During his speech on Afghanistan June 22, President Obama revealed that “Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war.” He knew this was a deceptive understatement, as did everyone who has kept close watch on the Bush-Obama wars all these years.
Few Americans, however, have closely followed Washington’s 21st century wars of choice, so a trillion probably sounds right to them, but that amount in 10 years — when the annual cost of air conditioning alone for the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq amounts to $20.2 billion a year — is way off base.
(It’s difficult to conceive of one trillion, so we’ll consider: Sixty seconds comprise a minute. One million seconds comes out to be about 11½ days. A billion seconds is 32 years. And a trillion seconds is 32,000 years.)
The latest objective estimate for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, made public June 29, is between $3.7 trillion and $4.4 trillion (140,800 years), according to the research project “Costs of War” by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies.
The university assembled a team of economists, anthropologists, political scientists, legal experts, and a physician to do this analysis, which included future costs for veterans care and interest on war debts to be paid over the next few decades.
The medical costs are huge. “While we know how many U.S. soldiers have died in the wars (just over 6,000),” the report pointed out, “what is startling is what we don’t know about the levels of injury and illness in those who have returned from the wars. New disability claims continue to pour into the VA, with 550,000 just through last fall.” This doesn’t even include the thousands of deaths and injuries among quasi-military contractors. There are about as many contractors as troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s impossible to precisely predict the interest costs on these wars. In 2010, $400 billion of our tax money went toward paying off past war debts as far back as the Korean War of the early 1950s. We’ll pay war debts indefinitely because Washington is always borrowing to plan for or start new wars. So far, the U.S.-led NATO war for regime change in Libya is costing American taxpayers about a billion. The Pentagon has blueprints ready for many different kinds of future wars, from small counter-terrorism escapades, to cyberspace and outer space conflicts, to nuclear war, all the way up to World War III.
The Brown University figures may turn out to be underestimates. A few independent studies over the years have been somewhat higher but were brushed aside by the White House and the mass media. This may happen to the Brown calculations as well.
The respected Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard Professor Linda Bilmes wrote a book three years ago estimating the cost of the Iraq war only, based on data collected in 2006. It was titled “The Three Trillion Dollar War.” They based their calculations on the “hidden” costs of the war that include enormous medical care expenses over the next 50 years for tens of thousands of badly wounded soldiers, other benefits, equipment replacement, and interest on war debts.
Stiglitz and Bilmes calculated in 2008 that the combined cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would be between $5 and $7 trillion. They called these adventures the “credit card wars.” Using a somewhat different methodology a few years ago, the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, estimated the Iraq war ultimately will cost $3.5 trillion. They didn’t include the Afghan war.
Assuming Obama is reelected, the Bush-Obama wars — including Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen (and Somalia, where the U.S. is now engaged in drone strikes), plus the wars in Obama’s final years — will certainly top $5 trillion in real costs.
In this connection, we cannot forget that current Pentagon spending of around $700 billion a year represents a huge increase since 2001, when it totaled about $380 billion. (By comparison, during this same time period, military spending by Iran — portrayed by Washington, Tel-Aviv and Saudi Arabia as the greatest danger to peace in the Middle East — dropped from $9 billion in 2001 to $7 billion in 2010.)
But Defense Department expenses are only half the story. Double the Pentagon’s $700 billion for a true estimate of the amount of money the U.S. spent on war-related issues last year. That’s $1.4 trillion a year for the United States. How is this possible?
Instead of just discussing the Pentagon budget, it is essential to also consider Washington’s various other “national security” budgets. That of course includes the costs of Washington’s 16 different intelligence services, the percentage of the annual national debt to pay for past war expenses, Homeland Security, nuclear weapons, additional annual spending requests for Iraq and Afghan wars, military retiree pay and healthcare for vets, NASA, FBI (for its war-related military work), etc. When it’s all included it comes to $1,398 trillion for fiscal 2010, according to the War Resisters League and other sources.
