"The true cost of the Iraq war: $3 trillion and beyond" By Stiglitz & Bilmes

The true cost of the Iraq war: $3 trillion and beyond

By Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes
Sunday, September 5, 2010; B04
The Washington Post

“….Writing in these pages in early 2008, we put the total cost to the United States of the Iraq war at $3 trillion. This price tag dwarfed previous estimates, including the Bush administration's 2003 projections of a $50 billion to $60 billion war.…But today, as the United States ends combat in Iraq, it appears that our $3 trillion estimate (which accounted for both government expenses and the war's broader impact on the U.S. economy) was, if anything, too low. For example, the cost of diagnosing, treating and compensating disabled veterans has proved higher than we expected….Moreover, two years on, it has become clear to us that our estimate did not capture what may have been the conflict's most sobering expenses: those in the category of "might have beens," or what economists call opportunity costs....We might also ask: If not for the war in Iraq, would oil prices have risen so rapidly? Would the federal debt be so high? Would the economic crisis have been so severe?...The answer to all four of these questions is probably no. The central lesson of economics is that resources -- including both money and attention -- are scarce. What was devoted to one theater, Iraq, was not available elsewhere…."

Read the Entire Article @:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302200_pf.html

So, FU to the GOP Pigs regarding "the debt" and "spending." When it comes to the military and spending, the GOP Pigs are Big Government Shylocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have spent the lives of so many people, and wasted all this dough. For what?

after all, they've controlled congress since 2006

and the "antiwar' contingent is basically nonexistent.

Why is that?

"...Two years later Obamania is also on the decline in Europe. Rarely has self-interested mythology – or well-meaning gullibility – been more quickly exposed. And it has been most clearly exposed in the arena of foreign affairs. Essentially there was no fundamental break in policy between the Bush and Obama regimes. The strategic goals and imperatives of the US imperium remain the same, as do its principal theatres and means of operation.

In 2002, on his way up the political ladder as a low-profile state senator in Illinois, Obama opposed the attack on Iraq; it was politically inexpensive to do so. By the time he was elected President, his first act was to rehire Bush’s Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, in the Pentagon. A cruder and more demonstrative signal of political continuity could hardly have been conceived. Before his election, Obama promised a withdrawal of all US ''combat’’ troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office, that is, by May 2010 – with a safety clause that the pledge could be “refined’’ in the light of events. It promptly was. While the last combat brigade did leave in August this year, 56,000 American ''service personnel’’ remain..."

"...When he took office, Afghanistan had been occupied by US and satellite forces for more than seven years. During his election campaign, Obama – determined to outdo Bush in this ''just war’’ – pledged more troops and firepower to crush the Afghan resistance, and more ground intrusions and drone attacks in Pakistan to burn out support for it across the border. This is one promise he has kept. In what The New York Times delicately described as a “statistic that the White House has not advertised’’, it informed readers that “since Mr Obama came to office, the Central Intelligence Agency has mounted more Predator drone strikes into Pakistan than during Mr Bush’s eight years in office’’.

Desperate to claim victory in a ''just war’’, Obama has dispatched a still larger expeditionary force, expanding the war to a neighbouring country where the enemy is suspected of finding succour. It was announced that Pakistan and Afghanistan would henceforward be treated as an integrated war-zone: “Afpak’’..."

Tareq Ali
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/8097213/How-Obama-surrendered-at-home-and-waged-war-abroad.html

Onward Christian Soldiers! Pakistan and Yemen Await!

They'd all be over the next day.