Cost of United States Wars.

[hutch--]

:bg

> trying to rebuild a country that was a sh*thole before we got there

No, after. Over 10 years of bombings and sanctions and all of those wicked weapons of mass destruction that Saddam was about to use on Europe and the US, the damage done by the combined allies invading and massacring their way through Iraq left the place worse off.

Smashing small defenseless countries seems to be the way. Iraq 1, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Iraq 2, Afghanistan and about all that is stopping US support for smashing Libya is the Chinese will not loan them enough money to fund it and US taxpayers are getting tired of funding wars themselves.

There is mileage for any country under threat to have some form of nuclear deterrant like the loonies in Iran and North Korea, poor old Gaddafi has just learnt that giving away his nuclear capacity leads to air attack and invasion.

[donkey]

No, after. Over 10 years of bombings and sanctions and all of those wicked weapons of mass destruction that Saddam was about to use on Europe and the US, the damage done by the combined allies invading and massacring their way through Iraq left the place worse off.

Canada never participated in the war in Iraq, I was talking about Afghanistan.

[sprint]

this proverb says it all ...hope some sort of inspiration to us
I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
Albert Einstein :clap:

[Bill Cravener]

This poor old bastard finds it a might difficult to fathom 1 trillion dollars. I read somewhere that if you take a trillion stacked as 1000 dollar bills it would rich near 80 miles high. That's about how far I live from Pittsburgh, which takes me driving at 65 miles an hour near an hour and a half to get there. And that's mostly straight freeway driving. Our national dept exceeds 14 trillion, that's equal to 7 round trips to Pittsburgh and back. Lets see, 1120 mile long stack of 1000 dollar bills, now try and visualise that one . . . ah, forget about it!

http://www.usdebtclock.org

[hutch--]

 :bg

Edgar,

I am not sure that the combined allied efforts there have been any more successful. My brother traveled through Afghanistan before the Russians PHUKED it over the first time and it apparently was an interesting place before all the damage was done. With a history of defeating every invader from Alexander the Great onwards including the previous invasion by the Russians who flattened the place in about a week with old Soviet style "splash tech", I am astounded that anyone would be so stupid as to think they were going to do better. The Mujahadeen turned Taliban are freedom fighters defending their country from invaders just like all the rest before them and they will never give up as they have nowhere else to go.

Stupidity and arrogance are two sides of the same coin here, the only winner from an unwinnable war are those who make money out of it even though the human cost on both sides is rediculous. The solution is to do a dirty deal with Sheik Omar, buy him a set of thoroughbred racing camels with parts of the Koran engraved on the saddles, support the Pakistani military so they can keep the Taliban out of North Pakistan and get the PHUK out of there.

Now to fuel the sheer stupidity of a clapped out military alliance like NATO, spread the word that Slobodan Bin Gadaffi is being hidden in Canada by Stephen harper and the OIL sands mining areas need to be neutralised so that they cannot afford to sponsor terrorists any longer and they will have something to do after PHUKING Libya.  :P

[dedndave]

Our national dept exceeds 14 trillion, that's equal to 7 round trips to Pittsburgh and back.

before bush took office, it was ~1 trillion, as i recall
i was flabergasted, then   :P

[donkey]

before bush took office, it was ~1 trillion, as i recall
i was flabergasted, then   :P

I have always said that if the conservatives call liberals "tax and spend" then the conservatives should be called "spend and spend". In Canada we had 8 consecutive surplus budgets, each paying down the national debt in the neighborhood of 10 billion, the conservatives ran an 80 billion dollar debt in their first year, wiping out the advances and about the same every year since. All of that while at the same time cutting services, though they "assure" us that by 2015 we'll have a balanced budget again  ::) The same is essentially true for the US, Clinton and the Democrats ran balanced budgets until the Bush Republicans took over then the money started hemorrhaging again, Reagan took the smallest government debt since WWII (as a % of GDP) and turned it into the largest debt ever even conceived all the while managing to convince everyone he was a spend thrift.

[xanatose]

I wonder if Cheney and his sidekicks (I dont count Bush as he was just a moron) would ever get what they deserve.

I mean, this guy cannot atone for all the damage that he has done, not even in a 1,000 lifetimes. Does anyone knows of the death toll in Iraq?  I know that after the 1st year it was like 500,000 Iraquis. Here in the USA we only count the USA people death, but seem to not care about the Iraquis that died in a war that they did not provoke.

BTW:
Shouldn't we be bombing Pakistan. After all they did hide Osama. Wasn't that the excuse for bombing Afganistan and then Iraq?

[donkey]

I know that after the 1st year it was like 500,000 Iraquis.

