War costs are hitting historic proportions (LA Times)

[Roland99]

The price tag for the Iraq conflict and overall effort against terrorism is expected to surpass Vietnam's next year.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-warcost14jan14,0,3340422.story?coll=la-home-headlines

By the time the Vietnam war ended in 1975, it had become America's longest war, shadowed the legacies of four presidents, killed 58,000 Americans along with many thousands more Vietnamese, and cost the U.S. more than $660 billion in today's dollars.

By the time the bill for World War II passed the $600-billion mark, in mid-1943, the United States had driven German forces out of North Africa, devastated the Japanese fleet in the Battle of Midway, and launched the vast offensives that would liberate Europe and the South Pacific.

The Iraq war is far smaller and narrower than those conflicts, and it has not extended beyond the tenure of a single president. But its price tag is beginning to reach historic proportions, and the budgetary "burn rate" for Iraq may be greater than in some periods in past wars.

If U.S. involvement continues on the current scale, the funding for the Iraq war — combined with the conflict in Afghanistan and other foreign fronts in the war on terrorism — is projected to surpass this country's Vietnam spending next year.

[SpiralHawk]

1. It's a good thing "conservatives" are running the war

Bwaaa ha ha ha ha ha !

That's the biggest lie of all: that republicons are "conservative."

They have SPENT SPENT SPENT our tax dollars since they got power, and basically they have spent to enrich their own republicon corporate cronies while driving the USA into economic ruin, and running a failed war ecrusade to control the oil fields.

Meanwhile, they have charged around the planet on a mission of "Nation Building" which they like to claim they abhor. Just another lie.

And they have done shit to conserve clear air, water, and soil for our children and grandchildren. Instead, they have raped and poisoned the planet, while prentending their are no problems (Faith Based Situational Republicon Evangelical Science).

republicons are in no way conservative. That is a massive, bald-faced lie.

republicons are Radical Greedy Short-sighted Pillagers who -- based on the facts of the record -- hate America and its honorable Veterans.

That's a fact, Jack.

[YankeyMCC]

5. Because it's ok to spend on killing but not

on helping.

According to the hard line conservative world view.

[Lasher]

15. Republicans are good at cutting taxes, but that's all.

Democratic Superiority, by the Numbers

The party with the best record of serving Republican economic values is the Democrats. It isn't even close.

The Republican values I refer to are universal. We all want prosperity, oppose unemployment, dislike inflation, don't enjoy paying taxes, etc. These values are Republican only in the sense that Republicans are supposed to treasure them more and to be more reluctant to sacrifice them for other goals such as equality and clean air.

Statistics back to 1959 make this clear. A consistent pattern over 45 years cannot be explained by shorter-term factors, such as war or who controls Congress. Maybe presidents can't affect the economy much, but the assumption that they can and do is so prominent in Republican rhetoric that they are stuck with it. So consider:

Federal spending (aka "big government"): It has gone up an average of about $50 billion a year under presidents of both parties. But that breaks down as $35 billion a year under Democratic presidents and $60 billion under Republicans. If you assume that it takes a year for a president's policies to take effect, Democrats have raised spending by $40 billion a year and Republicans by $55 billion.

Leaning over backward even farther, let's start our measurement in 1981, the date when many Republicans believe that life as we know it began. The result: Democrats still have a better record at smaller government. Republican presidents added more government spending for each year they served, whether you credit them with the actual years they served or with the year that followed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20059-2005Apr1.html

It's well worth the time to hit the above link and read the whole article.

[SpiralHawk]

18. You mean cutting taxes for the wealthy, while they tuck it to the middle class

that's the republicon modus operandi -- and then to use our tax money to catapult propaganda to "convince" us that this benefits everyone.


Republicon slogan: A rising tide lifts all yachts*


* toooooooo bad about you working proles who can't afford yachts. Why don't you just shut up and sit down.

[crickets]

21. *Excellent* article. Thanks for the link. nt

[Lasher]

25. Here's a little more since you seem to have an interest

I have kept that WaPo article handy since I first saw it almost 2 years ago now, and have referred to it often.

Here is a graphic that shows how deficits and unemployment have been, going back to Nixon:

http://ibew.org/legislative/Rev042304-JustFacts.pdf

It is somewhat dated but still conveys a powerful message.

Disgusted by wildly delusional claims that the economy is 'booming', I did some number crunching last week to see how the stock market has done during Junior's tenure so far. Using the closing price of the S&P 500 index on the last trading day of each year going back to Carter, the average annual gain under each president was:

Junior: 2.59%
Clinton: 15.86%
Poppy: 12.63%
Saint Ronnie: 9.87%
Carter: 7.07%

Average annual gain for all years was 10.01%. Clinton's average for just one year was greater than Junior's total of 15.55% for all six years combined. Pretending Junior hasn't been in charge since January 2001 by cherrypicking only last year, you get a gain of only 13.60% - not even an average year under Clinton. The S&P 500 reached its last all-time closing high of 1,527 on March 24, 2000 and has not since reached this benchmark.

