As of 2 p.m. (CST) on August 23, 2005, the war in Iraq had cost U. S. taxpayers $189,476,500,321. This according to estimates from Congressional appropriations to date.
Take another look at that sum.
What could the nation have done with this money had we not gone to war in Iraq?
Well, . . .
We could have built 1,706,057 additional housing units.
We could have paid for 25,096,232 children to attend a full year of Head Start.
We could have provided health insurance for 113,459,062 of our fellow Americans.
We could have hired 3,283,653 public school teachers for a full year.
We could have provided full-pay, four year scholarships to public universities for 9,185,415 students.
We could have fully funded global anti-hunger efforts for 7 years.
We could have fully funded worldwide AIDS programs for 18 years.
We could have provided basic immunizations for every child in the world for 63 years.
According to the National Priorities Project, the source for this comparative information, here in Texas the cost of the war totals $16.6 billion. I expect that kind of money might have helped us move toward a solution for public school funding.
The tab for Dallas stands at over $890.7 million.
Hmmm. Wonder what the city of Dallas could have accomplished with that kind of tax savings? Hunger, education, employment training, housing, nutrition, health care. . .as I think about it, the list is almost endless.
It may be about time to ask some questions. I believe that is especially true if you really care about poverty, cities and justice--not to mention peace!
I know all the arguments and the now standard rhetoric about "fighting terrorism."
But, really now, are bombs and troops and firestorms really as effective at battling our enemies as solid diplomacy or effective initiatives to improve global health and develop economies and new markets?
When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. took up the anti-war cause toward the end of his life during the Vietnam era, some people did not understand. But Dr. King did. He knew that the needs and the rights of under-paid, struggling sanitation workers in a city like Memphis, Tennessee were tied directly to the billions being spent in futile jungle warfare on the other side of the world.
History repeats itself. The cities of the nation suffer needlessly and we do not have the results we desire.
[To watch the spending in real time check out http://costofwar.com and http://nationalpriorities.org.]
14 comments:
Thank you.
Thank you for this post, Larry. I'm reminded of a song by Marvin Gaye called "Inner City Blues"
Rockets, moon shots
Spend it on the have nots
Money, we make it
Fore we see it you take it
Inflation no chance
To increase finance
Bills pile up sky high
Send that boy off to die
Hang ups, let downs
Bad breaks, set backs
Natural fact is
I can't pay my taxes
Crime is increasing
Trigger happy policing
Panic is spreading
God knows where we're heading
Make me wanna holler
The way they do my life
Make me wanna holler
The way they do my life
also, enjoyed your mention of MLK's emphasis post "I Have a Dream." We seem to want to forget about this Martin Luther King, Jr. shalom!
Understand where your heart is. Keep it up. Of course we will never know whether your belief that it was not necessary is true. But what if you are wrong? Then there would be no chance to invest it in your good causes.
One reason why "we will never know" is because we never try to really live out a higher road in terms of diplomacy and human understanding. We do now know about Vietnam, don't we? We do know that we were all mislead in a terrible way and intentionally before we entered Iraq, don't we?
We do know there were no WMD, don't we? What else do we need to know to speak out for the adoption of a brand new way in this country? A genuinely "Christian way."
We know that we were misled? What if Bush was wrong, and not lying? Everybody thought there were WMDs in Iraq, not just Bush.
What would a "Christian" way look like? I don't believe that a Christian government is the solution to our problems. When Constantine set up a Christian state, it was the worst thing that ever happened to Christianity. Christianity works from a position of submission, not a position of power.
Todd, thanks for your comment. The conversation here is not about Christianity or any faith. It is about justice, fairness and equal access to opportunity for all Americans. I agree. We don't need a Christian government. We simply need one that develops and delivers fair public policy. It would also be a plus if it was smart diplomatically. By the way, pursuing justice, fairness and compassion around the world would really help in that effort.
Todd: actually, Constantine did not set up a Christian state. He himself became a Christian, at least nominally, and was the first emperor to allow Christianity to be a legal religion in Rome, but he did not make Rome a Christian-State. Other religions, mainly paganism, were still allowed and respected alongside of Christianity. It was later emperors who actually made Rome a "Christian-State."
To the others: I am disturbed by the logic of, wait and see if the Iraq War was a mistake. This reeks of "the end justifies the means." In my beliefs, a war is not just simply because it creates a better (or what white, male, Christian Americans would deem better) situation in the end. The justice of a war also depends on the means by which the war began and was carried out. Preemptive war is unjust, as have been many of the tactics used by our military. Thus, even if some "good" comes out of it, we do not have to wait and see if the war has been a mistake.
