The Three Trillion Dollar War

[SkepticLance]

This is the title of a new book that details some of the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to the American people and the American taxpayer.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/03/08/bosti108.xml

 

The direct costs of the Iraq war - including salaries, munitions, materials, aircraft flying costs etc - are now approaching a trillion dollars. However, the INDIRECT costs are far greater. This includes what the war is doing to oil supplies and oil price, the cost of rehabilitation of the wounded, psychological trauma etc.

[thedarkshade]

There was a similar thread here several weeks ago. The value was extraordinary! That really shows the absence of rationalism and especially when living in the century of science!

[SkepticLance]

To thedarkshade

 

I agree with you. I see it all as a matter of politics screwing up perspective. It all came from 9/11. Now, while that was a terrible tragedy and an act of mass murder which was so utterly reprehensible, it is hard to stay calm about it; nevertheless, the response has been utterly out of proportion.

 

3000 dead people is a major tragedy, but still amounts to less than the death toll from tobacco related illness in the USA of less than THREE days. George Bush's response has led to the deaths of over a million Iraqis, and the cost to the American taxpayer equivalent to $US 10,000 for every American - adult or child.

 

I regard Al Qaeda as a pack of international criminals, equivalent to, but worse than, the Mafia. The proper response to them should have been to instigate an international police effort to round them up and put them on trial as common murderers. It is now too late. They have become a political force, due to the inept handling of the aftermath of 9/11, and their recruits pour in faster than the war in Iraq can kill them.

[Phi for All]

nevertheless, the response has been utterly out of proportion.

I wouldn't say utterly out of proportion. I don't mind the occasional out of proportion response. I would say our response was utterly inappropriate. We reacted to the threat of isolated terrorist cells, a few thousand unconventional fanatics with little mainstream support who rarely congregate in larger groups, with the full array of conventional military tactics and resources at our disposal. It was as inappropriate as it would be to use a shotgun to get rid of termites in your house. It's not so much overkill as it is just using the wrong tool. We used conventional means on an unconventional target.

 

The part that really burns me is the religion angle. We have people smart enough to know you can't fight a religious war and hope to bring it to a reasonable conclusion. Yet starting with Operation Infinite Justice we made sure it looked like we were attacking Islam, a tactic that practically guaranteed our enemies ranks would swell, creating fanatics where diplomacy and police efforts might have found the criminals.

 

Our response been exactly what the terrorists hoped for. How much money have they spent on video tapes, flying lessons and car bombs? They must chuckle when they think about how Osama got us to spend a trillion dollars and put ourselves in a recession... without getting Osama.

[Realitycheck]

not much more to say on that

[Pangloss]

I wouldn't say utterly out of proportion. I don't mind the occasional out of proportion response. I would say our response was utterly inappropriate.

 

That was well put. It's a subtle distinction but I think an important one.

[thedarkshade]

George Bush's response has led to the deaths of over a million Iraqis, and the cost to the American taxpayer equivalent to $US 10,000 for every American - adult or child.

I wonder what the real reason fro starting the war was, because I believe nuclear activity wasn't the real reason. It was either petrol industry, or that Bush was trying to get and equalizer for 9/11:rolleyes:

[Sisyphus]

I wonder what the real reason fro starting the war was, because I believe nuclear activity wasn't the real reason. It was either petrol industry, or that Bush was trying to get and equalizer for 9/11:rolleyes:

 

I don't think it was quite that simple. Oil was definitely a factor, but I doubt the most important one. Mostly I think it was the overall atmosphere of groupthink in the upper reaches of the Bush administration. Loyalty is valued above honesty, and so opinions contrary to the dominant one never get heard, and so the facts that might derail the pre-existing agenda get filtered out. Decisions are based on the word of, say, Chalabi, despite his making unsubstantiated claims and having obvious ulterior motives. Intelligence showing suspicious but ambiguous activity becomes proof of imminent nuclear attack. All analysis to the contrary is simply ignored as purely "political." And thus Dick Cheney, who a few years earlier gave an accurate prediction of the aftermath of the then hypothetical war as an argument for why it should never happen, becomes its primary proponent and mastermind.

