It's a shame to let accountants spoil the charming romance of war, but sometimes they insist. Recently the Congressional Research Service reported that our military undertakings in Iraq and Afghanistan have marked an important milestone. Together, they have cost more than a trillion dollars.
That doesn't sound like much in the age of TARP, ObamaCare, and LeBron James, but it is. Adjusted for inflation, we have spent more on Iraq and Afghanistan than on any war in our history except World War II. They have cost more in real dollars than the Korean and Vietnam wars combined.
But we can only wish we were getting off so lightly. Neither war is over, and neither is going to be soon. The House just approved $37 billion in extra funding to cover this year, and the administration wants another $159 billion for 2011. That won't be the final request.
Worse, the CRS figure is only part of the bill so far. It noted the sum doesn't include the "costs of veterans' benefits, interest on war-related debt, or assistance to allies." All of those will go on after these wars are over, which someday they may be.
Scholars Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia and Linda Bilmes of Harvard published a book in 2008 called The Three Trillion Dollar War, which gives a more realistic estimate. But that, too, is an understatement. They figure that when all long-run costs are factored in, the tab will be at least $5 trillion and could reach $7 trillion, or nearly twice as much as this year's entire federal budget.
And that was two years ago. I asked Bilmes for an update, and she said some obligations, like veterans' medical and disability compensation costs, "have exceeded our earlier projections." Do I hear $8 trillion?
Gentle Jesus on a pedal-powered three-wheeled cycle.
$8,000,000,000,000.00
That's a fucking lot of money, spent on what appear to be one pointlessly won war and one war that will never be won.
Now I know there's a school of thought that says that wars generate economic activity, but the reality of it is that ANY activity channelled through a government has a negative multiplier. A certain amount of any government budget is just wasted on shuffling income from one department to another, and doesn't find it's way back into the real economy, for example.
The "broken windows" fallacy also comes into play here, so for all the money actually spent making weapons and military kit, and paying for VA care, etc., there is an unseen pile of money that could have been spent on many other things.
And eight trillion dollars dished out directly to the citizens of the USA would probably be enough to turn the US back into a massive economic powerhouse, dwarfing China.
Eight fucking trillion dollars.
Fuck.
27 comments:
Would have saved a lot of bother just to give a trillion straight to the Cheney cabal
That's what happens if you have a large standing army. "If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." (A. Maslow)
When I was in the army, they had two methods of ending exercises. One was reaching/exceeding the budget set, and the other was fatalities.
In one major exercise, we lost eight men in four days. The exercise was due to continue for another three days. We lost a further six men (all of these deaths were accidents-usually vehicle related) and they called endex (end of exercise) on day 6.
Not because we lost 14 men. We had run out of money because of the damage we did to the West German farms.
It's a pity they don't apply the same rules in actual wars.
CR.
Useful albeit simple guide to appreciating the magnitude of one trillion dollars
Our own dear country's debt inc. unfunded public sector liabilities and the guarantees given by the last "government" in respect of bank liabilities is pushing the same sort of $8 trillion figure, but of course our economy is a lot smaller than the US......
Happy days.
They have lumped in running costs of equipment into that figure, equipment they would have had to maintan and run anyway (battleships etc).
So it's a pretty shitty figure to bandy about as it's so meaningless.
"... one pointlessly won war and one war that will never be won."
Drivel, Obo. Just echo-chambering the Sparts. Freedom for other people matters too and we'll have no peace until that's achieved - whether we fight overseas or wait until we're attacked again.
Peter, keep taking the pills.
The Iraq war was a fucking disaster for the Iraqis, who are no more "free" now than they were before. And nobody has won a war in Afghanistan, not even the Russians could manage it.
So what was the fucking point?
$8 million million.
FFS.
"The Iraq war was a fucking disaster for the Iraqis, who are no more "free" now than they were before."
I note that when Iraqi's themselves are surveyed on that question they give a very different answer.
Although they all moan about foreign troops they report they are happier, freer and wealthier.
Their economy is booming as well.
"Although they all moan about foreign troops they report they are happier, freer and wealthier."
The survivors, you mean?
"Their economy is booming as well."
I suspect that a large percentage of that $8Bn is helping that. When it's gone, what then?