It’s not enough just to take note of the money Washington spent on stalemated wars of choice. It’s fruitful to contemplate where our $5 trillion Bush-Obama war funding might have been invested instead. It could have paid for a fairly swift transition from fossil fuels to a solar-wind energy system for the entire U.S. — a prospect that will now take many decades longer, if at all, as the world gets warmer from greenhouse gases. And there probably would have been enough left to overhaul America’s decaying and outdated civil infrastructure, among other projects.
But while the big corporations, Wall Street and the wealthy are thriving, global warming and infrastructure repair have been brushed aside. States are cutting back on schools and healthcare. Counties and towns are closing summer swimming pools and public facilities. Jobs and growth are stagnant. The federal government is sharply cutting the social service budget, and Medicare et al. are nearing the chopping block.
Meanwhile, be assured that despite a bit of fixing here and there, the military and national security budgets will remain essentially unchanged.
Thousands of years of history has shown that you win or lose depending on the two basic financial results from going to war:
1. You win if you can maintain or boost (throught the spoils of war) your wealth while creating poverty for your enemies.
2. You lose if the war costs you more than the booty you bring home.
It seems that since the Korean war other powerful interested parties have made sure that the Americans and Nato have always come into the second category above and this is more than likely to continue.
And so? What have we gained? For all that?
Enemies? Do you have peace of mind that trillions on defense, CIA, FBI, police, National Security Council, weapons, etc., failed to protect our largest city from the (according to their story) attack of a few slow-moving airplanes, violating airspace, confounding NORAD, and overall making our PAID-FOR defense look like an exercise in monetary waste? We would have been better off with guys with rifles watching the coastlline with binoculars.
Dammit, it is DEFENSE we pay for, not military excursions into selective nations where American business interests might make some easy cash. And so far, we see, for all the trillions, we are not being defended at all, while we hire more and more PRIVATE military groups to do our bidding, but only where we can make some cash or find some oil, but not in places we are really needed (sierra Leone, Sudan, etc.).
I say kick these bastards and their debt to the curb, as the American people have gotten nothing but headaches for their expenditure, and their best safety and security is still a personal rifle by the bedside.
Wars come. Wars go, but DOD spends ~2,000,000 a minute, ~3,000,000,000 a day, ~$1,000,000,000,000 a year.
It is impossible to have any Group of People agree on most things, and because of this, there will be a divergence of views most of the times.
I came to the opinion that Slobodan Milosevic was Innocent, after stumbling on a five part YouTube Documentary that is Titled; SHOCKING Slobodan Milosevic was INNOCENT, that is on the Internet.
Slobodan Milosevic was not allowed his own Lawyers, and the Corrupt and Bribed Judges would not allow him to ask Legitimate questions, and when things did become embarrassing for the International Nazis, then they Censored the proceedings; just reinforces my belief that Slobodan Milosevic was Innocent.
People have the Right to their own opinions in a Proper Democracy, and they are also entitled to their opinion, even if they are wrong.
Too many People simply accept what their Media that has Vested Interests tells them, and therefore their opinions are not based on personal research, but are placed on lies; either malicious lies, or unintentional lies.
Such a Scenario is unacceptable to the Proper Citizen, and to the Proper Human Being, even if only a few People have the Honestly, the Courage, and the Decency to understand this, and to inform others of this.
I never make up my mind on an accused Person; Unless, and Until I have heard from the accused Person, even if this means doing Sufficient Unbiased Reading on the Subject, and Watching Sufficient Unbiased Documentaries on the Internet.
I think that what the Overwhelming Majority of the Serbian People Want, and Should Demand, and what most of the Ethnic Groups want and Demand, is that there Must be a Fair, Balanced, and Honest Media presentation of the wars of the former Yugoslavia, that hears from all sides.
Srebrenica as terrible as it was; should not falsely be portrayed as genocide, because with the knowledge we have so far, we can only say that the best possible scenario is that it was an Act of Self Defence.
