Cost of United States Wars.

[Bill Cravener]

We are indeed a sick dumb race of people to let this continue !!

http://costofwar.com/en/

[baltoro]

[...I think a dollars per foreign citizen fatality statistic would be more enlightening,...]

We are indeed a sick dumb race of people to let this continue !!

I think everyone agrees with that, Bill.

You're old, right ? Remember all the protests we had at the peak of the Vietnam War ?
...The huge numbers of angry students we had in the streets of all our major cities,...
:eek Clearly, no one cares anymore. :eek
When do you think World War III will begin ? Do you think anyone will even notice ?

[donkey]

:eek Clearly, no one cares anymore. :eek

The only time people care is when it directly affects their own life. The students were at risk of being drafted so they cared. The mothers had sons dying in the jungle so they cared. The politicians saw it as a way to garner support so they cared. The modern way to wage a war is to do it in a way that has little or no impact back home, at least in a direct way. You abolish the draft and do not allow any rationing and the people will not care, they will hardly notice the war is going on. No protesters worried about being picked up off the street and sent to die in Afghanistan or any other place just a lot of volunteers who everybody assumes that knew when they signed up what the consequences would be. When you're talking trillions of dollars it tends to lose its meaning, take another $10 in taxes and the people will revolt, take a trillion in loans and they hardly notice. So its not that nobody cares anymore, the government has set it up so that there is nothing to "care" about.

The fastest way to end the hemorrhaging of cash in foreign wars is to re-institute the draft, then people will have something to care about.

[Bill Cravener]

You're old, right ? Remember all the protests we had at the peak of the Vietnam War ?
...The huge numbers of angry students we had in the streets of all our major cities,...

I was one of those protesters way back then baltoro. The young these days are the ones that don't seem to give a shit.

World war three couldn't come soon enough as for as I'm concerned. The world needs a good cleansing including the United States of America!

Where's that meteorite impact when you need one?? That would fix things!!

I know, I know, I sound like an angry citizen but its the truth, I am very angry!!

[redskull]

So its not that nobody cares anymore, the government has set it up so that there is nothing to "care" about.

More than that, they've given them an incentive to care the other way; the vast majority of that trillion dollars that's being "wasted" ends up in the payroll of private companies who supply defense contractors.  If they stop shooting down helicopters, they'll build fewer helicopters, which means the helicopter company will buy less paper and toner, which means the paper company ships less products, which means they'll use fewer boxes, and so the poor guy driving the cardboard delivery truck gets the pink slip.  Precious few americans would be willing to give up a steady job in exchange for keeping nameless, faceless people from getting shot two thousand miles away.

[clive]

I think they missed the wars on Drugs and Poverty, which also seem to be rat-holes for cash, with no obvious path to exit/victory/success.

[anunitu]

Back in the Vietnam era, you had three choices Join the Navy(as I did)..get drafted..or go to canada..

After I got out of the service, I protested the War, but mostly because of all the friends that never made it back from that War.

[dedndave]

 :P
i joined the army - and signed up for airborne infantry
same reason, though - i was tired of seeing my friends come home in a box

[baltoro]

What's really shocking about the whole 'cost of war' issue is not what the US government is currently paying in it's Congressionally sanctioned military operations,...but, the burden that future generations must bear for our myopic actions,...
:eek Imagine,...if you will,...a world in which the United States is no longer a Super-Power,...a world in which the population of Earth is 15 billion people,...a world in which most strategic resources have been exhausted,...and, the vast majority of the world's population is reduced to a desperate struggle just to get enough food to survive the day,...
(Admittedly, this is an extremely pessimistic scenario,...but, in a very real sense, what we do today eliminates options that people will have depended on in the future.
...Which, of course, takes all the fun out of time-travel,...)

[baltoro]

The only time people care is when it directly affects their own life.
The fastest way to end the hemorrhaging of cash in foreign wars is to re-institute the draft, then people will have something to care about.

Well, I can certainly understand why you said that, Edgar. But, as I'm sure you are aware,...the situation is alot more complicated than that.
The United States grants way too much power and resources to our military (and, has since the Reagan era),...who, in large measure, use it to keep their hold on power and demand ever larger budgetary appropriations. The reasons we start wars don't even make any sense anymore,...at least, in the conventional sense.
To simplify the situation,...the United States has experienced an incredible expansion of it's economy, and, an impressive increase in its standard of living since World War II. But, it has come at the price of maximum development and industrialization, and, almost unlimited resource exploitation,...without much concern for the well-being of future Americans (or, anyone else, really),...and, this has created the perception for most Americans of invincibility. It's an illusion. Numerous rigorous scientific studies have concluded that the American way of life cannot be sustained indefinitely (or, even much more than another couple of decades at most). But, of course, if you are a politician, running for office, you can't tell the American people that and expect to get elected.
What we really need is for the entire population of the planet to become buddhists in a very short time frame (say, two hours),...and, then, with peace and love in our hearts,...all of us should just cease to be boring, greedy assholes,...voluntarily,...of course,...
:eek ...But, we all know it'll never happen,... :eek

[hutch--]

I have just watched a 2 part documentary on the secret war on terror and the well know phenomenon of unexpected consequences has come back to haunt the countries that perpetrated the original invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Go barging into someone elses country, smash it with "splat tech" military hardware, massacres your way through their women and children, destroy the infrastructure of the country, obliterate the country's economy and SURPRISE SURPRISE they hate you for it and not only will they fight you over it but even more dangerously they succeed in recruiting people in yours and my country to carry out the attacks for them.

