ISIL war exemplifies reversed US priorities

Investigative journalist David Lindorff says cutting the food stamp budget while approving funds for the fight against ISIL is symptomatic of “completely reversed priorities” in the United States.

Lindorff made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Thursday when asked about a report that 850,000 Americans would be subject to an average of $90 loss per month in food stamp benefits.

“It’s absolutely appalling that the US is struggling with one of the highest poverty rates and unemployment rates in the developed world,” he said.

He went on to say that Congress is heedless of the fact that “close to fifty million Americans live in poverty,” adding that lawmakers are “cutting the food stamp budget by nearly a million people and over $8 billion.”

Notwithstanding the bitter reality, Lindorff said, the US is “spending almost three times that much to drop bombs and fire drones [and] missiles at this shady organization, ISIS, that it helped to create in Syria.”

The war against the ISIL (or ISIS) terrorist group in Iraq and Syria may cost up to $22 billion per year, a Washington-based think tank reported on Monday.

“It’s just another sick example of the completely reversed priorities in the US to what we really need, spending on war and ignoring the increasing poverty in the US,” Lindorff stated.