New study finds that "The legacy of decisions taken during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will dominate future federal budgets for decades to come."

George W. Bush: President, murderer, and traitor to his country.

Courtesy of the Harvard Kennedy School:

The Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, taken together, will be the most expensive wars in US history – totaling somewhere between $4 to $6 trillion. This includes long-term medical care and disability compensation for service members, veterans and families, military replenishment and social and economic costs. The largest portion of that bill is yet to be paid. Since 2001, the US has expanded the quality, quantity, availability and eligibility of benefits for military personnel and veterans. This has led to unprecedented growth in the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense budgets. These benefits will increase further over the next 40 years. Additional funds are committed to replacing large quantities of basic equipment used in the wars and to support ongoing diplomatic presence and military assistance in the Iraq and Afghanistan region. The large sums borrowed to finance operations in Iraq and Afghanistan will also impose substantial long-term debt servicing costs. As a consequence of these wartime spending choices, the United States will face constraints in funding investments in personnel and diplomacy, research and development and new military initiatives. The legacy of decisions taken during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will dominate future federal budgets for decades to come.

You know I have for all of my life had a pretty bad temper.  Actually a VERY bad temper.

I have much more control over it now than I did in years past, but this is the kind of thing that strips away those controls and throws me into an absolute rage.

As the Republicans bitch at our President for not balancing the budget, or not addressing the national debt, or not bringing down the deficit, they do so acting as if those were EVER their concerns when George Bush was spending billions of our dollars, murdering the Iraqi and Afghan people, while simultaneously sending American servicemen, and women, into the meat grinders of two unnecessary wars.

Did even ONE of them mention spending in those days? (Yes, I know about Ron Paul, but he is really dealing with a whole different set of delusions.)

These soldiers, the ones that survived, will for decades to come need the support of a United States government that betrayed their trust and forced them to do, and suffer, unspeakable atrocities in the name of "freedom."

And we will also continue to spend, for generations to come, billions of dollars to repair the damage that our bombs and bullets did to countries that, through no fault of their own, were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Yet the Republicans who gleefully and wholeheartedly voted to support these conflicts, and the money spent to conduct them, now have the audacity to demand that President Obama clean up their giant, expensive mess more quickly, and with virtually no support from them.

Like I said, I have a bad temper. Let's just say that there are members of the Republican party that do not want to meet me in a dark alley anytime soon. And that goes for the people who voted them into office as well.

(P.S. Before anybody gets their panties in a twist, you should know that I am not planning to hurt anybody physically. I have too much to lose, and nothing concrete to gain by doing so. But that does not mean that a face to face meeting with me would be something that one of these lawmakers should look forward to. I also possess a rather impressive and colorful vocabulary. And THAT I'm not afraid to use.)