A tragic waste? Or a disaster?

I hate to do this, but please, please go over to the New York Times and read the short column there by Bob Herbert, called The $2 Trillion Nightmare. That column documents a hearing in the Joint Economic Committee in Congress last week, where it was exposed that the expected cost of the "war" in Iraq is not in the hundreds of billions that most informed people think, but is actually estimated to be more than 2 trillion dollars (speakers at the hearing actually estimated three trillion).

It's likely that not everyone has already come to the conclusion, as I have, that this war is completely and utterly useless and a waste just because it was wrong from the beginning-- there were no weapons of mass destruction, there was no identifiable connection between Iraq and terrorists, and the administration knowingly lied to congress, our allies, and the American people, in order to railroad support for the idea. By crushing the government there, Mr. Bush put an end to functionally the last secular state in the region. There are more terrorists now than there were 5 years ago, we've lost thousands of our best and brightest youth to war-related deaths, and probably a hundred thousand more (the administration is not reporting exact figures) to serious and crippling injuries-- and that's not even taking into consideration the casualties of the Iraqis, who have lost hundreds of thousands and are less secure than they've ever been. And in that time the price of oil has doubled, George!

Listening to the last of the war hawks (are you listening Mr. McCain?) talk about pursuing "victory" there is almost nauseating. To achieve victory means to win, but what exactly do they propose we are going to win? A democracy like the one in Chad? Or Kenya? Or Colombia? Our national honor? There is nothing to win, and despite Mr. Bush's best intentions, there's no way we can spend our way to an acceptable government infrastructure in Iraq. There's already too much graft and corruption, and it's getting worse. Would you invest there? Will GWB invest (his own money) there?

I don't need to be convinced on this issue, and neither do the majority of Americans who can see through the lies and disinformation (or non-information) that passes for news from Iraq these days. What I found in the Times editorial, however, were a couple of points (above and beyond the "2 trillion dollar plus" price tag-- talk about sticker shock!). First, there's this quote:

"the money spent on the war each day is enough to enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start for a year, or make a year of college affordable for 160,000 low-income students through Pell Grants, or pay the annual salaries of nearly 11,000 additional border patrol agents or 14,000 more police officers."

The money we're spending could actually effect improvements to the economy and our overall security, but that's not the route we're taking.

The other important point concerns how the long-term costs of the war are not being considered in the regular accounting.

[Nobel Prize-winning economist] Mr. Stiglitz noted that nearly 40 percent of the 700,000 troops from the first gulf war, which lasted just a month, have become eligible for disability benefits. The current war is approaching five years in duration.

“Imagine then,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “what a war — that will almost surely involve more than 2 million troops and will almost surely last more than six or seven years — will cost. Already we are seeing large numbers of returning veterans showing up at V.A. hospitals for treatment, large numbers applying for disability and large numbers with severe psychological problems.”

If recent history is any indicator, we could have 800,000 new veterans on the permanently disabled (and hence taxpayer supported) rolls within the next 10 years. Mr Bush and his administration have managed to embroil the country in a ludicrously costly, wrong-headed, and useless war, while simultaneously tossing a multi-trillion tax cut to the the incredibly wealthy, and continue to argue for more tax incentives for oil companies who are experiencing unprecedented (and revolting) profits. They have also finagled a plan to send every taxpayer a check for $300 bucks-- the way the bank lets you keep the pen you use to sign your mortgage.

And I keep hearing conservatives lament the lack (among the Democrats) of leadership.