$20 BILLION ALREADY: WHO'S A THREAT TO WHOM?
The government announced that so far, the Iraq invasion has cost about $20 billion ($20,000,000,000). It estimated that the occupation of Iraq would run $2 billion ($2,000,000,000) per month. That's money funded by taxpayers like you and me. Thus, even a five-month occupation would push the total bill to over $30,000,000,000. That's 30,000,000,000+ of our tax dollars that will not be spent on education or health care or police or tax cuts or anti-drug efforts. The president himself did not say that Iraq was an imminent threat, but that it might conceivably possibly theoretically have been a threat in 1 or 5 or 100 years. So if you were in favor of the war, was it worth $30,000,000,000 of your tax money?

$30,000,000,000 means that the war will have cost approximately $100 per person. So the next time you cry about your taxes, don't whine about public broadcasting ($410 million in FY2002 or $1.37 per capita). Don't whine about the US Postal Service ($2.6 billion or $8.67 per capita). Instead, you can thank that war against the phantom threat that you wanted.

Yet, normally anti-big government conservatives were the strongest pushers of this war. They don't trust the government to educate our kids. They don't trust the government to provide national health care. They don't trust the government to do anything with our tax money... except make war, it seems. The miltary can have all the money it wants for its toys. If the president decides the military should spend billions of dollars invading random countries to root out phantom enemies, "patriotic Americans" must not ask questions. "Shut up and be submissive" are what public school SHOULD be teaching, if the neo-conservatives had their way.

I've heard it suggested that because of our overwhelming military dominance, war has become too easy. We can intervene in Kosovo with nary a casuality. We can conquer such a "dangerous and threatening" country like Iraq with a hundred or so deaths. Because it's so easy, we talk of it with alarming casualness. Sure, a few of our people get killed but nothing like World War I or Vietnam. Frankly, I'm glad that not a lot of our soldiers get killed.

Some pro-warriors have said, "Now that we've used our big stick, hopefully we won't have to use it again." If that's the lesson that ends up being digested in Washington, then hopefully the long-term damage will be limited. But what is coming out of the chest-beaters quarters now is this: if it was so easy in Iraq, let's do it somewhere else too. "Iraq went well, maybe Syria's next. Maybe the Libya." You'd think they were talking about a football game.

THIS casualness, more than anything else, is what scares the rest of the world, including our friends. We're the 500 pound gorilla. We're worried about stubbing our toe. The rest of the world is worried about not getting crushed.

In 2002, the US military was allocated $343.2 billion (thus belying the cries of "military fiscal starvation" that was heard in the 90s) in 2002

Our potential enemies (Iran, Syria, N. Korea, Libya, Cuba and Sudan) spent* a combined $13 billion.
All of our allies combined (NATO, Japan, S. Korea, Australia) spent a combined $212.6 billion.
Russia, China, India, Pakistan and Taiwan spent a combined $127.5 billion.

Iraq, Syria, N. Korea, Libya, Cuba, Sudan, Japan, S Korea, Australia, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Taiwan and the 18 member countries of NATO. Those 32 countries COMBINED spend only about 1.03% more on the military than the United States by itself.

These numbers, combined with the president's well-known contempt for international law and institutions, require no further commentary from me.


*-military spending figures for 2000, except Sudan (1999) and USA (2002).

Source: http://www.cdi.org/products/almanac0102.pdf