We Have Spent $32 Million Per Hour on War Since 2001

From 2018. Worth posting again. This madness must end! This is why we MUST be out in the streets as we were in 2003 and after Trump's election! This is why we MUST stop electing corporate democrats and corporate republicans who've sold their souls to their wealthy donor friends and are in bed with the fossil fuel industry, the military industrial complex, Wall Street, and all the forces rooted in — and horrifyingly benefiting financially from — endless wars. War is terrorism. Let's stop being complicit with the terrorist politicians and others who live right here in America. We must stop this greed, heartlessness, brutality, and evil! — Molly

Anti-war protesters gather in London at the start of a demonstration against war on Iraq, February 15, 2003.

15 years after the invasion of Iraq, what are the costs?

Published on

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

By

Stephanie Savell

This March marked the 15th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

In 2003, President George W. Bush and his advisers based their case for war on the idea that Saddam Hussein, then dictator of Iraq, possessed weapons of mass destruction — weapons that have never been found. Nevertheless, all these years later, Bush’s “Global War on Terror” continues — in Iraq and in many other countries.

It’s a good time to reflect on what this war — the longest in U.S. history — has cost Americans and others around the world.

First, the economic costs: According to estimates by the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, the war on terror has cost Americans a staggering $5.6 trillion since 2001, when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan.

$5.6 trillion. This figure includes not just the Pentagon’s war fund, but also future obligations such as social services for an ever-growing number of post-9/11 veterans.

It’s hard for most of us to even begin to grasp such an enormous number.

It means Americans spend $32 million per hour, according to a counter by the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Put another way: Since 2001, every American taxpayer has spent almost $24,000 on the wars — equal to the average down payment on a house, a new Honda Accord, or a year at a public university.

As stupefying as those numbers are, the budgetary costs pale in comparison with the human toll.

As of 2015, when the Costs of War project made its latest tallies, up to 165,000 Iraqi civilians had died as a direct consequence of U.S. war, plus around 8,000 U.S. soldiers and military contractors in Iraq.

Please continue this article here: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/03/21/we-have-spent-32-million-hour-war-2001