<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/9e7ed6de-c419-4808-ba96-3295cab1754b/14B1BBE6-BCD7-400F-8006-F14EC112CCFF/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175129/jo_comerford_three_cheers_for_the_war_dividend" href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175129/jo_comerford_three_cheers_for_the_war_dividend" style="font-size: 11px;">www.tomdispatch.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175129/jo_comerford_three_cheers_for_the_war_dividend">Three Cheers for the War Dividend</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175129/jo_comerford_three_cheers_for_the_war_dividend">NBC's <A href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33253216/ns/meet_the_press//">October 11th</A> "Meet the Press</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175129/jo_comerford_three_cheers_for_the_war_dividend"> Gregory asks: "Can we beat the Taliban?" General McCaffrey's reply starts this way: "Well, I, I think in 10 years of $5 billion a month and with a significant front-end security component, we can leave an Afghan national army and police force and a viable government and roads and universities. But it's a time constraint that we can't change things in 18 to 24 months. So I think we got to lower expectations." </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175129/jo_comerford_three_cheers_for_the_war_dividend">Now, if you were a normal citizen, you might begin frantically calculating: $5 billion a month...</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175129/jo_comerford_three_cheers_for_the_war_dividend"> Or, of course, you might just jump up and yell, "Have you lost your senses?" </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175129/jo_comerford_three_cheers_for_the_war_dividend">And be reasonable, who could expect the U.S. to fight two wars <I>and</I> maintain <A href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/08/americas-unwelcome-advances">more than 700 bases</A> around the world for less than the $704 billion we'll shell out to the Pentagon in 2010? </blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175129/jo_comerford_three_cheers_for_the_war_dividend"> in the next decade the basic Pentagon budget will grow by at least $133.1 billion, or 25%. </blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/14B1BBE6-BCD7-400F-8006-F14EC112CCFF/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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