5e50cd92   
   XPost: alt.alien.visitors, alt.alien.research, alt.astronomy   
   XPost: alt.conspiracy   
   From: garymatalucci@gmail.com   
      
   The True Cost Of America’s Wars   
      
   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 keeps   
   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 repeat a method   
   we’ve used before: 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 imperial 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.  During his Afghan speech, President Obama also declared that   
   “we take comfort in knowing that the tide of war is receding.”   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)