[Pangloss]

Oil was definitely a factor, but I doubt the most important one.

 

As far as I'm aware, there is no direct evidence that oil was a factor.

 

 

Mostly I think it was the overall atmosphere of groupthink in the upper reaches of the Bush administration. Loyalty is valued above honesty, and so opinions contrary to the dominant one never get heard, and so the facts that might derail the pre-existing agenda get filtered out. Decisions are based on the word of, say, Chalabi, despite his making unsubstantiated claims and having obvious ulterior motives. Intelligence showing suspicious but ambiguous activity becomes proof of imminent nuclear attack. All analysis to the contrary is simply ignored as purely "political." And thus Dick Cheney, who a few years earlier gave an accurate prediction of the aftermath of the then hypothetical war as an argument for why it should never happen, becomes its primary proponent and mastermind.

 

I agree with the above. These points are consistent with Bob Woodward's three excellent books on the subject, which I highly recommend.

[bascule]

As far as I'm aware, there is no direct evidence that oil was a factor.

 

Nope! On a completely unrelated matter have a look at the value of Halliburton stock

[Pangloss]

If you think that it's completely unrelated, then what's your point?

[bascule]

If you think that it's completely unrelated, then what's your point?

 

Your sarcasm detector is malfunctioning

[Pangloss]

Your sarcasm detector is malfunctioning

 

So is your deductive reasoning, then. Halliburton is not an oil company, and its stock rise is due to the fast-track, bidless contracts they received from the Bush administration regarding the rebuilding of Iraqi infrastructure, not the rising price of oil or the reopening of Iraqi oil production, neither of which benefit Halliburton in any way.

 

You would have been better served linking ExxonMobil stock. But then you can't just throw an ellipses after it and auto-link them to the Bush administration, huh?

 

This is what I mean by SFN political correctness, by the way. You can just scream "Hallburton!" and throw an ellipses on the end of a post and nobody on this board challenges your "argument" except for me. That is political correctness, bascule.

[ParanoiA]

I wonder what the real reason fro starting the war was, because I believe nuclear activity wasn't the real reason. It was either petrol industry, or that Bush was trying to get and equalizer for 9/11:rolleyes:

 

Actually, I was reading an interesting piece by Stratfor called Net Assessment: United States. I don't know much about this media source yet, but it is fascinating reading. This particular report's purpose was to analyze the US outside of the "noise" vacuum, the dirty particulars we are all locked into. It's also necessary to tune out the transitory passions of societies all over the world, and look at the "reality" of it all.

 

From this perspective, they claim Al Qaeda's overall goal to be to recreate an Islamic caliphate. A transnational Islamic state that could threaten US power in the long run. Still from a panoramic focal point, America's response has been to attempt to destroy Al Qaeda, but more importantly, to disrupt the Islamic world for the long run. The complexity involves intruding on the Islamic world without interfering with the flow of oil.

 

They claim the US strategy is focused on disruption, not nation-building, and a large force is not needed for that. It's an interesting point of view, and one with a lot of merit, if you read the whole article.

 

If this is true, it explains much of Bush's actions, and inactions. It explains why the administration carries itself as if they have already won something, while we all bitch about the "progress" in Iraq. It also explains why they're not bothered by our Halliburton cries and blood-for-oil protests - because all of that is incidental, and none of it has smack to do with why we're there, and changes nothing.

[Realitycheck]

I wonder what the real reason fro starting the war was, because I believe nuclear activity wasn't the real reason. It was either petrol industry, or that Bush was trying to get and equalizer for 9/11:rolleyes:

 

It was solely because we declared "war on terror". This was a blanket ideology and we had a building list of excuses to beat up on Iraq, just for the sake of beating up on anybody, just because we were determined to beat up on somebody, anybody, for even looking at us the wrong way. Logistically, Iraq was a tactically advantageous target (from a pr point of view), until it got complicated.

