Reply #28: Yeah, but remember Bush/Cheney wars were "off the books" [View All]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/02/weighing-the-ir/?du

February 25, 2009

In his address last night on the economic crisis, President Barack Obama made it official: No more budgetary sleight-of-hand at the Pentagon.

As we have noted here before, the U.S. military has largely paid for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through emergency spending measures, in effect keeping wartime costs off the books. In addition to masking skyrocketing budget growth at the Department of Defense, this process has allowed the services to treat budget supplementals as a piggy bank for new procurement. Members of Congress may have grumbled about poor oversight, but they have largely acquiesced.

Obama’s message? Not anymore.

"That is why this budget looks ahead ten years and accounts for spending that was left out under the old rules – and for the first time, that includes the full cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said. "For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price."

This is the first real move toward belt-tightening at the Pentagon; we’ll see if the new Defense Department budget reflects it, and Obama’s pledge to stop "paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use."

My add: Too bad the next part of this story didn't happen. Would the US be in a better place economically if the occupation of Iraq would have actually ended last year? Is it reasonable to expect intervention in another country go on forever or until they get their house in order according to US standards (whatever that means).

War weary, Americans seem to accept war as a way of life, occupation of foreign lands as normal, killing innocent people with drones okay.