Wow, 500,000, I guess around 350,00 of them were re-incarnated then. It was the ORB poll that came up with that figure, it has since been thoroughly discredited and the methodology used to calculate the number is little more guesswork. The more statistically sound estimates put the figure of total deaths at around 150,000. Compare that to the estimated total deaths in the 6 years of the second world war of nearly 60 million and it seems a trivial number. More people have died in car accidents in the US since 2003 than have died in Iraq. Saddam is estimated to have executed 300,000 Iraqis, that does not include soldiers who died in his pointless wars which is estimated to be over a million. Amnesty international puts the number of civilians executed by Saddam at over 500,000, but most agree that that figure is probably not accurate.

[hutch--]

Even if the figure of 150 is reasonable, it makes an awful lot of very unhappy Iraqis and feeds the recruitment for Al Queda very effectively. Where Saddam actively supressed Al Queda, under the combined allies invasion of Iraq Al Queda is a thriving organisation.

On the flip side, the Crazy Ayotollahs are more than pleased about the influence shift in their part of the world thanks to the combined allies trashing Iraq.

[donkey]

Even if the figure of 150 is reasonable, it makes an awful lot of very unhappy Iraqis and feeds the recruitment for Al Queda very effectively. Where Saddam actively supressed Al Queda, under the combined allies invasion of Iraq Al Queda is a thriving organisation.

Well, Al Qaeda doesn't need a lot of recruits and the Iraq war isn't going to make that much of a difference, you don't need highly trained troops to strap a bomb to themselves so having a larger pool of retards to chose from isn't that much of an advantage. The fact is that Al Qaeda would still get recruits if the US wasn't in Iraq and they would get enough to strap on every bomb they have and more. The US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan have done nothing to strengthen Al Qaeda or swell its numbers, it does however yield useful intelligence and destabilize the enemy. The effectiveness of the war is not an issue, its the cost, and that exceeds the value of the target.

BTW all effective attacks by Al Qaeda against the US were perpetrated before the coalition went into Afghanistan or removed Saddam so I can't see where having Saddam "suppress" Al Qaeda and all the while provide funding to terrorists and pensions to suicide bombers families can be cited as an advantage.

[hutch--]

Edgar,

You make an obvious mistake in underestimating an enemy, they can just wait the combined allies out as they did in Iraq and are doing so in Afghanistan as the cost to the combined allies of trying to suppress a shadowy organisation like Al Queda is a weapon of war they are successfully using. Asymetrical warfare beat the Russians in Afghanistan and their invasion made the combined NATO version look like a Sunday School Picnic. You don't have to worry about the Taliban Air Force, they cannot pedal that fast or put wings on their camels but in conjunction with th loosly knit international organisation like Al Queda, they can keep doing more damage financially to the combined allies than any 9/11 style attack.

If you consider that trashing Iraq and helping Al Queda to get a foothold there as well as changing the balance of power in the Persian Gulf is a success, then we differ on fundamental notions of what success is. I call it a fiasco of unintended consequences that have made the world a much more dangerous place.

[oex]

More people have died in car accidents in the US since 2003 than have died in Iraq.

Ah so that's how the price of oil is estimated.... :lol

[hutch--]

I recently watched an English source documentary on the secret war against Al Queda and contrary to popular myth about having them on the run, in 2009 Al Queda outsmarted the CIA in Kost Afghanistan and successfully penetrated their security with a clever ruse involving Jordanian intelligence and took out about 7 CIA members with a suicide bomb. Apparently including the head of the CIA operation there. The CIA operation was involved in gathering intelligence for drone attacks in the tribal belt of Pakistan.

It is indeed a foolish mistake to underestimate an enemy that is smarter than you are and is willing to die to achieve their ends. Bin Laden was past his use by date after 9/11 so while it may help get Obama re-elected, it will not change the risk that the previous US administration imposed on much of the rest of the world with its clumsy war mongering. At least Obama appears to have his head screwed on properly but is saddled with a loonie tune Tea Party adversary that would perform all of the blunders of the Bush era again if they could.

The video from the suicide bomber Khalid Al Balawi is an education for any who think that Al Queda has been beaten. Maybe it should be in the CIA training manual so they know what they are dealing with.

[xanatose]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
One estimate is 151,000
another 621,000
Yet Another 1,033,000

lets go for the lesser one (the one from wikileaks)
92,003 civlian deaths.

I do not care if you support or not the military. 92,003 deaths of civilians is not acceptable. Specially since Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. This deaths where caused directly by the lies that the Bush administration created. Thus directly on the heads of moron Bush and evil Cheney.