I derived the source data here: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=%5EGSPC

The facts stand in stark contrast with distortions that are designed to convince us that Junior's economic economic policies have resulted in anything but an unmitigated disaster.

[PSPS]

2. "many thousands more Vietnamese" killed?

I guess the editor at the LA Times must have been late for his dinner party when this piece plopped in his inbox. There were well over a million Vietnamese killed in that fiasco.

[madrchsod]

3. an estimated 4-5 million

vietnamese died in that war. this is a rough estimate because there no base numbers to build a reliable number upon

[kurth]

10. Yep, that was a giant error

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War gives a good accounting:

MILITARY CASUALTIES:

Republic of Vietnam ("South Vietnam")
dead: 230,000
wounded: 300,000

U.S.
dead: 58,209
wounded: 153,303

Republic of Korea
dead: 5,000
wounded: 11,000

Australia
dead: 512
wounded: 2,400*

New Zealand
dead: 37
wounded: 187

Democratic Republic of Vietnam ("North Vietnam")/National Liberation Front ("Vietcong")
dead: 1,100,000
wounded: 600,000*

People's Republic of China
dead: 1,100
wounded: 4,200

CIVILIAN CASUALTIES (Vietnamese):
900,000 - 4,000,000*

[Roland99]

20. How many of those deaths were after the US pulled out of Vietnam?

[AliceWonderland]

17. My thought too -- now there's an Orwellian recasting of history

It's amazing that even now, it would seem that whole swaths of Americans (or at least the LA Times' delicate writers, anyway) cannot cope with the level of death in Southeast Asia. It's also rather amazing to see treatments of the Vietnam conflict that focus so strongly on the effects on the American psyche. In the face of the sheer numbers of humans killed -- civilians at that -- you'd think there would be more important themes to grapple with. When Bush I talked about whuppin' Vietnam Syndrome, that was shameful, truly shameful -- as if the point of the conflict was to be whupped by Americans in another war, so the culture could once again feel invincible.

[Vinca]

4. Why is it they giddily spend our tax dollars for war,

but are shocked at the words "universal health care?" The way it's gone and is continuing to go, we could all be assigned a private, state-funded physician with money left over for trainers and dieticians.

[Lasher]

14. It's because rich people benefit from war profiteering. Universal health care helps poor people.

Publicans would much rather help the wealthy elite than the unwashed masses.

[Ian David]

6. At least in Vietnam we were able to secure the road to the airport. n/t

[SpiralHawk]

7. Well, we didn't have an AWOL preppy cheerleader running things back then

And we do now.

Commander AWOL is, of course, backed up by Dick 'Five Military Deferments' Cheney and a host of republicon chickenhawks.

So no wonder our troops are in such trouble, with such republicon CLOWNS running the show.

God help our sons and daughters in uniform with these chickenhawk republicons clowns calling the shots.

COMMANDER AWOL IN UNIFORM:

[Fire Walk With Me]

8. Always follow the money.

Why spend so much with no results, and not try something else? Because spending is the goal.

[tecelote]

9. Troop Surge = Higher War Profits.

By prolonging the war and supporting the war profiteering, Bush is shifting the wealth in America from left to right. He is taking from the Middle Class and giving to the Elite. He is making America a Right Wing Radical Christian Nation. God told him to do it.

[Locrian]

12. exactly!

The plan is working exxxcellently.
And there really is no stopping it.

Another 500 year dark ages.

[jeffreyi]

19. Makes Osama & colleagues happy,

less work for them to do, let the dummies do themselves in.

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. Have we even started with the nation building part?

[many a good man]

13. Wars cost too much money nowadays

We can't afford 'em.

[Scooter24]

16. A conscripted army ...

is also a cheap army.

I'm sure many soldiers back then didn't see $50k bonuses for enlisting.

[Cass]

22. and Osama Bin Laden has still not been found. nt

[rodeodance]

23. expensive gig.

[crickets]

24. Billions of dollars, yet there's still not enough money

to properly equip the military with armor and armored vehicles. Millions for building bases and Iraqi prisons, millions for contractors who are supposed to provide the troops' mess, yet they give them spoiled food and polluted water, hundreds of millions for an "embassy" built by contractors who traffick in forced human labor.

Protecting the troops is secondary to protecting the oil fields
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/troop_safety.html

Sick. It should be on the front page of every newspaper every damned day, but it isn't. There's the other crime.


edit: spelling