Now this may not appear to make sense until you see what interests are being served, invent some phony bullsh*t reason for invading/saving/humanitarian intervention/reduction of civilian collateral damage then go barging in with all of the known consequences and suddenly there is a need to replace all of those cruise missiles that were pelted at Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya recently. Then there are the aircrafts that are getting older, a new wave of ever more expensive small arms, ammo, RPGs, trucks, Jeeps, the latest and most expensive high tech artillery and all of the support to keep it going then add to this the cost of feeding an army in some foreign sh*thole and guess who is the patsy who is funding this debacle ?

Lets have a guess here, there is you and me and every other tax payer in the "attack" countries and it goes out of your pocket through governments that are pissing this fortune against the wall straight into the pockets of a number of well known corporations who in turn pay very little if any tax back into the country's income.

Now just have a look at the costs of funding the war in Afghanistan, for a fraction of the cost you could have built 12 lane superhighways all over the country complete with side camel tracks and watering holes and a Mosque at every second stop.

[baltoro]

:eek ...Well said, hutch,...so,...is it COMPLETELY HOPELESS ???
Can't we just generate some more paperwork,...pass some Federal legislation,...borrow enough money to paralyze the global financial system,...???
...Some ingenious way we can save the world without actually setting the remote down on the coffee table,...and, getting up off the couch,... :bg
...Hell,...I'm almost as angry as BILL CRAVENER,...

[hutch--]

Nah,

Come on, don't be an "easy beat". Its funny that people from afar see the strengths of the US in ways that locals cannot see, something like can't see the wood for the trees. The last 10 years of damage has made a mess of many things and wasted the lives of many people in the US yet the basics of recovery are still there. Even though many people with highly useful skills have been dumped on the scrapheap, they still know what they are doing, industry may be been PHUKED over but the basic infrastructure is still there, the real need is political change.

Piss off the Federal Reserve so that Americans own their own money, disconnect the unconstitutional rights of corporations to be treated like citizens and pull the plug on rediculous military spending so that the nation's income is spent on the nation, not military hardware that ends up on the scrapheap in some foreign sh*thole for no purpose. The real power of America is not in exploitation of people but in its long history of giving people the chance of having a decent life. Re-empower ordinary Americans, ensure they have work, protect them from economic and physical abuse and the US will rise again.

The Wilbur and Orvilles, Henry Fords, Samuel Colts and so on were innovative creative people who helped make America strong, the money shuffling, exploitation, wars and cripling the population have weakened the US. We saw a massive shift with the population movement that elected Obama and a similar shift when the Democrats failed to deliver on their promises, the changes can be made by changing governments and polititians and once they get used to the idea that if they don't perform they get arseh*led out the door they will start to do things better.

Now if you managed to get laws passed where you could tar and feather polititians who did not perform you may just see an even further improvement in their conduct.

[dedndave]

we need to take this, essentially embezzled, money back and pour it into the economy
i am refering mostly to haliburton, but boards of other politically porking corporations, as well
these fuckers take all that money and stuff it in their swiss pillow or other offshore caches

that money belongs to the US citizens, and it should have come back to them in the way of wages
you can blame bush for allowing it to happen, but it was largely orchestrated by cheney
for my money, the whole lot needs to spend their remaining years in a penitentiary

[hutch--]

There is a cheaper approach, dress up some guy as Captain Hook, look for a nice tall building in the Big Apple then put a plank out from the top so its a clear drop to the pavement below. Now those who only exploited ordinary people by small amounts (under a million) get tarred and feathered and sent off to Alaska but the R-Souls who ripped off ordinary people big time can "walk the plank".

Whats you last word ?  Maaaarma !

Have an audience below of very unhappy citizens who are out of pocket from these bastards and then you can place bets on the size of the SPLAT and the frequency of the screams on the way down. Do a dirty deal with a fertiliser company so that after each couple of hundred SPLATS, they come in, clean up the mess and convert it to something useful. You would have to make sure they were assett stripped first, fancy homes, Lear jets, expensive cars and all of their bank accounts recovered to offset the costs they have imposed on ordinary people but you could probably get something back to re-imburse all those folks that have been ripped off.