 00:16:53.920 --> 00:16:54.920 So thank you. 167 00:16:54.920 --> 00:16:56.920 Thank you very much.