WAR'S INVOICE: What we're reading 2-13-07
By Tim Louis Macaluso on Feb. 13th, 2007 at 12:17pm 1 Comment
"Every single week, the American people spend $2 billion on Iraq --- much of it for troops and materials, but plenty of it for schools, hospitals and electricity for Iraqis. Their oil money hasn't paid for reconstruction. We have," writes Cynthia Tucker for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Tucker aptly points out how the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are quietly, but surely pushing the US into "a deep sea of red ink." Similar to charges on a VISA card, the mounting costs of war don't feel like real expenses to most Americans.
But real they are indeed, as state's like Georgia can no longer afford to pay for PeachCare, a program that provides affordable health care for children and families.
"In Squandering Billions in Iraq While US Suffers," Eric Margolis of the Toronto Sun writes, "Our minds boggled last week at US government estimates that President George W. Bush's war on terror (including Iraq and Afghanistan) will cost at least $690 billion US by next year."
The war will cost more than World War I, Korea and Vietnam combined, writes Margolis, leaving each and every American, seniors and children included, an invoice of $2,800 (so far).
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Ted Christopher on February 14th, 2007
Hi,
I saw an NYT article "What 1.2 trillion can buy?" (1/17/07). Also recently I have seen a higher estimate of 4 billion per week net expenditure. I suggest an energy-based alternative.
Our current expenditure on energy research - public plus private - is about 4 billion a year or about 1 to 2 weeks of Iraq expenditure. Within this, the current public (DOE) expenditure on renewable energy technologies is a little over 400 million a year, or about 3/4 to 1 1/2 days of Iraq expenditure.
Currently we import about 60 percent of the oil we use, and of this about 17 percent comes from Persian Gulf countries. So about (0.6 x 0.17 = 0.102) 10 percent of the oil we use comes from the Middle East. Why not get off this in the coming year and exit not just Iraq, but the whole region? The real shame is wasting our future in pursuit of "cheap" oil. As long as we stay over the barrel in the Middle East, there will be more and more problems.
A legitimate reason to threaten the US would be our energy use (as it threatens the climate). If the US would pick a European country like Germany and set a goal of moving in 5 years to their level of per capita energy consumption (about 1/2 o