<div dir="ltr">On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 10:56 PM, Jim Herrmann <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kclug@itdepends.com">kclug@itdepends.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div dir="ltr">What has busted the budget is an illegal war entered into using known lies by an administration that should be tried in the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Eliminate the war spending, which is borrowed from China, and you eliminate about half of the deficit. Eliminate another 20% of a military budget that is larger than all the rest of the world combined, and we have a balanced budget. Unfortunately, the next president, Obama, has been doing a bunch of sabre rattling about Afghanistan. That won't be cheap. So, I don't hold out much hope for that 20% reduction I'm talking about, but at least he'll get us out of Iraq soon. <br>
</div></blockquote><div><br>I'm not sure how that's "sabre rattling". We're already there. He (and McCain) is proposing actually addressing the problems in Afghanistan after years of neglect by Bush.<br>
<br>Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, actually had terrorists in it before we went there, and they're still there, hiding along the border of Pakistan. Our problem is that while we pour money into Iraq, we neglect Afghanistan, and that's one of the key problems with our foreign policy. We need to help Afghanistan become a real country again, and we need to catch Omar and bin Laden. It's certainly not the same situation as Iraq.<br>
<br>Jeffrey.<br></div></div><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><br>"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine<br>
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