Report Puts Hidden War Costs at $1.6T (to date!)

[AFA]

Report Puts Hidden War Costs at $1.6T

Originally I know they were predicting $1.7 Trillion by 2017, that was raised to $2.4 Trillion by 2017, and now it's $1.6 Trillion to 2008. Tell me if I'm wrong, but are we being dictated to by assholes that have no clue what the fuck they are doing other than to promote their own self interests for some fantasy idea of world domination?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071113/ap_on_go_co/war_costs

Now following their math, this suggests 3.5 Trillion by 2017.

I wonder who's paying for this, because I don't make that kind of money? :eek:

 

[McNab]

^Well said.

 

[McRocket]

AFA

Don't worry - we, collectively, do have that kind of money. We're good for it. I mean, it's not like there are 30 million of us without healthcare, it's not like the roads and schools in the inner cities are in need of reform, and it's not like we ever have any major natural disasters that could benefit from our wasted trillions, to save lives. And it's not like the rest of the world has any severe problems that we could use those trillions for, in terms of aid, rebuilding, and bettering the planet. And it's not like we're all doomed to environmental devastation, cause if we were I'm sure those trillions would be used trying to save all of us instead of kill those that don't fit into our ideology, or those that have a lot of oil.

That fantasy of world domination is not just a fantasy.

Fox

Great post, IMO.

 

[AFA]

AFA

Don't worry - we, collectively, do have that kind of money. We're good for it. I mean, it's not like there are 30 million of us without healthcare, it's not like the roads and schools in the inner cities are in need of reform, and it's not like we ever have any major natural disasters that could benefit from our wasted trillions, to save lives. And it's not like the rest of the world has any severe problems that we could use those trillions for, in terms of aid, rebuilding, and bettering the planet. And it's not like we're all doomed to environmental devastation, cause if we were I'm sure those trillions would be used trying to save all of us instead of kill those that don't fit into our ideology, or those that have a lot of oil.

That fantasy of world domination is not just a fantasy.

Fox

The fantasy thinking at least in the book I'm reading is mostly attributable to Wolfowitz. You'll remember how he bumped the salary of his secretary / girlfriend at the World Bank up to $200,000 a year. I guess she has some special attributes he liked and felt were worth the money.

Sickening. Do people still ask why do they hate the US so much?

 

[Legzman]

AFA

Don't worry - we, collectively, do have that kind of money. We're good for it. I mean, it's not like there are 30 million of us without healthcare, it's not like the roads and schools in the inner cities are in need of reform, and it's not like we ever have any major natural disasters that could benefit from our wasted trillions, to save lives. And it's not like the rest of the world has any severe problems that we could use those trillions for, in terms of aid, rebuilding, and bettering the planet. And it's not like we're all doomed to environmental devastation, cause if we were I'm sure those trillions would be used trying to save all of us instead of kill those that don't fit into our ideology, or those that have a lot of oil.

That fantasy of world domination is not just a fantasy.

Fox

Very well said!

 

[Jagger69]

AFA

Don't worry - we, collectively, do have that kind of money. We're good for it. I mean, it's not like there are 30 million of us without healthcare, it's not like the roads and schools in the inner cities are in need of reform, and it's not like we ever have any major natural disasters that could benefit from our wasted trillions, to save lives. And it's not like the rest of the world has any severe problems that we could use those trillions for, in terms of aid, rebuilding, and bettering the planet. And it's not like we're all doomed to environmental devastation, cause if we were I'm sure those trillions would be used trying to save all of us instead of kill those that don't fit into our ideology, or those that have a lot of oil.

That fantasy of world domination is not just a fantasy.

Fox

Excellent tongue-in-cheek reply. This is my biggest problem with the supporters of the war....and then these very same individuals tell us that social programs like health care subsidies for uninsured children are too expensive??? What the fuck are we thinking here, people???

Problem is, sadly, there is no money to be made from subsidizing child health care, but there damn sure is in making the implements of destruction that warfare so desperately needs and the resulting opportunity to exploit oil interests in nations like Iraq. We are indeed living at the height of the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about. Looks like we chose to ignore the general's advice, huh?

As Randy Newman so eloquently said, "It's money that matters!"

Here's a running total of the "unhidden" cost of war to date....think what we could do with this money to improve society rather than to kill and destroy.

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Cost-of-War/Cost-of-War-3.html

Remember this the next time you vote.

 

[AFA]

Excellent tongue-in-cheek reply. This is my biggest problem with the supporters of the war....and then these very same individuals tell us that social programs like health care subsidies for uninsured children are too expensive??? What the fuck are we thinking here, people???

