Billions of dollars for Afghanistan occupation off budget

The seemingly growing and angry right-wingers in the US are energized by many concerns. They oppose abortion, taxes, any regulation on guns. They want prayer back in the schools. They want an impenetrable wall built across the South West of the US to keep all illegal immigrants out of the country- and want fewer immigrants overall. They want to keep homosexuals out of the military services and stigmatized and marginalized, that is, until Christian therapy can bring them back to "normality."

The go along with the Republican ideas of privatization and deregulation. Don't say much abour outsourcing of jobs to low-wage countries. They hate the idea of government, though personally want the benefits they get from some government programs. Implicitly, this means a different kind of big government, one that would make all of us less free.

This becomes clear, for example, in their support of strong military forces to protect us from enemies. They want a strong military also because, they think, it is the foundation of US power in the world - America first! They also tend to somehow think that military power is necessary to protect our "free market" economy, which, in their logic, makes them personally free, or freer, than otherwise. It also stirs their patriotic feelings and reinforces their macho views of themselves and that disagreements can best be handled by force .

Today, there were two "headlines" on Democracy Now that have some relevance for the right-wingers' views. The headlines reveal how they are being ripped off or not told the whole truth by their own mostly unregulated, but federally debt-financed, military establishment.

Headlines from Democracy Now:

Audit: US Can’t Account for $17.7B in Afghan Spending
A new government audit shows the US can’t account for nearly $18 billion earmarked for the Afghan war. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction says the government doesn’t know how some $17.7 billion obligated to over 7,000 contractors has been disbursed.

Inquiry: Pentagon Official Misled on Spy Program
A Pentagon inquiry has found a senior official deliberately misled top military officers when he established a spy program run by private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The official, Michael Furlong, established the off-the-books operation to help track and kill suspected militants. Furlong has claimed his superiors authorized the program.