“Who the f*** knows what it will cost? It depends entirely on what happens” - White House Staffer on Syria quoted by Sam Stein in “Syria Intervention Can Be Paid For With Preexisting Funds: Obama Official,” Huffington Post, Sept. 4, 2013
As the push toward war in Syria grows more intense, some in Congress and elsewhere are beginning to ask a very basic question: what will it cost? And the responses are not surprising -- like those blasé estimates of the cost of the Iraq war. Some say it will not cost anything … we can get it from the $80-billion Pentagon slush fund, the OCOF (overseas contingency operations fund). Or, someone else will pay for it as with John Kerry’s recent assertions to Congress that the “Arab nations” have said they will carry the cost of the operation. In no case will it cost over $100-million!!!
I recall in private correspondence with Devvy Kidd prior to the Iraq war, I broached the idea that the war would cost $1-trillion. She thought my estimate “far fetched” in light of official government estimates of several hundred million dollars, at most. With consequential costs, it turns out, I may have underestimated by 66%!
No one, of course, deals with the consequential costs of such a war, with energy price increases alone spreading like a creeping pollutant through the waterway of the economy. To stick with my aquatic analogy, perhaps the quoted White House staffer doesn’t care how much it costs because he (or she) knows the water is being let out of the swimming pool. That the United States is rapidly being turned into a “husk” and that these foreign adventures are merely a way to suck out the last of the nation’s “vital fluids.”
Many liberals of the Noam Chomsky ilk like to lay the onus of blame for the evils of the world on America (not Israel or its Jewish and non-Jewish backers). In the Islamic world, America is sometimes called the “great Satan”. My question being, why doesn’t the “great Satan” enrich its citizens? Why is the “great Satan” allowing its whole support network to disintegrate even as it aspires to new conquest?
To an honest thinker, there can be only one conclusion: that America is under the control of alien forces who apparently do not plan a great future for it. They have transferred vast amounts of capital from it to China and elsewhere, while making bellicose noises about future wars with the Communist country (without a manufacturing infrastructure to support such wars.) They have commandeered the government so that it is increasingly neglecting the social needs of the population. And this government has diverted monies toward wars and away from maintenance of essential infrastructure: water and sewage systems, roads, bridges, dams, waterways, rail transport, hospitals, medical equipment, schools, etc., such that we see failure of such systems on an increasingly regular basis.
Congressman Jeff Durham boasts of a $40-billion savings in the new Congressional Agriculture bill which, for the first time, cuts out SNAP (supplemental nutrition assistance program) or food stamps from the budget. Without these monies, many underemployed, poorly paid and unemployed workers and their families will starve or be malnourished. No doubt, he will vote for Mr. Obama’s war, where these “savings” will quickly evaporate.
Numerous other social programs have been cut during the Bush-Obama reign. What about vital infrastructure? Surely, a real world power would see to it that water and sanitation are maintained along with the transportation grid necessary to its continued existence? Not so here.
“The American Society of Civil Engineers has estimated that $1.7 trillion is required merely to stabilize the condition of core infrastructure…” states the EIR (Executive Intelligence Review) of August 17th, 2007. (All future EIR references will be to this issue, which was an excellent overview done by the LaRouche organization.) There is money for continued wars, as with Syria, but no hint of monies available for simple maintenance of the nation. For instance:
Highways
“The US Department of Transportation currently estimates that there is a $461-billion backlog of needed road, highway, and bridge repair and improvements. The American Society of Civil Engineers, and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials keep estimates on the loss to the economy from poor road conditions. For example, US motorists spend at least $54-billion a year in repairs and operating costs because of poor road conditions,” states the EIR. The aging US transportation system (including rails and waterways) costs the US economy $129-billion per year, estimates the United Soybean Board, Chesterfield, Mo. (Insight Briefings, Aug. 17th, 2012.)
