Study: U.S. Spent $5.6 Trillion on Wars in Middle East, Asia
Source: The Daily Beast
The U.S. has spent $5.6 trillion since 2001 on the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Pakistan, according to a new study. That figure, according to the Wall Street Journal, is more than triple the Pentagon’s narrow estimate of $1.5 trillion, which was released by the Defense Department earlier this year. The Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University conducted the new study, which aimed to reflect the costs of war not considered by the Pentagon—including the costs that weren’t taken on by the Defense Department in the first place. “War costs are more than what we spend in any one year on what’s called the pointy end of the spear,” the study’s author, Neta Crawford, told the Journal. “There are all these other costs behind the spear, and there are consequences of using it, that we need to include.”
READ IT AT WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/study-us-spent-dollar56-trillion-on-wars-in-middle-east-asia
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I have to go to Indiana for turkey day in a couple of weeks so I'm hoping to talk to some of these trumpters and find out what they are thinking! of course, I can find some of those voters here in AZ but I don't get out much. 
Over a 15-year period and the population at approx. 310 million.
That would buy a lot of beans and 'taters, folks. 
That Watson Report is making for interesting, informative reading.
I recall some wise heads estimating our total cost of the Iraq war at around $3T toward the (semi-)end of that conflict and most talking heads thought it was crazy.
These reports also do not - and probably cannot - factor in psychological costs, either to people in those war zones or in the USA. Nor does it include long-term costs to those economies due to loss of human capital, or the "what could have been".
There's also no accounting for loss of culture and community - two of the most important factors to peaceful human existence.