[thedarkshade]

America is an empire, just like the ottoman empire, roman empire and every empire that ever war. This is true! And it's even much much stronger than any other empire that has existed before. But there is a different here. America's point is not to rule, it's to lead. There's quite a difference between leading and ruling. And any thing that would deviate this course, would (normally) be considered as harmful for the global security. That is what Al Qaeda actually is. A threat to global security! But the bad thing behind this stand in the fact that now in the world there has been created an impression that the same stand for all islamic countries. They in a way are all considered as a threat to global security and should be completely isolated so they could have no possible effect in the global security. And that's pretty bad, sad and prejudice! There should should be no such discriminating politic to islamic countries and they should be treated as all other countries are. They're not communist countries. Their politic life is based on democratic principles and the fact that their morals are a bit different should make no difference. But anyway.

 

America is the strongest, most powerful country in the world, even by an exponential factor! That is true! And the irony stands right behind this. So how can the most powerful country in the world, which has the best experts existing not be able to capture a group of terrorists like Al Qeada who mainly have AK-47 and probably low tech devices. This makes no sense! The war on terrorism is just a fake and there are completely different means behind that! The war in Iraq had no real reason. Nuclear activity? Crap! Sadam allowed inspection back in 99' and what did they find? Calitrons! You get low scale nuclear activity by that! And what other reason? Al Qaeda? No no no, Al Qeada is a terrorist group that belongs to no country. Which country in the world would say for any terrorist group "yes, that belongs to us"! This is meaning less!

 

I believe there are completely different intentions behind this terrible, meaningless, time and money consuming war. There are billions of better choices where we could spent those money. Science investing to being with!

[CDarwin]

This is out of the stream of the current discussion but relevant to the OT: Does anyone have any figures on the real cost in today's currency of other US wars? I would be interesting to see how 3 trillion stacks up against, say Vietnam or World War II.

[SkepticLance]

To CDarwin

 

The book : 'The three Trillion Dollar War' claims that the Iraq war is the second most expensive. less than WWII but more than VietNam.

[Phi for All]

Does anyone have any figures on the real cost in today's currency of other US wars? I would be interesting to see how 3 trillion stacks up against, say Vietnam or World War II.

IIRC we passed the total cost of the Vietnam conflict* a few years ago (* US$133B, I don't remember what that is in today's dollars).

[iNow]

There are also the issues of direct cost, indirect costs, and non-monetary costs to consider as well. More difficult to quantify, but important to include.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's an interesting take on the environmental impact:

 

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/in_the_know_how_can_we_make_the

[Dak]

stuff on political correctness split to here

[john5746]

This is out of the stream of the current discussion but relevant to the OT: Does anyone have any figures on the real cost in today's currency of other US wars? I would be interesting to see how 3 trillion stacks up against, say Vietnam or World War II.

 

http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/policy/securityspending/articles/historical_war_costs/

 

http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/policy/securityspending/articles/current_spending_vs_historical_highs/index.html

 

http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/policy/securityspending/articles/fy09_dod_request_global/

 

I haven't cross-checked these with other sources, but common sense tells me that nation building would be more expensive than most wars, but WWII would have been a much larger impact on the nation - the economy itself was driven towards the war effort.

[CDarwin]

Why thank you.

 

When I think about it, it seems like in total cost, the Civil War would have to be the most expensive US war, though the figure for actual Confederate and Union expenditures is interesting.

[bascule]

So is your deductive reasoning, then. Halliburton is not an oil company

 

Sure! Just like Ericsson isn't a telcom, and Cisco isn't a networking company...

 

and its stock rise is due to the fast-track, bidless contracts they received from the Bush administration regarding the rebuilding of Iraqi infrastructure

 

What infrastructure exactly was it that they were rebuilding?

[Pangloss]

The oil production infrastructure, bascule. As I said, its stock rise is due to the no-bid contracts they received from the Bush administration, not the rising price of oil or the reopening of Iraqi oil production, neither of which benefit Halliburton in any way. That's part of the problem with Halliburton -- the fact that they weren't held to their promised results. But none of this has anything to do with the geopolitics of oil-derived energy. It's a whole different kind of politics, though one that's just as old and corrupt.

 

So I'm still waiting to hear your point. Do you have one, or are you just going to keep hiding behind elliptical hints?