Posted 3/28/2011

WHY OH WHY ARE WE IN LIBYA?

And where are the Tea Party folks when you need them?

They ought to be screaming about another useless expansion in federal spending.

Every time a $600,000 cruise missile blows up a $3,000 house, they ought to be mounting protests.

There is no way we should be in this war. Fiscally. Strategically. Militarily. Or any other way.

The administration simply does not understand that we must close the ever-expanding budget gap before the country goes bankrupt. With healthcare taking 12 percent of the national budget and rising inevitably to 65 percent fifty years from now, we are rapidly going bust.

The USA is already by far and away the world's largest debtor nation. By 2060, we won't have any money left over to provide for education, Social Security, national defense or even the Post Office. As a matter of fact, we probably won't even be able to pay interest on the national debt.

Long before 2060, the nation will go bust if we do not get our spending and income into reasonable alignment. Your grandchildren will surely live about as well as the lower middle class in India today.

This war demonstrates that neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party understands the fiscal quagmire the country is drowning in. If they did, they would get together in the Congress and refuse to appropriate any further funds for the "Libyan campaign."

This move proves that President Barack Obama is a flyweight compared with former President George H.W. Bush – who led the Gulf War. President Bush fought and won a short war against Iraq and spent only $80 billion doing it. But he shrewdly negotiated the coalition forces (mostly Saudi Arabia) out of $70 billion. So his great victory cost the American taxpayer a mere $10 billion. (We got most of this back through military sales.)

President Obama, on the other hand, got suckered by the Arab League, which pushed and cajoled us into the Libyan mess. Then their leader criticized us publicly the first day out for going too far.

And how much are the so-called Arab allies going to contribute to our very expensive venture? Two countries are giving a little. But the rest are kicking in nada. Not even rich Saudi Arabia.

Secretary of State Clinton forgot to put on her thinking cap when she advocated a "no-fly zone." She should have said to the Arab League, "We're pretty broke right now. If you want us to participate in a Libyan venture, you're going to have to pay for it." That would have stopped any thought of bailing out the rebels right there.

We should have let France and England do it themselves. After all, the Libyan oil they crave is important to them – but not to us. We could easily have listened to German Chancellor Merkel, who pooh-poohed the whole idea of an intervention into Libya.

The humanitarian angle? We are no longer rich enough to be humanitarians on the scale requested.

Democrats. Republicans. Tea Partiers. Get your heads screwed on straight.

WE CANNOT AFFORD NEW VENTURES WHICH EXPAND FEDERAL EXPENDITURES.

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