June 9^th

As readers of this blog know I don’t often agree with Pat Buchanan, but his column today is an exception. Buchanan is an isolationist and I slant in that direction as well as far as our military is concerned. (Buchanan’s bigotry is another story.) Today he once again points out why we should not be sending American troops to tamp down regional conflicts in Iraq, Syria and adjacent areas. In this he agrees with the great majority of Americans who believe, quite firmly, that the recent wars there were a mistake. Even the hawkish Donald Rumsfeld, former Secretary Of Defense, has very belatedly, announced that he believed all along that bringing democracy to Iraq would not work. Now he tells us! Naturally he remains critical of the President’s policies, particularly ousting Muammar Khadafy. This is curious because Khadafy, well-funded by oil money, was more responsible for terrorist attacks than Saddam Hussein; witness Pan Am flight 103.

President Obama has been pilloried by right wingers for withdrawing American troops from Iraq in 2011 as agreed to by his predecessor, President Bush. Now suppose he hadn’t done that. In that case we would have incurred many hundreds more dead Americans and thousands more wounded. (Currently about eight times as many soldiers are wounded as killed.)

Thanks to Grover Norquist who enlists Congress people to vote against tax increases (always a popular position), we would have had to borrow the money to continue the war from our old friend China, the principle buyer of our government’s bonds. (Who knows, maybe Norquist’s efforts are supported by the Chinese.) Conservatives are big on using our armed forces for various police actions. The administration controls the intelligence Congress gets so it is pathetically easy for any administration interested in getting Congressional approval for military action to get it. This is just what happened when we invaded Iraq with Congressional approval massaged by faulty intelligence.  Approval for a war is not equivalent to approving the financing for the war.

Perhaps we need a constitutional amendment that any use of our armed forces overseas must be accompanied by a 20 percent surtax on incomes up to 500 thousand dollars a year and 50 percent surtax on incomes over that. Pay as you go should appeal to conservatives, at least to those who haven’t bought into Grover Norquist’s message.

We financed World War 2 with borrowed money and higher taxes but the borrowed money was borrowed from us. People bought War Bonds; these came in various denominations, a 25 dollar bond cost $18.75 and ten years later you could get 25 dollars for it, a 50 dollar bond cost $37.50 and could be cashed ten years later for 50 dollars. Income taxes topped out at 94 percent. Of course the images of the Pearl Harbor disaster was a significant motivation for citizens to come together and sacrifice. Contrast that with a government that had to send Ambassador Wilson to Africa to find evidence that Saddam Hussein was developing “weapons of mass destruction” before we could take action. Oh well, times change.