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Iraq & Afghanistan: More Deadly and Expensive Than Ever |
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It’s official: Our conflict in the Middle East is now our second most expensive war, behind WWII. The cost, in 2007 dollars:
| World War II | $3.2 trillion |
| Iraq and Afghanistan To Date | $695.7 billion |
| Vietnam War | $670 billion |
| World War I | $364 billion |
| Korean War | $295 billion |
| Persian Gulf War | $94 billion |
| Civil War (both Union and Confederate costs) | $81 billion |
| Spanish-American War | $7 billion |
| American Revolution | $4 billion |
| Mexican War | $2 billion |
| War of 1812 | $1 billion |
| Source: Congressional Research Service and Office of Management and Budget data. | |
All that money spent despite popular opposition and a looming recession, yet without the kind of public protests Vietnam brought about.
Violence in Iraq has started to pick up as well after a long decline some attributed to the success of “the surge.”
The U.S. death toll in Iraq increased in January, ending a four-month drop in casualties, and most of the deaths occurred outside Baghdad or the once-restive Al-Anbar province, according to military statistics.
In all, 38 American service members had been reported killed in January by Thursday evening, compared with 23 in December. Of those, 33 died from hostile action, but only nine of them in Baghdad or Al-Anbar.
A total of 3,942 American service members have been killed in Iraq as of Thursday, according to icasualties.org, an independent Web site that tracks the statistics.
As I hinted at last month, violence in Iraq goes in cycles. I would not be surprised if this trend continues heading into the spring and summer.
And yet the war goes on, taking our economy and our best and brightest down with it. We are clearly not willing to risk the casualties a real escalation in the Iraq war would necessitate. And yet our leaders don’t seem to be ready to get America out of a mess that is figuratively and literally bleeding us dry. We find ourselves in yet another unwinnable war with leaders incapable or unwilling to definitively swing things one way or the other.
This kind of permanent, low-level conflict is worse for America than a high-casualty total war. It’s certainly much worse for us than (gasp!) peace. How much longer will America as a country tolerate this quagmire?
If you divide those numbers by the approximate US population at the time, you get the very approximate cost per person
World War II $23,988
World War I $3,527
Vietnam War $3,448
Civil War $2,482
Iraq / Afghan $2,461
Korean War $1,937
Am Revolution $1,583
Persian Gulf $377
War of 1812 $120
Spanish-American $108
Mexican War $102
Is this adjusted for inflation?
Yes sir, in 2007 dollars.
and interest?