Cost of War

The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved $81 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a spending bill that would push the total cost of combat and reconstruction past $300 billion.

Congress has passed four similar emergency spending measures for the wars since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. This one would put the overall cost of combat and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan - as well as Pentagon operations against terrorists worldwide - past $300 billion.
Liz Sidoti - AP

War is costly, both in dollars and lives. Tax payers ultimately carry the financial burden either directly (by increases in taxes) or indirectly (by loss of services due to government cuts in spending on services). Soldiers and, tragically, innocent civilians (or impersonally referred to as "collateral damage" by the military) pay with their lives.

War is also very profitable, if you are a member of the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC). You stand to make boatloads of money from supplying the military with all equipment, supplies, and logistical support necessary to conduct a war. Also, if you are a politician with financial interests, either through shares in the company or contributions to one's political ambitions, you stand to gain from the war as well.

To give you some idea of the costs, focus on the Iraq War. A war for which the reason for going to war (i.e. Saddam has weapons of mass destruction which he could deploy within 45 minutes and use against the US) was never proven as valid.

Here's a brief summary from George Ure's daily update on his UrbanSurvival site (which I recommend as a fresh perspective on economic, political, and environmental issues affecting our world):

With the latest pitch for another $80 billion or so, we notice that total spending for the Iraq war - Bush's War - has climbed past the $300,000,000,000 mark.

Now, to repeat what we have calculated previously: Take $300,000,000,000 and divide it by the population of Iraq. Which is:: 25,374,691 according to the CIA World Fact Book online. As of today, it would have been way cheaper to give everyone in Iraq a check for $11,800 - which pencils out to about $40,000 per household, rather than going to war with the whole country when our problem was with a single leader.

If Saddam was such a bad guy, I figure a sniper team with a single .50 round could take him out from a safe distance - costing us a couple of bucks, but certainly not this. One bullet and $40,000 per family of spending money, yeah, that might have been a lot cheaper...

Naturally, I'm sure folks will say "George is crazy - what about Saddam's rights?" I would hasten to point out that Saddam doesn't seem to be on trial yet, and he has been locked up for how long with no trial? If we're trying to show the world "how democracy is done right" I have to ask about the speedy trial concept, jury of peers, and, as long as we're at it, protection of Constitutional rights which were thrown out wholesale in the Patriot Act frenzy.

So, in the end, the war is not about making economic sense, but rather using it as a fine tool of socioeconomic control, which is fine, as long as you see the game labeled clearly.

War is about "socioeconomic control" imposition upon a group of people. Not just for Afghans and Iraqis, but for Americans.

The difference is in the knowing you are being controlled.

Technorati Categories: Afghanistan, Iraq, Military, Military-Industrial Complex, Politics, War