A new study by the Congressional Reasearch Service reported that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now cost 12 billion dollars per month. That's right, billion with a B! 10 billion for Iraq, and 2 billion for Afghanistan. Now, I am the first person to really not care so much about money. BUT... doesn't this sound crazy to anyone else?? Even if you are not into math... WOW! We have now spent almost half a trillion dollars on the wars, and President Bush has another 147 billion dollar proposal for them pending!
As my sister and Nancy Pelosi have recently said, think of all that this money could have done. We could have rehauled the health care system, provided for schools and education, enforced the borders, invested in alternative energy, or heck- we could have rebuilt Banda Aceh from the freakin' ground up or educated and provided AIDS medicine to most of Africa! Anything but blowing apart other people's lives. Not to mention that we also would have thousands of living servicemen and women, and the deep and irreversible emotional and physical scarring of the recent war veterans could have been erased.
According to a recent gallup poll, 7 out of 10 Americans are now in favor of a troop pullout by April.
President Bush's approval rating is now only 29%.
Also, the principle author of the new National Intelligence Estimate on the Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland, Edward Gistaro, flatly stated that Al Qaeda in Iraq did not exist before the US invasion.
So it seems to me that the White House is spending 10 billion dollars a month to fuel a terrorist organization and a civil war. This... is... complete.... INSANITY!! There is just no other word.
3 comments:
I can't say that I know everything about it and I'm not saying that it's ok to spend money indiscriminately on war, or even that war is ok or good because it is not. I would just like to say that I think it's more complicated than simply shifting the money that we spent on the war to the things that we need in the United States. It'd be interesting to see how much money and time that we have already spent on those things (healthcare, schools and education, assisting other countries) and what we've actually accomplished with all that effort and time.
I think the whole situation and coming up with a good outcome is way more complicated than the media and polls suggest. Like I said, I don’t have the answers and I hope that I am not offensive to you. I agree with you completely that all of these issues are very serious and deserve people’s thoughts and attention.
its definitely not offensive! everyone's opinion is welcome!
Thanks Erin! I enjoy your blogsite. I think it's cool that you have found time to think about this stuff AND be in school. Very impressive! :)
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