Katrina vanden Heuvel: Candidates Should Hammer Away at Wars' Costs

from The Nation:




CANDIDATES SHOULD HAMMER AWAY AT WARS' COSTS...At a time of economic pain-- as the mortgage crisis metastasizes, bankruptcies and homelessness rise, and the costs of food, gasoline, and home heating oil soar, you'd think the candidates would be talking more boldly about the economic costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A just-released report by the Joint Economic Committee is a stark reminder of how the war is depleting resources desperately needed to fund programs at home and abroad. The report, according to the Washington Post, puts the wars' costs, so far, at approximately $1.5 trillion. {That's taking into account "hidden" costs--including higher oil prices, the costs of treating wounded vets and interest payments on money borrowed to pay for the wars.)

Monthly cost in Iraq: $2 billion. Cost, so far, to the average family of four: more than $20,000.

While today's new numbers are staggering, as my colleage Matthew Blake pointed out in a recent blog the Congressional Budget office estimated in August that the total costs of the war in Iraq and Afganistan could total a mind-boggling $2.4 trillion. According to the CBO report, that's enough to "provide every college freshman in the country with a free four-year education at a private college or university; provide health care coverage to every American for one year, pay off 26% of our current national debt."

Of course, it's not just the money we're bleeding--every day innocent Iraqis and US troops are killed.

"Someday, somebody has to pay for this war and that's going to the children of the wounded," Congressman Jim McGovern (D, MA) said recently. Isn't it time for candidates to start talking about economic and human security, and speak clearly about how we can use the billions being squandered to fund desperately needed priorities?



Posted by Katrina vanden Heuvel at 11/13/2007 @ 1:36pm

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=251433

we have more paid mercenary troops there than military ones and THEY are paid 3 to 4 times MOR than our military folks are!

It's bad enough that we went to war on lies, but we also went to war depending on the use of mercinaries to make up for the Rummy "smaller & meaner" army!