Revolutionary Voice

Yesterday the Pentagon requested that Congress grant them 99.7 billion dollars for efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. This would be in addition to the 70 billion approved in September. If the new request is accepted, America’s war budget for 2007 will be a full 45 percent higher than it was in 2006.

However, with the Democrats now controlling both the House and the Senate, it would seem unlikely that the Pentagon will receive the crazy amount that they are asking for. The vast majority of newly-elected Democrats promised during their campaigns in November, to do what they could to put an end to America’s occupation in Iraq. As of yet, they haven’t taken any dramatic steps to achieve this.

According to the New York Times: “ . . . About $50 billion — most of the money — would go to the Army, which is conducting the bulk of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The request also includes $3.8 billion for the Air Force and $3 billion for the Navy to buy or upgrade aircraft. The Pentagon is also seeking $9.7 billion for training Iraqi and Afghan security forces, almost as much as has been spent in total since 2001, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service . . .”

We have been told that the main reason we’re still in Iraq is so we can train their security forces, but the Pentagon is only planning on spending a tenth of their desired funding on this aspect of the war. If we put fifty billion into training the Iraqis, and took all other unnecessary troops out, we could put the rest of the funding into our education, research, and programs that people can actually benefit from.

Right now we’re falling behind internationally, and need to focus on enlightening ourselves before we devote everything to a dead-end war.