Operation Odyssey Dawn: How Many Teachers Will 112 Tomahawk Missiles Buy You?
While Americans were watching the aftermath of the Earthquake/Tsunami/Nuclear Meltdown in Japan, buying up all the potassium iodide they could get their hands on, President Obama and the UN decided we were going to war. Of coarse, as tradition holds, war was not declared by Congress but as of yesterday the United States sent 112 Tomahawk missiles aimed straight at Moammar Gadhafi’s ass and his air defenses. Not that very many people in America noticed that Operation Odyssey Dawn has now begun.
American’s didn’t notice because we have better things to worry about than Gadhafi doing his best Saddam Hussein impression. As of February, the unemployment rate in the United States is still at 9.5% and the real unemployment rate at a massive 16% (this number includes those working part-time who are looking for full-time jobs). Going back 63 years, the unemployment rate was only been higher than that in 1982-83. During the height of the 1930′s Depression, the highest level of unemployed was 12.83 million people, or 25% of the population. Right now as of February, there are 13.1 million people who are totally unemployed.
In one day, the United States sent 112 Tomahawk missiles into Libya. Each Tomahawk missile costs $1.4 million. That’s a total of $156.8 million dollars sent in flames to Libya. The Tomahawk missile program itself costs American taxpayers $11.21 billion. What could we have bought with that money? Or better yet, how many jobs could we have created with that money? The average high school teacher in the United States makes $43,496 a year. We could have paid 3605 teachers a year’s salary with the money we spent on bombing Libya in one day. The Dallas Independent School district is planning on laying off 3800 teachers at the end of this school year because budget problems. The City of Los Angeles has already laid off 2700 teachers in the last two years, and will likely fire 4000 more after this year. The school board in Providence, Rhode Island is planning on laying off 1900 teachers because of a $40 million budget deficit. That deficit is equal to 29 Tomahawk missiles.
The question should be asked, why are our esteemed leaders in Washington spending so much to protect the rebellion in Libya? We didn’t see the UN or the United States jumping at the chance to send money to the Egyptian or Tunisian revolutions. We still aren’t sending bombers to protect protesters in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen or Algeria. In Bahrain over 1000 protesters were injured after the government crackdown and many opposition leaders have been arrested. Around 26000 riot police violently broke up protests in Algiers. Live ammunition was used against protesters in Yemen, who’s president has been in power for 32 years, compared to Gadhafi’s 42 years.
Why Libya? I don’t have a clear answer to that question. The “humanitarian” angle is obviously a non-starter or we would have bombed Sudan, Congo, or any of the countries in the present North African and Middle East revolutions a long time ago. Could it be that the rest of those countries have good or stable relations with the United States and Europe? That’s pretty likely. Could it be that oil prices have shot up and getting rid of Gadhafi is a way to calm those markets down? This is also pretty likely but not nearly as clear. Europe has kept a watchful eye on Libya in attempts to deal with their illegal immigration problems. But bombing them doesn’t seem to help with that issue. Maybe we are bombing Libya because the UN got bored and needed to show its muscles after its total failure to stop the war in Iraq, genocide in Darfur or civil war in Congo. Like I said, the reasoning isn’t clear. But the one thing that is clear, this is not a humanitarian bombing. As if the words “humanitarian” and “bombing” can ever be used next to each other.
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