The U.S. in Afghanistan is looking a lot like the U.S.S.R. in Afghanistan. The cost of the war there and in Iraq, our other quagmire, is one of the two main causes of our record deficit, the other being lowered tax rates on the filthy-rich ultra-wealthy.

From McClatchy Newspapers:

… Congress has allotted $1.3 trillion for war spending through fiscal year 2011 just to the Defense Department… Besides what Congress appropriated, the Pentagon spent an additional unknown amount from its $5.2 trillion base budget over that same period. According to a recent Brown University study, the wars and their ripple effects have cost the United States $3.7 trillion, or more than $12,000 per American… According to Defense Department figures, by the end of April the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan… had cost an average of $9.7 billion a month, with roughly two-thirds going to Afghanistan …

Call your Congressperson and tell him/her you want your $12,000 back and you don’t care if he/she has to go straight to Dick Cheney’s door and threaten to shake the loot out of him and his Halliburton buddies. Even better if we could get the money back and have Cheney and Dubya extradited to one of those countries eager to try them for war crimes.

Any day now, right?