President Obama waited until after the election last week to propose an unpopular idea. He asked Congress for $11.6 billion extra -- outside the huge existing military budget -- for wars.¹
 
Click here to nip this proposal in the bud.
 
This massive pile of money, equivalent to the annual spending that the United Nations says could end the lack of clean drinking water globally, adds between 1% and 2% to U.S. military spending -- but is by itself more than the entire military budget of all but 14 other nations on earth, 12 of which top-spending nations are U.S. allies.
 
While nothing would prevent this new money from being used for any war that the current or next president desires, it is requested in large part for the wars in Afghanistan and Syria/Iraq. That includes supplying other militaries such as the Iraqi, Afghan, and Kurdish armed forces, as well as expanding U.S. military facilities in Somalia, Mauritania, Chad, Turkey, and elsewhere.
 
If you believe this money could be put to better uses, click here to help put a stop to it.
 
The unfathomable sum of $11.6 billion would go to fund war efforts that the next U.S. president has sometimes said he wants to end (the arming of fighters in Syria) or not commented on at all. It would also give the Afghan military U.S.-made helicopters so that it no longer uses Russian ones. This follows lobbying by Lockheed Martin and Textron that warned of "tensions over President Vladimir Putin’s military intervention in Ukraine and Syria," tensions that may not apply come January 20.
 
Also requested: miniature killer drones that can be launched by U.S. troops in Iraq -- troops whose boots are, despite White House rhetoric, on the ground.
 
Also requested: a big chunk of change for secret operations that Congress is expected to fund with our money despite not knowing what they are. And another for secret research and testing (which sounds less like an "emergency" war than profiteering on the preparations for more wars down the road).
 
Also in there: funding for a major war on drugs in Libya and West Africa. Not to mention: funds for USAID operations of the sort that have facilitated violent coups in places like Ukraine.
 
Ready to resist this madness? Join our opposition here.
 
While the President's request claims to devote 50% to non-defense efforts and includes aid for refugees while funding the creation of more of them, in fact 0% of this is related to defending the United States, and only 14% of people in the U.S. believe these wars are making us safer.²
 
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-- The RootsAction.org Team

P.S. RootsAction is an independent online force endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Coleen Rowley, Frances Fox Piven, Lila Garrett, Phil Donahue, Sonali Kolhatkar, and many others.

Footnotes:
1. President's Request to Congress
2. David Swanson: Public vs. Media on War