It's time for Obama to bring the troops home NOW, before our credit rating is downgraded;

[grahamhgreen]

It's one tool he has at his disposal that will immediatly reduce the deficit and save billions of dollars per week.

He does not need one Republican to agree with him, and he can do it with one phone call.

[Skidmore]

1. I do believe the troops are coming home. We had a fairly

large group of them return to Iowa just this week.

On the practical side of this, how do you propose that so many troops and such a large amount of equipment be pulled back in one week's time? Regardless of any phone call, it would continue to cost money to pull them out and take a bit of time too.

[grahamhgreen]

2. Just put them on planes or boats, tens of millions travel this way every day.

Millions of tons of junk come in from China daily.

The military is extremely efficient at mobilizing armies.

And if they're coming home anyway, this will just save us that much more blood and treasure.

[Tansy_Gold]

3. Unfortunately, it's not just the troops

Brazillions of our tax dollars are going to private contractors -- mercenaries, if you will -- who perform "support" services that used to be done by military personnel. Many of those "contractors" remain and will remain, because their parent companies WANT them to remain. They are making big bucks off the war.



TG. TT

[grahamhgreen]

6. Bring them home too! What's the chain of command there?

[Tansy_Gold]

9. The chain of command still seems to be

the buck stops with dick cheeeeney, the most profitable war profiteer evah.

Mr. Obama -- somehow he doesn't seem to deserve the other title -- has not done what needs to be done. He has left in place policies and procedures from the previous administration that were highly criticized by many of those who elected him.

but of course that is only my sincerely humble opinion.


Tansy Gold

[grahamhgreen]

10. It would seem to me that the contractors have to be subordinate to the Commander-in-Chief.

[elocs]

4. When does "now" mean? Today? This weekend? Just a huge bug-out?

Because any "now" like that only exists in the alternative DU universe where reality does not apply.

Even if we were to get out "now" that "now" would likely take at least a year. I'm sure that most of us who want to understand this can understand this, but it's fun to toss out statements and directives in the alternate DU universe that we know will not happen.

[grahamhgreen]

7. Guess what,

it happened that way in Vietnam.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Never happen. Can't happen, won't happen.

you did not say which troops or how many troops, but let's assume we are talking about ONLY the 50,000 in Iraq and the 100,000 or so in Afghanistan, the 8,500 now in Libya
( according to wiki...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments

Bring 'em home and what? Keep them in the military here? Not much of a money saver, then, is it?

Do they get jobs here, in our current economy? Not likely.

Who will the USA pay to maintain bases and secret prisons in the Middle East?
And how will that save any money?

It is an age old conundrum.
When empires run out of money to pay the troops, they do not want the dis-satisfied trained unemployed troops roaming the empire looking for opportunity, or worse yet, mad the current regime.
Doesn't matter if they are "official" government troops or mercenaries, you can't suddenly make them all "jobless".
And if you can afford to keep them employed, why bring them home, when where they are now is so much more lucrative for whatever form of treasure they were sent to secure and protect in the first place?

The USA has populated the planet with military bases since WWll....we have never "brought home" the thousands of troops stationed in Europe, Asia. Hell, we even have 10.,000 in Britain, still, today!

[grahamhgreen]

8. All of them. It must happen. It will happen. It's just a matter of when.

"Bring 'em home and what? Keep them in the military here? Not much of a money saver, then, is it?"

- To keep the troops deployed in the field it costs over 1 million per year per troop. Here it is 5% of that.


"Do they get jobs here, in our current economy? Not likely."

- If we put them to work building things with the Army Corps of engineers, we can get great new infrastructure at a great price!


"Who will the USA pay to maintain bases and secret prisons in the Middle East?"

- Obviously we close the bases and prosecute those responsible.


"And how will that save any money?"

- At this point the Stiglitz and Bilme estimate for the costs are 4-6 trillion. That's Hundreds of billions a year in savings! (http://bit.ly/iVjPhg) There ya go!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Oh, shush! Just look how productive the military is....

There's....well...and...never mind.