The Costs of American's Wars

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Another study came out recently about the costs of U.S. wars. From Brown University's Watson Institute, author Neta Crawford of Boston University pegged the amount at $4.79 trillion, or “so large as to be almost incomprehensible,” Key findings are:

•The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and other overseas operations already cost $1.7 trillion between 2001 and August 2016 with $103 billion more requested for 2017
•Homeland Security terrorism prevention costs from 2001 to 2016 were $548 billion.
•The estimated DOD base budget was $733 billion and veterans spending was $213 billion.
•Interest incurred on borrowing for wars was $453 billion.
•Estimated future costs for veterans’ medical needs until the year 2053 is $1 trillion.
•And the amounts the DOD, State Department, and Homeland Security have requested for 2017 ($103 billion)."

https://theintercept.com/2016/09/14/latest-estimate-pegs-cost-of-wars-at...

The cost of lives lost and lives destroyed or damaged is incalculable. Over a million killed, millions made into refugees inside their countries and outside. Americans, coming off the Vietnam war of the 60's/70's that killed well over a million, should be absolutely ashamed at what THEY are doing. Everyone wants to believe we live in this great democratic country, the greatest country on the planet, and yet we KNOW what we did in Vietnam was wrong. If we're such a great democratic country then aren't we ALL responsible? Why are we doing it again?

This is just unbelievable. The money is one thing but the lives lost and destroyed is unforgiveable. I read an article tonight titled, "Are we the New Nazis?" It outlined the wars the U.S. is leading over the last fifteen years in a quest to rule the world and compared Americans to the "Good Germans" in Nazi Germany who supported, enabled or looked the other way during the Hitler era.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/68985

Hell, Americans are worse than that. Wrapped up in their I-phones and pathetically materialistic lives, most Americans have no fucking idea what their government, authorized by politicians about half of us vote for, are doing across the planet. They don't even want to know.

It's not going to stop. We're in for at least another ten years plus of nothing but belligerent imperialism and war coming from our government, whether it's Trump or Clinton. More insane accumulation of weapons from the Military Industrial Complex, new and improved weapons. In ten years we'll have combat field ready Robots. Full Spectrum Dominance will have strengthened it's tentacles around the planet. There's a real possibility of a military war against Russia and China. Who can honestly say those running the planet aren't capable of a nuclear war? People are shaking their heads that Americans have been at war for fifteen years. It will be twenty five years in ten more. Then what?

The focus should be on stopping these crazy people from continuing their Crusade, removing them from power and abolishing their institutions. Everything else is just pretend, especially this ridiculous presidential election. Shit, at least Americans could show a little remorse for a change.

Here's one thing we could have done with that money instead of killing a million people.

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divineorder's picture

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

Big Al's picture

bought the damn oil a lot cheaper than going to war for it, referring to Trump. With 5 trillion we could have rid ourselves from oil dependence and made a solid effort at addressing climate change. How insane is that?
Thanks d.o.

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Do you mean the US tax payers, because given the choice they would have chosen to go to war for it.

We are Hawks Al, not you or I of course but our compatriots are.

If we think that Jill or her party will ever do better than 15% while saying "I would not have assassinated Bin Laden" then we are not living in reality.

Peace doesn't sell.

I didn't realize my wife was a bit hawkish until this primary, when she said that she doesn't trust Bernie to kick enough terrorist ass.
My boss hates Hillary, but praises her for being a "tough bitch".

We are Bald Eagle American Hawks brother Al and that is the main reason the Big Al wing of the party fails to win.

Peace in the middle east!

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divineorder's picture

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

snoopydawg's picture

there are more terrorist organizations that have been created by our government and our allies, which some of them are sometimes our enemies.
Our government created AQ to fight the USSR, then they fought against us during the Iraq war and now they are fighting with us in Syria and other countries.
And I'm betting that most Americans aren't aware of this.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.

snoopydawg's picture

Here's the real time costs of the various wars that the US is engaged in and the other agencies of our government and it shows how what the money could have bought if we had spent it here in America and on Americans instead. The tracker for how much money is spent since 2001 shows that it takes less than 1/2 second to spend $100!
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/
If we had bought the oil instead then the defense industries, the defense contractors, banks and every other industry that profits from the wars wouldn't have made their obscene profits.
As you mentioned, Americans are too caught up in their lives to even bother to think about the millions killed or displaced. And if they do think of them, they certainly don't want them to live in America because they might be Islamic radicals bent on killing us. Seriously, these are the comments I read this morning on the articles about the bombs in New Jersey and the knife attacker at the mall.
Americans buy into the government's propaganda that the troops are fighting ISIL and other terrorists groups to protect our country and our freedoms.
And all of the troops that have died in every war since we kicked the British out have died to protect our freedoms.
I'm surprised that Smedley Butler's book hasn't been banned yet because people might listen to his message of what all of the military interventions have been about.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.

