Libya. Dollars cost of war.

Maybe you think that the war in Libya has not much to do with you. If you do you are making a mistake.

Working class people in the US are under attack on every front. Jobs, wages, education, health, conditions. Capitalism which is making record profits are demanding more and more from workers. Capitalism has never being making as much profits as it is now. But as it does it plunges the economy into bankruptcy.

In the early 1990's, in the run up to the first gulf war, the Federal budget deficit was 4.5% of gross domestic product. This has exploded in the decade since. It is now 10.9% of gross domestic product. It is eating up more than twice the country's economy. Part of this is because spending on so called "national defense" has rocketed by 150% over the past decade. This is mainly due to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. "National Defense." This is nonsense. This is not national defense. It is war. Spending for war to defend the profits and resources of the US corporations abroad. this is what has gone up by 150% in the last decade. This is the truth of the matter.

Let us make this concrete. In two hours yesterday the US fired off 104 cruise missiles at targets in Libya. The cost of this to the US tax payer, that is us. Just over $100 million. How many schools would this have improved, teachers hired and trained, hospitals built and staffed and so on. But now this $100 is scrap metal in Libya. Capitalism is mad. It does not work. We stand for an end to capitalism, and end to war, for an international democratic socialist system.

Sean.