By Aziz Ahmad Fard
An estimated 65,000 protestors descended on Wisconsin's legislature on February 19, 2011 in the fifth day of mass demonstrations against a Republican plan to bust public workers unions. Demonstrators who have camped out in capitol dome since Tuesday insisted that they will not give up the fight against what they see as a broad plan by Republicans to undermine working people and the Democratic Party they support. (Photo: Getty Images)
In 2012, the budget of external operations will reach 117.8 billion US dollars. This is 40 billion lesser than last year meaning this budget of 2012 will be 26% lesser than the year before. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said this decrease in budget is due to the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. The budget for training Iraqi forces, for example, has decreased by a quarter from last year’s budget and for 2012 it will be about 10 billion USD. The money spent in military operations in Afghanistan has decreased only slightly and will be 107 billion USD.
From July, the US is planning to start withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan but the budget doesn’t support this plan. The budget of 2012 is drawn on the basis of the presence of 98,250 US troops in Afghanistan, which is not very different from the current number.
Other than the 107 billion USD which is the daily spending of the US troops in Afghanistan, 80 billion USD has been planned for military operations there. Another 10 billion has been added to combat the bombs of insurgents; 12 billion for repairing war vehicles and 13 billion for training Afghan forces.