Military funding and the economy

Back on April 9, CNN reported that President Obama is asking for more money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A lot of money.

The Obama administration will ask Congress for another $83.4 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of September, Democratic congressional sources said Thursday.

The request is expected to pay for those conflicts for the rest of the 2009 budget year, two Democratic congressional sources said.

The money would bring the running tab for both conflicts to about $947 billion, according to figures from the Congressional Research Service.

Back in February, Obama approved a troop increase in Afghanistan.

How is that money being spent? Lots of air strikes.

Unfortunately, there have been a lot of casualties.

A UN survey tallied up 2,118 civilians killed in Afghanistan in 2008, a significant rise over the previous year's figure, of which 828 were ascribed to American, NATO, and Afghan Army actions rather than to suicide bombers or Taliban guerrillas. (Given the difficulty of counting the dead in wartime, any figures like these are likely to be undercounts.) There are, in other words, constant "incidents" to choose from.

Recently, for instance, there was an attack by a CIA drone in the Pakistani borderlands that Pakistani sources claim may have killed up to eight civilians; or there were the six civilians, including a 3-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy, killed by an American air strike that leveled three houses in Afghanistan's Kunar Province. Sixteen more Afghans, including children as young as one, were wounded in that air attack, based on "multiple intelligence sources" in which, the US military initially claimed, only "enemy fighters" died. (As a recent study of the death-dealing weapons of the Iraq War, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, indicates, air strikes are notoriously good at taking out civilians. Eighty-five percent of the deaths from air strikes in Iraq were, the study estimated, women and children; and of all methods, including suicide and car bombs, air power "killed the most civilians per event.")

According to The War Resister's League, 54% of your Federal taxes go to the military.

How much is that 54%?

$1,449 Billion.





With California teachers losing jobs and massive job cuts at the post office that money could be better spend domestically to help individuals and the economy.

United for Peace and Justice has put together a petition to ask President Obama to cut military funding and end the wars.

In the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s work to end poverty, racism, and war, we, the people of the United States, call on the Obama administration and the U.S. Congress to end the U.S. wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to address the economic and environmental crises by cutting military spending by 25% in 2010 and redirecting our tax dollars to housing, health care, education, green jobs, and clean energy.

The petition asks President Obama to redirect those funds and each person signing the petition can suggest what he or she feels to be a better place for that money.

You can sign UFPJ's petition online here

If you would like to get others to sign, you can direct them to that website or you can download and print a PDF copy and send it to UFPJ when completed.