Tuesday, June 27, 2006

The Trillion Dollar War

It's not easy to get an honest answer from the Bush Administration, particularly if the answer has to come directly from the White House. But we do know that the original estimate of the war in Iraq is off by hundreds of billions of dollars. Karl Rove says oops, and Bush's corporate friends say thank you very much. And Americans are left wondering what the war was really all about and, by the way, where exactly is the money going again?

Matthew Yglesias has an article in American Prospect (it comes here via Truthout):
...When White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey stumbled off message in September 2002 with his prediction that war could cost $100 billion to $200 billion, the administration flew into crisis mode. Budget Director Mitch Daniels was trotted out to label the estimate "very, very high." Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz opined - in testimony to Congress, no less - that reconstruction would cost virtually nothing in light of Iraq's promising oil revenues. Daniels proffered an estimate in the $50 billion to $60 billion range, substantially less than the $80 billion inflation-adjusted cost of the Persian Gulf War. Lindsey, famously, was soon after fired - for his troublesome cost estimates and, reportedly, the President's annoyance at his poor personal fitness habits.

By April 2006, a Congressional Research Service (CRS) inquiry concluded that Lindsey's estimate was, indeed, way off - but in the other direction. Around $261 billion had already been spent. Given the human stakes, it may seem crass to worry overly much about the dollar cost of a military conflict. But the fact that a CRS report is needed at all, as opposed to the straightforward accounting that either the White House or the Pentagon could surely provide were they so inclined, points to the basic reality that the war's proponents are continuing the prewar pattern of covering up the costs. And with good reason: They're enormous. Scandalously enormous.

(snip)

Wartime appropriations do not, for example, include the cost of disability payments to veterans wounded in the war, payments that will continue throughout their life spans. Nor do they cover the costs of medical treatment for those seriously injured in the war, or even such basic war-related costs as the replacement of equipment and munitions expended in the conflict or the need to transport soldiers back to their home bases when they rotate out of country. The war has also substantially increased the military's overall recruiting costs, reflected in bigger bonuses and additional recruiters. What's more, by combining the war with aggressive tax cutting, the administration has ensured that the operation is paid for entirely by borrowing money on which interest will need to be paid. The shocking truth, according to Bilmes and Stiglitz, is that if one applies the Congressional Budget Office's basic assumptions about the duration of the conflict ("a small but continuous presence"), it will cost nearly a staggering $1.27 trillion dollars before all is said and done.

(snip)

For $1.27 trillion, we have our hands full in a quagmire; the world hating us; worldwide acts of terrorism on the sharp rise; and much more. We could have done better. Much better. You might even say a trillion times better. Economists use the term "opportunity cost" to refer to the cost of an endeavor in terms of the opportunities that endeavor foreclosed. Iraq foreclosed advancing important humanitarian goals, killing and capturing terrorists more effectively, eliminating nuclear threats, and securing the homeland among other goals. Here are 11 ways it could have been different - and still could be, come January 20, 2009.

$1.27 trillion?! And for what?

The rest of the article is worth reading. While people like Matthew Yglesias are thinking about where we go from here, Bush and Congressional Republicans are doing their best to avoid explaining to Americans where all that money is going and why an optional war is costing so much. The smell of Republican cronyism and corruption is in the air.

4 Comments:

Blogger Seven Star Hand said...

Hello Craig and all,

You may not initially agree with everything I reveal, but please be a little patient with my long-winded presentation of what I have waited a very long time to be able to say. I promise to amaze and enlighten.

Now for the worst part of this horrendous equation.

Pay close attention, profundity knocks at the door, listen for the key. Be Aware! Scoffing causes blindness...

Bush, Cheney, and the NeoCons are Vatican operatives hell-bent on impoverishing and indebting the USA. Looks like their plans have worked like a charm while the brain-dead American public remains duped, deluded, and addicted to money, religion, and politics. Who says you can't fool most of the people, most of the time...

Humanity has long been deceived and deluded into thinking that money is a positive means to manage life, societies and civilizations. Chapter 2 of Revelations from the Apocalypse, Volume 1: Here is Wisdom thoroughly exposes the foundational deceptions associated with the concept of money and how it is actually a severe hardship on every aspect of life and every endeavor that must bear the burden of its unnecessary overhead and resulting stifling complexity. Money severely impedes the quality of life, society, and civilization by spawning myriad horrendous side effects (poverty, crime, wars, pollution, waste, greed, stress, etc.) which are all traced directly to its presence, purposeful shortage, and imposed requirement.

Here's a real hot potato! Eat it up, digest it, and then feed it's bones to the hungry...

Money was conceived millennia ago by the priesthood of ancient Babylon to subvert the resources and energies of entire populations for the benefit of a rich and powerful few. Chapter 2 further pierces the ages-old smoke and mirrors surrounding the scourge of money, banking and credit (usury) by exposing their core logic and common denominator math. It exposes the purposeful and well-sculpted math and logic trap imposed upon humanity by the Vatican, its ancient predecessors, and their secret-society cohorts.

It is abundantly clear that imposing money upon the entire world and then forcing people to participate in usury, pay taxes, compounding interest on national debts, and then to struggle their lives away for the sake of money, is extortion and great injustice on a grand scale. To cause suffering and despair for profit on such a grand scale can only be described as abominably evil. The time has finally arrived to demand a full accounting from the Papacy, Vatican, and all of their cohorts and chief supporters. They have no right to cause such overwhelming despair and suffering for millennia. They have no right to deceive practically everyone on such a grand scale. Why do our national leaders conspire with them and participate in such great evil while pretending to serve the Creator? Why do people still have blind faith in such obvious deceivers and their deceptions while they continue perpetrating such widespread and horrendous evil and abominations?

The time has come to wake-up and prove to these duplicitous scoundrels that you are only temporary marks and dupes.

Money: The Greatest Lie Ever Told

Peace...

8:24 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Man, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I'm not the least bit hesitant to delete spam. On the other hand, if someone has an opinion, even one I can't make much sense of, I'm truly reluctant to play the censor.

Any suggestions?

2:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Profound thought...I think.

7:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Craig, I've been on the horns of the same dilemma a few times at Oh!pinion.

I suspect this is a bid to draw people to seven star's Web site. Whether or not that's the case and although he or she can write, there are obvious problems.

First, there's no such thing as corrupt money, and money doesn't corrupt people. All the ills seven star bemoans reside in people. Take away money and those problems would quickly manifest themselves using other stores of value or media of exchange.

Second, potatoes don't have bones.

Third, how seriously can you take someone who tells you to feed to others the results of a potato you've digested?

11:26 PM  

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