Daenerys's picture

I lived there for five years, from 2006-2011. And on my birthday to boot. Sad. Sad

And to think, instead of all these perpetual wars we could have universal health care, free college, AND/OR repair our infrastructure. Disgusting.

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This shit is bananas.

Big Al's picture

it's worse now than it was fresh after 9/11. It seems intractable. That's why I said 15 years is going to turn into 25 years in not time.

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I would like to point out that Americans live in an oligarchy where they have no actual influence over policy and have been/are subjected to an incredible amount of propaganda over their media. Personally, I'd go easy on the blame for the average American, barely scraping by, if lucky.

What would be unforgivable would be Americans having access to more accurate information and yet actually voting for a billionaire/corporate-serving, corporate-coup-supporting anyone who would create far worse even than the Nazis in enabling/validating the global corporate enslavement/military extermination of virtually all of humanity (barring billionaires and the then-shrinking number of 'smaller fleas' currently still useful to the parasites mindlessly killing off their host to unrestrainedly pick the corpse over) and the rapid destruction of life on the planet.

They want the world to pollute and pillage for maximization of anticipated future profits existing only in the mists of their greed-driven dreams - without paying that average citizen-become-serf more than slave labour in multiple countries, where parents may traffic their children simply to try to see them fed and sheltered in return for domestic labour. And the global life-supporting ecosystem's already failing under the current levels of industrial/military pollution and destruction and will not last long when every country looks like China. That's what's at stake. That, and the concept of democracy, of civilization, which could still be revived and finally enacted.

That would leave, as a survivable voting/electoral option, the non-corporate Jill Stein or, in the event of a miracle, Bernie Sanders; nobody else will fight this.

They tell you that Jill can't get enough votes to win so vote for the 2-corporate-party-trade-off or possibly the TPP supporting Libertarian because Indies form the largest voting group and if they massed behind a non-corporate candidate, that's where the largest number of votes would go and make cheating more difficult to hide/have be left to stand as a 'done deal' yet again. Bernie, of course, could win in a landslide in any remotely legitimate election, should he replace Hillary, even with the propaganda nonsense about his supposedly 'selling out'.

And I suspect that that'll be partly why DHS wants to take over your elections, away from the public eye. You have to keep walking into the box they've kept you trapped you in, voting for their candidates to keep 'the other evil' out of public office, just one more time, to at least have your votes close enough to be denied/disregarded/replaced so that the corporate take-over can be put through and they can claim it's 'legal and binding' using your own corrupted Supreme Court to offshore your domestic law and declare your Constitutional rights superseded by the need for all-important unrestricted corporate pollution/predation/profiteering.

After this, when the protection of law has been withdrawn from the dispossessed citizens and shrouds only the relative and most powerful few and their top lackeys, there will be no option of a peaceful political process for the corporate chattel of any country.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Big Al's picture

truth, if they want it. That's what I read, the truth. It's all over the internet, in the libraries, etc. My point was Americans like to THINK they live in a democracy, that by voting they're exercising their democratic rights, and that they do have a say in how this country is run. So if "we" think that, we also should take some responsibility for our collective actions that we feel we are democratically participating in. It's our country and we're allowing those that we elect to wage wars and practice imperialism across the planet. I don't agree we should go easy on ourselves. Not anymore.
I understand reality is we really don't have a say in the matter, but isn't that largely because we, collectively, don't want a say about war and the broader agenda of world domination?

OTOH, if we admit we don't have a say in the matter because we're brainwashed, why don't we stop voting in these elections and demand a new political system?

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Lenzabi's picture

Also, the MiC has to keep inventing new "boogey-men" like ISIL when AQ petered out a bit. They need the justification of such as a means to make folks believe we really need them, when in fact they have become the true terrorists by testing their toys of mass destruction and precision death dealing to the world weapons markets to buy from them.

Not that the US is alone in this sickness of profiting from weapons proliferation, Hell the Irony that slips past most of us is that the nations of the UN security council and others are supposed to preserve the peace, yet they are the biggest arms sellers on the planet, thus making the planet un-peaceful by the fact that they make and sell these weapons.

Now they also work so much hand-in-hand with the Big Oil makers and such as they make weapons like tanks, planes, drones and warships that need fossil fuels to move and fight on. (New generation weapons will use different power systems. For now, they gobble petroleum products.

Heck the contracts for the replacement of the bombs we used up the past few years will likely keep some one busy and rushing to the banks for some time yet.

Others are a waste like the F-35.

