How much did our wars in Afganistan and Iraq cost? Estimates peg the money spent on $4 trillion, but that figure does not count veterans claims, reconstruction costs and interest on the money we blew running around the world blowing things up.
Now I’m the most dedicated supporter of our military and I cheered the invasions, but I frankly thought that there was a real strategy for a back end payout. During the first Gulf War, I was reading some fiction/analysis war stories on the coming conflicts in the middle east, India, Pakistan…in studying the maps at that time and learning the dynamic, I was convinced that our foray into Iraq was part of a brilliant military economic policy that assured that we would have a forward operating base/gas station in the region from which we could stabilize the region and fuel our own domestic and international economic engine. Remember at the time, China wasn’t even a consideration…at best we were concerned about Japan, but they were slowing and we were building.
And now just look at us. The US is flat broke…worse than broke. Far beyond busted. We’ve got trillions of dollars in outstanding liabilities that, like it or not we cannot just walk away from. Do you think we can just euthanize all the elder veterans or stop providing heroic medical care to the surging bulge that is the baby boomers? No, that surging bulge is like the photo below where a python bit off far more than we could chew….a rather disturbing visual depiction of where we are:
I read with disgust and wonder whether there was any real thought given to the outcome of all this plunder and all this gluttony? And increasingly I wonder, just how bad will things get?
A new report out of Brown University estimates that the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq–together with the counterinsurgency efforts in Pakistan–will, all told, cost $4 trillion and leave 225,000 dead, both civilians and soldiers.
The group of economists, anthropologists, lawyers, humanitarian personnel, and political scientists involved in the project estimated that the cost of caring for the veterans injured in the wars will reach $1 trillion in 30 or 40 years. In estimating the $4 trillion total, they did not take into account the $5.3 billion in reconstruction spending the government has promised Afghanistan, state and local contributions to veteran care, interest payments on war debt, or the costs of Medicare for veterans when they reach 65.
