HOW MUCH IS IRAQ ACTUALLY COSTING US ?
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There are many ways to measure the cost of Bush's war against-- and occupation of-- Iraq. The most obvious would be in lives, lives of American military personnel, lives of our allies' military personnel, lives of Iraqi civilians, lives of others caught up in the war. Then there are the tens of thousands of men, mostly men, who will spend the rest of their lives with serious handicaps (minus limbs, eyes, hearing... things like that). And, of course there are the young-- mostly young-- people whose lives have now entered into a downward spiral, impaired beyond repair from a psychological travesty inflicted on them for no good reason and with no amelioration.
Then there's what Bush and Cheney's little adventure is costing us in terms of our national zeitgeist and how the rest of the world views us. I travel a lot. It ain't what it used to be. Since the Rehnquist Supreme Court installed Bush in the White House, the world has become a chillier and chillier place for Americans. We went from being everyone's favorite visitors, in the 90's to being... suspect. (Wherever I go people wonder, "Is he a Bush fascist?") Most of the rest of the world is not brainwashed by Fox and Limbaugh and the Amen Chorus. They fear us and hate us; they're not rooting for us anymore either. At first they were sympathetic and knew we were Bush's victims. But when we let him steal 2004, I feel we lost our dignity as a people and any respect anyone might have still had for us. And in a part of the world where people have generational memories, we'll be coping with Bush's blunders and incompetence and stupidity for decades.
But what I really wanted to do today is to show you what this has cost us-- and is costing us-- in terms of cold, hard cash. Helen mentioned to me this afternoon that she read how BushCo is cutting billions from social welfare programs (not from bridges to uninhabited islands off the coast of Alaska but from Medicare and food stamps and things like that). Well, take a look at this meter and try to grok what it means for our country and your community and your family. Keep it in mind when you're in the voting booth.
posted by DownWithTyranny @ 6:09 PM
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After 9/11, the LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS printed a "symposium" on the subject drawing on a number of its contributors, in which a (to me) alarming number of those highfalutin pointy-heads argued essentially that they (meaning us, U.S.) HAD IT COMING. Some of them said it outright.
This occasioned a (to me) alarmingly minor backlash on the part of one LRB contributor and a sprinkling of readers. (At least that's all that the magazine allowed us to see.) When my subscription came up for renewal, after a bunch of years as a subscriber, I passed.
Since then, I have watched U.S. domestic and foreign policies evolve to the point where the views of that gaggle of pseudo-intellectual blowhards--which I still believe were wrong in 2001--have, after the fact, become RIGHT. It makes me as an American feel deep shame. And the shame is only compounded by the way the coalition of sociopaths, outright psychopaths and garden-variety profit-seeking hooligans that drives foreign policy in this administration knows how to rally domestic support by manipulating the mindless jingoism of so many Americans.
For going on five years now, the criminal insanity of the Bush administration has been a frequent subject of conversation between me and my mother, who's now 86. At some point In almost every conversation she says, "I don't know where it's all going to end."
I still have no good answer.
DWT confined himself to the price(s) to be paid just for the Iraq adventure. Add to that the cumulative tab for the staggering range of lunacies perpetrated by those loons and thugs (and loony thugs and thuggish loons), and one shudders to think what it will entail--once these people are finally booted out of power--to undo the damage.
K
Cindy Sheehan wrote a great piece today on the real cost of Bush's war and occupation. I couldn't agree more when she says that "This immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq has cost the world so much. George and his reckless war of choice have cost the American taxpayers billions of dollars that could be better spent at home. Judging from Katrina, Iraq has cost our country much of its security. It has cost the US any good standing we enjoyed in the world community. It cost America the post-9/11 good will from almost the entire world. We Americans are the laughingstock of the world community. Not only is our callous and careless leadership disdained, but we the people are scorned because we 're'-elected George for a 2nd term and not only that, we are allowing him to continue to mis-lead our country into ruin." To read the whole article, just click on this link.
Isn't it amazing that we have to spend so much of our time disputing the lies. Iraq is costing us a lot of valuable time. The clock is ticking and cleaning up the mess is going to be a challenge. And we still won't have made a dent in the atmosphere that causes terrorism and greed. Because of Iraq, the world is off kilter.
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