$85 billion sequester cuts? Meh! We spent a trillion-plus on wars!

So, it appears that we have given up $85 billion for Lent!

The sequester kicked in on Friday night, meaning $85 billion in spending cuts will hit federal agencies and employees during the remainder of the fiscal year — slowly at first but with greater force over time.
Congress this week will begin to focus its attention on a March 27 deadline for adopting a new spending bill that would replace the last short-term funding measure, which expires on that date. Absent a deal, the government shuts down.

It will be an interesting month of theatrics all over again.

If the fight is this intense over how much 85 billion of government spending will, or will not, have any Kenyesian multiplier effect in the economy, how come Congress pretty much came together in a wonderful sense of bipartisanship in order to spend more than a trillion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan?  BTW, a reminder that we are talking about 1,000 billion dollars in wars, which is actually a very low estimate.  Joseph Stiglitz says it is past the two trillion dollar figure.  Three trillion, if you include the various indirect costs as well.

If the Republicans think that those trillion dollars didn't mess up our economy, then why are they fighting over some measly amounts here?  At least, we are spending the money within the country, right?  On the other hand, if the Democrats are convinced that this 85 billion will be the end of the world as we know it, then how come they merrily kept voting for the war spending in multiples of 85 billions all these years?

I am comparing the 85 billion to the gazillions we have spent on wars because, as I mentioned in a previous post, we are rapidly nearing the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.  Many commentators are offering their own reflections on the wars.  If Christopher Hitchens were alive today, I wonder if he will apologize for having enthusiastically supported the wars.  Many, like Andrew Sullivan, are tendering their apologies.  But, how does a "I was wrong" matter anymore?

Thinking about the Iraq War, one cannot ignore the much longer war that the US has been fighting in Afghanistan--the one that candidate Senator Obama referred to as the good war.  And, as President, he has proven to be a worthy successor to Bush, in terms of doing everything to screw things up.  Reading this lengthy essay by Vali Nasr was more than a tad depressing.  He concludes there:

 It was to court public opinion that Obama first embraced the war in Afghanistan. And when public opinion changed, he was quick to declare victory and call the troops back home. His actions from start to finish were guided by politics, and they played well at home. Abroad, however, the stories the United States tells to justify its on-again, off-again approach do not ring true to friend or foe. They know the truth: America is leaving Afghanistan to its own fate. America is leaving even as the demons of regional chaos that first beckoned it there are once again rising to threaten its security.
America has not won this war on the battlefield, nor has the country ended it at the negotiating table. America is just washing its hands of this war. We may hope that the Afghan army the United States is building will hold out longer than the one that the Soviet Union built, but even that may not come to pass. Very likely, the Taliban will win Afghanistan again, and this long, costly war will have been for naught. 

We will exit Afghanistan like all the other great powers did in history.  When we leave, the country will have enough trained warriors and  weapons for them to engage in attacks on "others," defined by ethnicity and religion, just like how the well trained militia are a big part of the problem in Mali. This will spill over to both Pakistan and Iran, which will make the second half of this decade even more challenging.

We will perhaps still be arguing about budgetary nickels and dimes.  I suppose we do get the republic we deserve, especially when we are the people we have been waiting for!