The Cost Of War
Two economists, Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, have published a book entitled "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict" and it comes out just in time for the 5-year anniversary of the illegal and misbegotten invasion of Iraq. A substantive review of the book was published in The Economist this week. Also noting the publication was an editorial in today's Boston Globe. It is that editorial which points to the significance of the Stiglitz and Bilmes book.
NEARLY FIVE years since the start of the Iraq war, the Bush administration is still funding much of it through emergency appropriations, and only partially through the regular defense budget. This is one of several ways in which the administration has managed to hide the true cost of the war from the American people. Until Congress insists on a full and open accounting, the nation won't know how much of a drag it is on the economy. ...
In their estimate, Stiglitz and Bilmes include the long-term costs for care of the wounded and the financing costs of paying for the war with borrowed money. Calculating the cost for veterans' care was not easy. While the government discloses figures on those wounded by hostile action, Stiglitz and Bilmes had to use Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to learn the total injured in Iraq.
The two authors make much of what the country could be getting if it were not paying for the war. For a fraction of the war's cost, Stiglitz has noted, Congress could put the Social Security system "on solid financial footing." The entire federal budget for autism research, about $108 million, is spent every four hours in Iraq. With just $1 trillion, the country could provide 43 million students with scholarships for four years at public universities.
Wasted dollars are just one of the costs of the war, and not the most important. Nearly 4,000 US troops and at least tens of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives. The conflict has left Iraq divided along its religious and ethnic fault lines, strengthened the theocracy in Iran, and made Uncle Sam a pariah in much of the Islamic world. This toll in human life and geopolitical consequences is all too obvious. Congress should make sure the country understands the economic cost of the war, too.
As the Bush administration scurries about bailing out financial institutions that just got greedy and then got caught up by their greed in the housing bubble, little of any real substance is being done to halt the real drag on our faltering economy. In one of the grandest games ever of 3-Card Monte, the billions being poured down the spider hole in Iraq continues, and we don't really know how much that actually involves, thanks to the supine cooperation of the 109th and 110th Congresses.
"It's the economy stupid" was the mantra of the first presidential campaign by Bill Clinton. Right now it looks to be the mantra of this campaign as well, but for an entirely different reason. Neither of the two Democratic candidates are willing to make the link between the war and the economy, and only one of them (Sen.Obama) has given any signal that he would begin troop withdrawal immediately upon taking office. That's still 10 months away.
In the mean time, people are dying and being maimed, two nations are suffering, and our economy spirals downward. Maybe if each candidate were sent a copy of this book and urged to read it and then urged to do the jobs they currently hold, it would make a difference.
At this point, however, it really is hard to tell.
NEARLY FIVE years since the start of the Iraq war, the Bush administration is still funding much of it through emergency appropriations, and only partially through the regular defense budget. This is one of several ways in which the administration has managed to hide the true cost of the war from the American people. Until Congress insists on a full and open accounting, the nation won't know how much of a drag it is on the economy. ...
In their estimate, Stiglitz and Bilmes include the long-term costs for care of the wounded and the financing costs of paying for the war with borrowed money. Calculating the cost for veterans' care was not easy. While the government discloses figures on those wounded by hostile action, Stiglitz and Bilmes had to use Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to learn the total injured in Iraq.
The two authors make much of what the country could be getting if it were not paying for the war. For a fraction of the war's cost, Stiglitz has noted, Congress could put the Social Security system "on solid financial footing." The entire federal budget for autism research, about $108 million, is spent every four hours in Iraq. With just $1 trillion, the country could provide 43 million students with scholarships for four years at public universities.
Wasted dollars are just one of the costs of the war, and not the most important. Nearly 4,000 US troops and at least tens of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives. The conflict has left Iraq divided along its religious and ethnic fault lines, strengthened the theocracy in Iran, and made Uncle Sam a pariah in much of the Islamic world. This toll in human life and geopolitical consequences is all too obvious. Congress should make sure the country understands the economic cost of the war, too.
As the Bush administration scurries about bailing out financial institutions that just got greedy and then got caught up by their greed in the housing bubble, little of any real substance is being done to halt the real drag on our faltering economy. In one of the grandest games ever of 3-Card Monte, the billions being poured down the spider hole in Iraq continues, and we don't really know how much that actually involves, thanks to the supine cooperation of the 109th and 110th Congresses.
"It's the economy stupid" was the mantra of the first presidential campaign by Bill Clinton. Right now it looks to be the mantra of this campaign as well, but for an entirely different reason. Neither of the two Democratic candidates are willing to make the link between the war and the economy, and only one of them (Sen.Obama) has given any signal that he would begin troop withdrawal immediately upon taking office. That's still 10 months away.
In the mean time, people are dying and being maimed, two nations are suffering, and our economy spirals downward. Maybe if each candidate were sent a copy of this book and urged to read it and then urged to do the jobs they currently hold, it would make a difference.
At this point, however, it really is hard to tell.
posted by Diane at 12:45 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home