And now, to the purpose of Larry's post, sorry for the distractions--thanks for calling us back to reality. I have a professor who always says, "Don't just trust what people say; look at what they do." Though many say that America is a good and just society, the way we treat those who are not like us (us=white, male, American Christians) signifies our true character. It would be amazing to see what our cities would look like if we invested the finances of wars into our people. Unfortunately, I am pessimistic enough this morning to think that we might never see such things become a reality.
Diplomacy is a nice thought and a great idea. But it takes two for diplomacy to work. Perhaps I am overly pessimistic, but I don't think the Islamofacists are interested in diplomacy. No, they want to kill you, your family, and all your fellow Americans, Larry.
If we had tried to respond to September 11th with diplomacy, what do you think would have happened? We would have had a few more buildings taken down, maybe a dirty bomb set off in one of our cities, and thousands upon thousands of innocent Americans killed.
I agree that we should try diplomacy when we can. It is just not always possible.
JM
It may be true that the Islamic forces want to kill us and our children, although I doubt that they will. Look at the USSR as an example. They said, "We will bury you." Instead, that regime has been buried and people from parts of that former union are even becoming more dedicated to God than us. The USSR did not fall because of our military might. It fell through the providence of God, just as our nation will fall if we continue insisting on using our funds to kill people instead of helping them!
Larry, that is a very interesting way of reminding us just how much the war is costing. But here is something else about war costs: they aren't budgeted. Military readiness is budgeted, and we want it to remain so, so that we are ready to defend our borders if attacked. But wars come upon us without much warning and the money is borrowed, not budgeted. That makes the cost even worse! We have to pay for this war with interest!
Wow. I really can't grasp that there are still people out there in our world who are so blissfully ignorant of the jihad against everything American that they can waste breath and ink writing about how we should've tried diplomacy. Get back to your "rainbow stew and your silver spoon underneath your skies of blue."
Unjust war. WMDs that weren't really there. Bush lied, kids died. That's such a tired chorus and it's been delivered and rebutted enough already.
You know why Truman dropped the A bombs on Japan? He couldn't tell you all the real reasons because his intel was so highly classified that he couldn't speak of it or it's derivatives. You suppose Bush (and every other intel agency in the world) knows something you don't know? Of course you don't. You've got the internet and Michael Moore and Sean Penn to keep you in touch.
I've got a friend who's been "in theater" four times in this war. He is a seasoned veteran of our Armed Forces. He says that he's been in debriefings and AARs (After Action Reviews) and when he is released from the meeting he sees CNN reporting things that he knows for a fact to be completely wrong.
You may not be happy with what your country is doing but you better believe that the men and women who are tasked with making those tough decisions are struggling and striving every day to make the best decisions possible... and they have access to a lot of info that you'll never see.
Stop playing armchair quarterback and get up and go do something meaningful on your street, in your office, in your town, at your church. You've got a job to do and I think Mr. James would rather see you doing that than wasting time griping about the president or the war or something you have no control over.
Next time, why don't you write in to tell us how you've made a difference?
Reminder: Iraq was not a bastion of terrorism until we started the war. It is now a haven for terrorists from all over the world and has effectively become a great training ground for the same.
Epic,
What about submitting to torture, humiliation, and crucifixion? Is that more or less Godly than self-defense?
I assume most people who mentioned diplomacy in this blog understand it's a wasted effort with tyrants. But demonstrating justice and compassion with our own people as well as those we can reach overseas would have a stronger upward spiral than even the best-executed military coups (which this one wouldn't qualify for).
Epic,
I've really struggled with this the last few years, and this is the reason I've come down on the side of pacifism: God does not allow us to make ourselves, our families, or communities a higher priority than anyone else's. If someone's trying to kill me and I kill him in self-defense, it's just someone else committing murder. You're right - this isn't justice, but God showed us love and mercy instead of justice, even the people who elected to kill him. Since the "moral gap" between me and anyone attempting to kill/harm me is infinitely smaller than the gap between me and God, I can't find any Scriptural basis for doing anything but loving that person. And while loving him would involve preventing him from killing me since it will harm his soul of nothing else, I can't imagine how I could kill someone I love.
I don't pretend that this is the final answer to a really complex ethical situation, so I welcome further discussion if anyone's interested.
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