The Women and Children and Old Men were allowed to leave, and only the Soldiers, some of them Boy Soldiers who can kill you or your family and friends just as dead as an Adult soldier can, were not permitted to leave Srebrenica, because it was a War between two Armies.
The number of deaths in the Bosnian Civil War was approximately 100,000 with close to the same number of combatants and civilians who died in that Civil War, and we see why the Serbs wanted to Defend Themselves, their Families, and their Communities.
The Bosnian Civil War was a war between one group of Serbs who had the Croats as their ally, and another group of Serbs who had Radovan and General Ratko Mladic as their leaders, but only time will tell if these are Secret Muslim Janissaries.
What never could understand about Karadzic and Mladic is that they could very easily have gone to a neighbouring Country, and taken some photos with his Mobile Phone to prove that he was not in Serbia, but he never did that for reason he knows best, and we can just guess at.
The number of Bosnian Muslims who died at Srebrenica has been exaggerated with a figure of 8,000, but others say that it was approximately 2,000, but unbiased figure would have helped years ago.
However, lies and propaganda is what America wanted to try to anchor Camp Bonsteel in Continental Europe, and on Serbia Land, and facts were never part of America’s Non-Confessed Agenda.
If the Serbian People apologize for Defending themselves, then they have given up their Right of Self Defence which is Legal under International Law.
There can be no genuine Reconciliation that is based on lies, and that is why America needs to tell the World that they are Filthy Liars, an instruct their Evil Media to begin telling the Truth, as Difficult as it is for these Animals.
There cannot be any real security while the other side believes the lies they have heard so often.
It is up to Croatia, who knows they truth, and who has been granted a date to join the European Union Titanic to tell the truth, because they are a Puppet of America, and they want Croatian Lands in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
After Slobodan Milosevic was presented for Trial, then he was Presumed Innocent, and he was never convicted of anything, and therefore he is presumed Innocent, and I have seen evidence that he was Innocent.
Any proper Serbian Government would Demand, Yes Demand that the World tells the Truth that the Serbian People, including Slobodan Milosevic are the Most Innocent of all the Major Ethnic Groups of the former Yugoslavia.
I have noticed the Cunning of the current DS Lead Serbian NATO Government, where they do something proper, such as not attending this year’s Srebrenica memorial, but then they do things against Serbia’s interests like not invite the Moroccans and the Algerians to the OSCE Reception.
My opinion as to why they do this is because the DS along with their Natural Ally of the LDP Craves to win the next Serbian Election, because they are Secret NATO Candidates.
If the DS and the LDP had a Majority in the Parliament, then they would form the Government, but we know that the DS and the LDP did not get the Numbers in Parliament, and so they found other Temporary Coalition Partners like the SPS.
If the World wants to know who Really is Innocent, then there is a Proven Method that Works Most of the Times.
This Proven Method involves listening to what America says, and then knowing that they will Most Certainly Lie, and therefore, those they Slanderously Accuse of being Guilty will More than Likely be Innocent.
As things stand at the moment, we do not know if General Ratko Mladic is a Secret Muslim Janissary, and so the Known Evidence says that Srebrenica was an Act of Self Defence.
If the Bosnian Muslims would say that, according to the Evidence, it was tragic that General Ratko Mladic had to kill these males fighters at Srebrenica.
If this is the background to the Srebrenica memorials, then I think that the Serbian Government could send a representative of the Serbian People, because People need to fully understand that Lawlessness has its consequences, because you will reap what you sow.
I want to once again, say how sad I am that the Bosnian Serb Army needed to Defend themselves and their Communities, because some insisted on being a Danger to others.
Unless General Ratko Mladic is found to be a Secret Muslim Janissary at his Trial, then that is they way to view this unfortunate matter.
I think that the Serbian Government should pretend to be Patriotic, and they should Stand Up against All False Accusations.
At the same time, I think that the Serbian People should be wise enough to know that all DS and LDP Candidates at the next Election are really NATO Candidates in Disguise.
If we disagree, then we should Agree to disagree without becoming disagreeable, because that is how matters are Properly debated in the Interests of the Community.