Iraq: Was it worth it?

[Philosoraptor]

The shock and awe, the trillions of dollars, the half a million dead Iraqis, the many thousand dead G.I.'s, was it 'worth it'?

And what about Afghanistan? Is IT worth it?

In my opinion, fuck no, it wasn't worth it.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

1. no...but...trillion'S' ??? n/t

[Philosoraptor]

2. I am prone to hyperbole

[ProdigalJunkMail]

3. then rock on...

the answer with or without the 's' is NO! resounding NO!

sP

[glitch]

19. The number of Iraqi dead is well over a million.

The estimate was a million in 2007 (IIRC The Lancet did a study, someone correct me)

[Philosoraptor]

20. kick

[Junkdrawer]

4. Stiglitz: $3tn Iraq legacy to hit next President

Published: 5:00PM GMT 26 Feb 2008

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has warned that America's next President will inherit the largest ever budget deficit as the cost of the conflict in Iraq escalates.

The former chief economist of the World Bank, who co-wrote the new book The Three Trillion Dollar War, argues that President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq has cost just that.

In an interview with Telegraph TV, Mr Stiglitz estimates that the conflict will cost a further $500bn over the next 2 years.

The war has fed into the weakness of the wider economy, he said, adding, "To cover that up, the Fed and the regulators flooded the economy with liquidity - giving cheap money to anybody this side of a life support system."

....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/2785048/Stiglitz-3tn-Iraq-legacy-to-hit-next-President.html

[ProdigalJunkMail]

11. or...

costofwar.com


sP

[Junkdrawer]

14. And remember our obligations to the wounded vets.....

Unless we pull a Simpson, that will add up big time.

See my post below....

[Junkdrawer]

13. BTW: I remember his DemocracyNow interview back in 2008...

....

JOSEPH STIGLITZ: Well, the way you approach this problem is basically adding. You begin with the budgetary numbers. But what they claim as the cost of the Iraq war in the budget is not the full cost. There are the operational costs that everybody understands, but then there are costs hidden elsewhere in the defense budget. But then there are really some very big costs hidden elsewhere, like contractors that have been the subject of such concern. We pay their insurance through the Labor Department.

But the most important cost, budgetary cost, that we haven’t talked about publicly, that haven’t been talked about, are the costs of veterans—their disability, veterans’ healthcare—that will total hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decades. This war has had a huge number of injuries, and that will mount, the cost of caring for them, disability. 39 percent of the people fighting, the 1.6 million who have already fought, and if we continue, it will of course be more than that, are estimated will be—wind up with some form of disability.

Then you go beyond that budgetary cost to the cost of the economy. For instance, when somebody gets disabled, the disability pay is just a fraction of what the loss to their family, to the income that they could have otherwise earned. And then you go beyond that to the macroeconomic cost—the fact that the war has been associated with an increasing price of oil. We’re spending money on oil exports, Saudi Arabia, other oil-exporting countries. It’s money that’s not being spent here at home. There are a whole set of macroeconomic costs, which have depressed the economy. What’s happened is, to offset those costs, the Federal Reserve has flooded the economy with liquidity, looked the other way when you needed tighter regulation, and that’s what led to the housing bubble, the consumption boom. And we were living off of borrowed money. The war was totally financed by deficits. And eventually, a day of reckoning had to come, and now it’s come.

....

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/29/exclusive_the_three_trillion_dollar_war

Hence Alan Simpson's recent "stiff the vets" rants... :mad:

[bigwillq]

5. No (nt)

[Xipe Totec]

6. Well let's see

Cost of Iraq war so far: $744 Billion.

Population of Iraq 31 Million.

That's $24,000 for every man, woman, and child in Iraq.

I bet if we had offered them that much money, they would have surrendered and we would not have around 4,200 dead American soldiers. and 30,000 wounded American soldiers.

[JuniperLea]

8. Brilliant!

I bet they would have handed Saddam H. over in the bargain.

We should have given them the opportunity to figure out what they wanted to do before charging in like a deranged cowboy. Oh, wait... we did have a deranged cowboy leading the charge.

[JuniperLea]

7. We need to extracate ourselves from Afghanistan...

As much as I hate war, I understand that you can't just pack up and leave without causing a lot of harm.

Obama said we're planning on leaving there too...

[HopeHoops]

9. You need a "FUCK NO!" option in the poll.

[Ignis]

10. Ask the assholes with a (D) after their names who voted for the IWR.

Way to be the opposition, guys. :patriot:

[damntexdem]

12. NO! As we said when we demonstrated against it before the illegal invasion ...

and as we have repeated ever since.

[Philosoraptor]

15. .....

[Yeshuah Ben Joseph]

16. No. And neither is Afghanistan.

Or Vietnam or Korea, for that matter.

[earth mom]

17. K & R!

:kick:

[DainBramaged]

18. Other

[Warren DeMontague]

21. I suppose that depends...

...on who you ask.