Bridges
Due to lack of Federal and state funding, major bridges have collapsed in the US, such as the recent I-5 bridge collapse in Mt. Vernon, WA and the 2007 collapse of the I-35W bridge. One in nine of US bridges is now “structurally deficient” with an average age of 50 years. Of these 67,000 bridges, 8000 are both structurally deficient and “fracture critical.” Half these bridges are 65 years or older. In 10 years, one in four will be this old, reported Transportation for America in a report on June 19th, 2013, which added: “Congress has repeatedly declared the safety of our bridges to be of national significance. However, the money to fix them is getting harder to come by… At the same time, Congress made the prospects for bridges even more uncertain last year by eliminating a dedicated fund for them in its update of the federal transportation program.”
Rails
“The US rail system is a bare skeleton of its past operations… taking the 20-year period from 1980 to 2000… A decline in Class I track mileage from 164,822 in 1980 (already far below its length of 229,530 route-miles in 1922), to 99,250 in 2000. In addition to the shrinkage of the rail system, the condition of what remains is also inadequate, as the accident rate shows. In 2006, of 2,903 rail wrecks, 1,043 were caused by track defects,” stated the EIR.
Dams
According to the EIR, of the 30,000 dams considered to be in some category of hazard, 3,000 are considered as actually unsafe. The “Report Card” of the American Society of Civil Engineers gives dam safety overall a “D,” partially because of the lack of funding available to deal with these unsafe structures. In 2002, an estimate of $10-billion was given by the Association of Dam Safety Officials for what it would have taken then to rehabilitate the most critical high-hazard dams.
Waterways
There are lock chambers in use that are over 80 years old. The backlog of Army Corps waterways work is well over $3 billion, according to the Aug. 17th, 2007, EIR stated. Our nation’s most vital waterway, the Mississippi, was shut down to commercial traffic this year due to the drought but (not stated in the press) also due to Federal cost cutting. The “saved” money, apparently, has been diverted to foreign wars, soon to include Syria. This Government financial misfeasance limits ships to a 42-foot draft, which will make US ships noncompetitive with larger foreign ships traversing canals and waterways worldwide.
“The US Army Corps of Engineers has the responsibility to maintain a depth of 45 feet on the lower Mississippi. Due to funding cutbacks the Corps has not been able to dredge to maintain an adequate navigable channel,” claims the United Soybean Board, Chesterfield, Mo. (Insight Briefings, Aug. 17th, 2012.)
Water Supply and Sewage Systems
In 2003, a study published by the Congressional Budget Office concluded that over a 20-year period it would take up to $331-billion in pipe replacement costs alone. Water mains and sewer lines in many areas are failing with age and are inadequate for the population, the EIR reported.
Schools
Stated EIR: “In 2005, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave a ‘D’ grade to American schools on its ‘infrastructure report card’. The Society noted that in 2000, $268-billion was the expenditure necessary to bring schools into conformity with standards, according to the National Education Association estimates at that time.”
Hospitals/Medicine
In the US, resources for diagnostic and treatment equipment have declined due to government cutbacks. Said EIR: “Beginning in January 2007, Bush Administration cutbacks in Medicaid reimbursement payments for imaging technologies began to reduce the availability of lifesaving diagnoses of all kinds - MRI, CT, PET, DXA, and ultrasound scanning… In 2006, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences released a three-volume report which concluded that the United States emergency and trauma care system is “at the breaking point.” The number of emergency departments in operation nationally decreased by 38% between 1995 and 2005.
Even veterans were not immune from this war-induced austerity, according to the EIR: As of March 2007, there was a backlog of 600,000 disability claims that had not yet been processed. Of 160 VA hospital sites, 19 were targeted for shutdown. A de facto construction moratorium was begun in 2001 under the Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) process.
Yet Bush, like his successor Mr. Obama, had vast sums for the nation-destabilizing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Conclusion
In view of the increasingly senseless and costly military adventures for foreign powers - particularly Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia -- the costly neglect of infrastructure and basic services in the US (coupled with massive capital transfers to China and elsewhere) convinces me that the US is rapidly being converted into a “husk”. Syria is merely the latest step in this process. The infrastructure and social fabric is not being maintained because, I believe, in the view of America’s alien controllers, in the not distant future this infrastructure will no longer be needed.
Back to Top