But also the propaganda helps make folks feel that they need someone to protect and save them. Propaganda of the current times would make Goebbels drool with joy as it also now uses psychology to craft their pieces, like advertisements do to make us want the products pushed on the TV and other ads. Propaganda wants us to support the reasons why we sent troops somewhere to die in the first place, Like "Democracy" or "Liberty" or "Free-dumb"
In reality, most of our wars have been to the benefit of the MIC/warmongers and the other corporate interests, and with each time the government allows itself to have done their bidding, it encouraged the corporatists to push for more, until now, they have the government/press/military and society under their grip.

And the election fraud we have witnessed is part of that plane to turn The United States of America into their Corporate States of Oligarchia

Now folks have seen me post that before, but let those words sink in. Corporate States of Oligarchia
Corporate owned and run states like WV where I reside presently, other states are pretty much corporate stooge states where the leaders have sold themselves and their souls to do the bidding of the Plutarchs who have the money to buy them. Of Oligarchia, as in Oligarchy, not a democracy where we the People rule the nation thru our representative Republic as maybe in the past. But via the Oligarchs waving money in the direction of campaigns of politicians who see their posts as stepping stones to greater money opportunities, or worse, see the political sphere as their money maker. Yes, they forgot about the people they got voted by to represent them, dollar signs blinding them to their duty as "Public servants"

It is always amazing to see how inter-twined all of this is, how each thing we discuss flows into the next hing as it all merges at the capital, linked intrinsically to the pro-corporate-screw the little person culture that has been created over the last few decades, and really gotten steam to it with Reagan being elected, but still, the pigeons are coming home to roost. Votes for both establishment candidates and even yes to Johnson will perpetuate this rise of the MIC/Oligarchy and the decline and loss of democracy and liberty.

The best blow for the revolution would be an overwhelming series of votes from each state seeking to get Jill Stein in office. But, we may get stuck with the corporate stooge of their selection and I feel we have sunk to the state where the UN actually needs to watch over our elections and administer fairness and make sure the votes are properly counted and tallied.

We can no longer trust either main party. It is time to throw the bums out and fix this broken system.

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So long, and thanks for all the fish

snoopydawg's picture

Who created it and why they did. It doesn't have the power of authority over foreign policy that most of us think it does.
The current head of it wanted to bring human rights violation charges against Saudi Arabia because of the massive amounts in of civilian deaths and the bombings of buildings that had nothing to do with who they are fighting and how it looked like the bombings and killings of innocent civilians were intentional.
Saudi Arabia told him that if he brought charges against them then they would quit funding it and our government backed them up.
Sorry that I don't have a link for this, but he's very upset by the massive amounts of human lives being snuffed out.
They are using cluster bombs which most countries have banned, the US of course not only didn't agree to the ban but it is selling them to SA as is the UK I believe.
And today I read an article on common dreams that said they are dropping bombs with white phosphorus in them. When it comes into contact with a person it burns through their clothing, skin and muscles down to the bone.
I can't imagine how anyone can make the decision to use those types of weapons on civilians including children, yet our government has stayed silent. Of course or as usual. (Gaza)
I'm not sure that we have ever had a functioning democracy, but I agree with you that things have gotten much worse since the Reagan administration and after Obama was selected to be president, most of the people who were against what the Bush administration was doing have gone silent.
Especially over at DK where most of joined the site because of our opposition to the Iraq war.
Now I see comments about how Obama has been the best president since FDR, although income inequality has gotten much worse, millions of people continued to lose their homes while his DOJ stayed silent.
In tonight's EBs, Joe has a link about the criminality of the banks which is an excellent article.
I see people over there write that he has ended two wars and hasn't started any new ones or support what he did to Libya, believe that Putin and Assad are the bad guys while giving Obama a pass on funding countless terrorists organizations.
And even though we all know about Hillary's actions in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Hondorus and Ukraine, they refuse to see that she is a warmonger.
I agree with your last sentence and sure wish I had an idea how we could accomplish that.
We saw Obama promise us hope and change and instead not only got the same, but even more wars, spying and the other things he broke his promises on.
And there are so many people who support him on the TPP because he's "such a great president" that they believe that he has our best interests in mind.
Absolutely mind boggling! Sad

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

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Lenzabi's picture

Amazing isn't it?

They have been very good at the bafflegabble to make most folks fall in line thinking they have been a help to us when they secretly dismantle all FDR did for us all.

So many blind folks around will be led off the cliff as the biosphere unravels.

Yeah, the UN is at the funding mercy of the worst violators of decency, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Corporate States of Oligarchia and their ally Great Oligarchistan

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So long, and thanks for all the fish

The ecological horrors of USA led wars can't be over-emphasized but they are easy to ignore with all the deaths and misspent treasure.

I'd like to see which corporations are profiting and by how much.

And, it's all done in our name.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

the starving children of the world or even in the USA for that matter. They might grow up to be big and strong and be a challenge to their authority.

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Granma's picture

You for helping to feed them and their children. I wish the war money had been used that way.

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