Problem is, sadly, there is no money to be made from subsidizing child health care, but there damn sure is in making the implements of destruction that warfare so desperately needs and the resulting opportunity to exploit oil interests in nations like Iraq. We are indeed living at the height of the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about. Looks like we chose to ignore the general's advice, huh?

As Randy Newman so eloquently said, "It's money that matters!"

Here's a running total of the "unhidden" cost of war to date....think what we could do with this money to improve society rather than to kill and destroy.

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Cost-of-War/Cost-of-War-3.html

Remember this the next time you vote.

The masters of the Government of the United States are the combined capitalists and manufacturers of the United States. - President Woodrow Wilson


And on Alexander Hamilton;
Woodrow Wilson thinks that Alexander Hamilton was "a great man, but, in my judgment, was not a great American," because Hamilton believed that "the only people who could understand Government, and therefore the only people who were qualified to conduct it, were the men who had the biggest stake in the commercial and industrial enterprises of the country."

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E01E4D81E3AE633A2575AC2A9679C946296D6CF

 

[Jagger69]

And on Alexander Hamilton;
Woodrow Wilson thinks that Alexander Hamilton was "a great man, but, in my judgment, was not a great American," because Hamilton believed that "the only people who could understand Government, and therefore the only people who were qualified to conduct it, were the men who had the biggest stake in the commercial and industrial enterprises of the country."

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E01E4D81E3AE633A2575AC2A9679C946296D6CF

Well then I say let's take that motherfucker off the goddamn sawbuck right now and replace him with.....oh, hell, I don't know.....maybe Chevy Chase?

:1orglaugh

Thanks for the info on Hamilton, AFA! He would have made an excellent neocon.

 

[pathfinder]

Thank God. I was beginning to think we were underspending money we don't have to begin with. At least we're reaping the benefits of cheap oil at $100/barrel.

 

[Roughneck]

AFA - that's nothing.

Honestly.

That is NOTHING.

How much, do you think; is the REAL debt of the Federal Government of the United States?

If your answer was ANYTHING less than 50 TRILLION DOLLARS - you're dead wrong!

yours in liberty,
R.

PS: Both Hamilton and Wilson were assholes. They both rejected the fundamental principles that founded this august Republic.

 

[lovejoy]

The cost of war is triple of that considering the payout later on when veterans file for post-traumatic stress disorder disability claims, health care for veterans at the VA., benefits paid out to the sons and daughters of the killed until they are 23 years old (18 if they don't go to college), life-long medical care at the VA for all the Gulf War veterans, and there are more.........

The secondary cost of rise of oil price, economy on the whole, millions of displaced Iraqi in which tens of thousands will eventually round up living here in the States, and more......................

Billions of dollars wastes in military hardwares !

 

[Roughneck]

To me the real tragic cost of the War is not the billions for oil or the prices of veterans benefits.

It's the killing and maiming - of Americans and Iraqis.
Of destroyed lives. Shattered bodies. Incomplete dreams. Widows and orphans.
Thousands upon thousands of families and loved ones uprooted and torn apart.



I thought I'd seen and lived through enough for many a lifetime.... during my own lifetime.
Apparently, I was mistaken.

 

[georges]

The fantasy thinking at least in the book I'm reading is mostly attributable to Wolfowitz. You'll remember how he bumped the salary of his secretary / girlfriend at the World Bank up to $200,000 a year. I guess she has some special attributes he liked and felt were worth the money.

Sickening. Do people still ask why do they hate the US so much?

If wolfowitzwas so irresponsible so why didn't they fired him? Because like in any governement, the president will defend beak and claws the ones who are his precious back ups. Prosecuting him in justice should have happened but it didn't (at least, not as far as I know).

 

[AFA]

A day after the second report published by Behar, on March 28, 2007, Kamen had disclosed that "Bank records obtained by the Government Accountability Project" documented pay raises in excess of Bank policies given to Shaha Riza, with whom Wolfowitz was "romantically linked.

He was forced to step down for a combination of reasons including incompetence, after originally refusing to leave. Another imbecile with friends in Washington.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Wolfowitz#Wolfowitz.27s_leadership_of_the_World_Bank_Group

 

[titsrock]

PS: Both Hamilton and Wilson were assholes. They both rejected the fundamental principles that founded this august Republic.

No, Alexander Hamilton was not an asshole. He was actually a brilliant man. It took almost 100 years before the monopolists took Hamilton's Federal "System" and fonked our country. The problems with our economy and government, today, can be traced to the corruption of the "Trusts" and monopolies that arose in the late 19th Century. We tried to legislate our way out from under the tentacles of the monopolies in the 1910's-1920's but the monopolies simply "diversified" in the 50's and 60's. Simply put and in this example of monopolies from bygone era fonking us today: our oil economy is still a derivative of Standard Oil's practices. Exxon simply decided in order to survive it would setup a dual cartel system.