What depresses me more, is the sheer cynism in all this : money, economy, blablabla
was there any mention of people being injured, killed etc
or am i just a silly naive idiot who doesnt live with his era
off to the toilets for a nice cheap vomit
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1300755/Tariq-Aziz-says-Obama-leaving-Iraq-wolves.html
"The survivors, you mean?"
The ones that survived the fascist Baathist regime you mean, survived the shelling, gassing and other methods of bring communities in line?
Freedom is worth fighting for.
Pop.
"The ones that survived the fascist Baathist regime you mean, survived the shelling, gassing and other methods of bring communities in line?"
And the ones that survived having the fuck bombed and shot out of them.
"Freedom is worth fighting for."
What a noble sentiment.
I'm sure all those grieving families will be comforted by your nobility.
The funny thing is, almost nobody lost a war in Afghanistan until recently. It was tossed about between empires for centuries. Even the famous defeat of British troops happened as they were returning from Kabul and ambushed. A few years later, Britain went back, won control of their foreign policy and since that was the goal, left it at that. There are some real misapprehensions about this.
Saddam's regime was such that the initial war - which went very well and was over very quickly - could have actually reduced the average mortality rate in that benighted country. In addition to the people being fed feet-first into mangles to amuse Saddam and his pals, you have to factor in a war in which a million Iranians alone died, the invasion of Kuwait, gassing of the Kurds, genocide against the Marsh Arabs and so on.
The Iraqis are no more free than before? You're joking, I hope. Do you have any conception of what Saddam's regime was like?
And FWIW, opinion polls in both Iraq and Afghanistan support the liberations. The Afghans and Iraqis disagree with you.
Yeah, I'm sure if some total stranger asked me how I felt about the soldiers standing around, I'd be perfectly honest as well.
"What a noble sentiment.
I'm sure all those grieving families will be comforted by your nobility."
Let’s turn it around. Let’s say we were in the 36th year of Gordon Brown’s national socialist regime. The local Labour party (always headed by a member of the core Scottish labour party from Kirkcaldy) held life and death power over anyone they please. Speaking out against Brown or his two sons resulted in torture and watching your family being raped then executed. And sometimes Brown would have whole towns of 50,000 people gassed to make a point.
Would I welcome an invasion to overthrow him, even if that meant there was a risk myself or my family could be killed in the cross fire? YES, in a heartbeat.
Under Saddam on average 300,000 people a year were killed as a result of state actions. Occasionally that would spike, like when he was making a point to the kurds.
The worst years during the invasion peak at around 190,000, and has since dropped to about a quarter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcjAsowr6sc
Kingbingo I agree with you. Saddam was a cunt and if I had to live under a similar regime I too would welcome liberation.
However I'm not sure how grateful I would be if my liberators were the same scumbags that funded my oppressor in the first place and betrayed my resistance the last time they turned up dropping tons of bombs on my country.
And remember that the only reason their new democraticaly elected Islamist overlords are not out raping and mangling is because we are there. Wait till we leave and see how liberated these people are.
Anon 09:23
"They have lumped in running costs of equipment into that figure, equipment they would have had to maintan and run anyway (battleships etc)."
If they've got US Battleships to Afghanistan somehow, wonder it's so fucking expensive.
Kingbingo 13:54
"Their economy is booming as well."
Is that the sound of the Sunni suicide bomber, or, the Shi'ite suicide bomber?
KB, PR: Even if what you say is true, it was no reason for us, the British, to get involved, or, to put it another way, if we are supposed to topple every repressive regime in the world, why haven't we invaded Saudi Arabia?
"KB, PR: Even if what you say is true, it was no reason for us, the British, to get involved"
I agree, I did not say that we should have got involved, I was only saying that we were not morally wrong to do so.
Pop.
I like to draw a magic line between Turkey and China and you can see the magic pattern.
Camerons rambling about getting Turkey into the EU. Syria and Israel are "having talks", our troops are playing table tennis at the Tehran and Baghdad Hilton, the BBC is banging the drums for UN peacekeepers in Somalia and Pakistan.
At this point I would have to presume we are securing the landroutes to Africa. Alternatively we owe Israel some big debt from WW2.
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