A Trillion Here, A Trillion There, & Soon
You're Talking About Some Real Money
Last week, we noted the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz's attempt to quantify the real costs of the Iraq War, which he pegs at around $3 trillion. The Christian Science Monitor noted the other day that Congress' Joint Economic Committee thinks it will eventually amount to something closer to $2 trillion. Either way, they're staggering, potentially empire-crippling, sums. And both are many times what the Bush Administration admits to, when they even agree to engage on this subject, which is almost never.
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Who could ever invent a character like Dick Cheney? What novelist could conjure such a cynical, inward-directed person as this, a person so utterly able to tune out evidence contrary to their own opinions? He would keep a squad of shrinks busy for years, were he to agree to the couch. Instead, he'll keep historians active for generations, trying to get to the bottom of his curious multiple dysfunctions, which cost the country so much in blood and treasure.
Cheney: "Obviously, we've expended considerable public funds on this enterprise, and those are funds that could have been used for some other purpose. But we think this is the most important use we could put them to. The country has, in fact, supported financially the endeavors we've been involved in."
When asked how the assessment (that we've made major progress, that the surge has worked) comports with recent polls showing about two-thirds of Americans say the fight in Iraq is not worth it, Cheney replied, "So?"
ABC News, 3/19/2008
What could $3 trillion buy you that $2 trillion could not, other than "victory"??
Apparently, victory is priceless. Or should we say, beyond price? Anyway, it's just money, right?
I agree with everything you say, however, there is that nagging question of what will happen to Iraq if we leave. Will it become a raging hotbed for extremist proliferation?
Yes, I worry about that too. There are no easy answers, because we've created such an unbelievable mess with our five years of strategic mistakes piled on mistakes.
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