AFA--are you reading Hick's "Fiasco"?

Today, I am ashamed to read that the Democratic Party cowered AGAIN and refused another "sham" attempt to stop this war. The Democrats who won the election in 2006 should be tossed aside in 2008 and we should replace them with new Democrats and Republicans who SERIOUSLY want to end this war. There HAS TO BE SOME REPUBLICAN out there who can't stomach all this tax money basically buried in the sands of Iraq.

If Democrats won't do the job they campaigned and promised to do...that means there must be some GIANT "secret" government reason why the occupation must continue. My only assumption is that there is no oil in Iraq and the American and British oil cartel are punishing the "World" for the fact that their business existence is ending sooner then their "new energy transition plan" (let's call it what BP calls it "BEYOND PETROLEUM") can be setup..."Big Oil" is not going to go out of business just because the oil reserves are going to be tapped dry someday. So, by driving up the price of oil obscenely, like they've done in 2007, they're simply creating the extra revenue they need to "develop" "new fuels"...

 

[Roughneck]

Iraq is going to be our latest "US state" whether or not we have an official occupation. That was what it was all about. We now control a crucial hub in the Middle East and all the oil (a big percentage of world oil produce) that comes out of it. So our new near-monopoly on the oil market allows us to drive up the price massively and make a lot more money (off our own people, and others) off a lot less oil, and still leave 40 oilfields untouched (and they want them to stay that way until the price is ten dollars a gallon haha) in Iraq to keep the market price shooting up.

I bet you are just thrilled about it all, aren't you, Fox?

You don't know nor understand the FIRST thing about 'oil prices', "reading" with the 'folks'....

.... especially if you were a "man" on a hardboat....

 

[McRocket]

I bet you are just thrilled about it all, aren't you, Fox?

You don't know nor understand the FIRST thing about 'oil prices', "reading" with the 'folks'....

.... especially if you were a "man" on a hardboat....

If you have a problem with **********, I suggest you take it to pms.

Oh, that's right. You don't do pm's.

I wonder why that is?

Have a nice day.

 

[titsrock]

Iraq is going to be our latest "US state" whether or not we have an official occupation. That was what it was all about.

As wacky as that statement is...it's probably more cost-effective AND EFFICIENT if we "did a Hong Kong" in Iraq and basically said "WE ARE TAKING OVER IRAQ FOR 50 YEARS"...we could then offer dual citizenship to Iraqis and prosecute the terrorists without adhering to anything other than our criminal laws...It does make for an interesting thought to say what would have happened and what would be better/worse if we said we're making Iraq the 51st state for 50 years...

I am being serious when I say that I'm not sure Iraq has all the oil we think it had before we went in. I think Saddam burned it up in the 90s/2000s in the Oil-for-Food scam.

Our economy is slowing...gas consumption in the US is down...the weather is warmer...the winter is forecast to be "warmer" and yet...we're being bent over at the pump...there has to be some other reason why...

 

[AFA]

AFA--are you reading Hick's "Fiasco"?

I read Fiasco, and will finish the afterword in Failed States tommorrow morning.

 

[titsrock]

It makes clear sense to me. It's so obvious. Oil barons have power in US government. Oil barons are tied to President. Oil barons want more oil. Sadaam controls 10-20% of world oil. Sadaam decides not to play ball with US. Sadaam starts selling oil cheap. Oil prices threaten to go down. US invades Iraq. Adds 10-20% of world oil to its already impressive inventory (Saudi, Kuwait, UAE, Nigeria), now controls a lot more of the oil. Keeps the oil from being pumped and refined. Limits it. Drives up the price. More money for the barons. Big cheers all round.

This theory doesn't pass the smell test. The pieces of it do fit nicely together though. I am wondering why the market isn't naturally flooded with oil as a result of Western Oil Companies "ramping up oil extraction." They've had 5 years to get extraction going. Something is going on. Maybe there isn't as much oil as Saddam postulated publically that he had?? It woudn't be the first time he was caught bluffing.

Saddam was allowed to trade oil for food through the UN. He did not set the market price. He did not spend his money on food, either, but that's beside the point.

I do think there is price collusion going on right now with oil. I just think Big Oil is in panic mode over a future without Bush/Cheney in charge..where they won't be able to stroll around the world puffing on cubans and shit-eatin' grinning all the way to bank...