|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It’s the money now, George
2006.12.21 — Government | Politics | Economics | War | by BB Rodriguez
|
Stay. The. Course. |
The discussion about Iraq has, for a long time focused on the principle of the matter: should we pre-emptively invade a country we believe is a danger to regional stability and a threat to American peace? It became about the lying. Did the Bush administration knowingly exaggerate the threat that Saddam Hussein posed to regional stability and American peace? Soon, it became about the troops. Would sending more help or hurt? Would bringing them home dishonor the already dead?
It's not about that anymore either. Quick: what is the death toll among US forces in Iraq? You don't have a clue anymore do you? You stopped looking. It was too painful. You just know that it's more than 2,000, the last "meaningless number" we passed that got attention in the news; and it's probably not above 3,000 or you'd have heard about that too, right? It's 2,952 dead.... over 22,000 seriously wounded. Just a hair shy of the 2,973 innocents who died on September 11, 2001.
It's about the money now. |
It's about the money now.
We don't have more troops to send to Iraq. Some there now are on their third deployment. They continue to die in quietly disturbing numbers while staggering deaths among Iraqis soar. With the incredible failures among the highest ranks of the Bush administration, there is no honor to be saved by keeping troops in Iraq. Everyone sees how foolish and pointless it is.
It's about the money now.
All told, this war is on its way to costing a trillion dollars. |
The Bush administration has spent $350 billion on the Iraq War. That number should be staggering. The Pentagon wants $100 billion more. That number should be staggering. All told, this war is on its way to costing a trillion dollars.
That's money that could have created a national health care system with a fat endowment that would ensure that it would be solvent for decades. It's money that could have slashed our grotesque national debt. Simply left unspent, it's money that could have gotten the American economy back into a growth cycle and raised wage figures that have floundered for five years.
It's about the money now.
If Congress doesn't stop George W Bush, this administration will spend the United States into nation economic crisis it will take decades to recover from. He will continue on his course of cocksure buffoonery until he leaves office. Without a draft, he will be forced to slowly draw down troops, but he will never be forced to remove them entirely. And staying in Iraq, hunkered down amid a sectarian civil war, hoping something will stabilize it eventually, is his idea of victory at this point.
And staying in Iraq, hunkered down amid a sectarian civil war, hoping something will stabilize it eventually, is his idea of victory at this point. |
Meanwhile, he'll pour hundreds of billions of dollars more into the sand. He's spent $350 billion already in three-and-a-half years, and he needs another $100 for next year? With violence escalating? That will last six months. And then he'll ask for another $100 billion six months from now, $100 billion more next December, and $100 or $150 billion again in mid-2008... and then stick the next president with a bill for another two hundred billion just to have a hope for an organized withdrawal. That's a realistic $950 billion or more.
A trillion dollars is not a magic number. Nothing happens if George W Bush spends a trillion dollars that doesn't happen if he keeps it to 950. It's just a few more feet of digging in a deep, deep hole.
We're set now to spend at least half a trillion dollars. There's no way around it. |
We're set now to spend at least half a trillion dollars. There's no way around it. The Pentagon will get its $100 billion, added to the $350+ we've already spent, and just getting out will bring us to the half trillion dollar mark. As a result, our economy will continue to suffer in this interminable environment of slow growth, stagnant wages, and job bleeding.
If the US spends more than $500 billion, we'll slide into a recession that will probably last five years, with no growth and backsliding wages. If the US spends more than $650 billion, as we did in Vietnam, our economy will suffer, as it did after Vietnam, with an "economic malaise" that could last a decade.
If we spend a trillion dollars? God help us. We may have to sell Texas back to Mexico.
f e e d b a c k
Respond to this page by your e-mail client. Please be sure to mention the title of the article.
