http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2007/02/the_second_most.php
February 12, 2007
THE SECOND MOST EXPENSIVE WAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY
`A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking about
real money,’ famously quipped US Senator Everett Dirksen back in the
1960’s.
The US government has just estimated that President George Bush’s
occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, and his so-called `war on
terror,’ will cost at least $690 billion by the end of next year.
That’s more than the total cost to America of World War I, the Korean
War, or Vietnam, and second only to the $2 trillion cost of World War
II(in current dollars).
This means that by 2008, Bush’s wars in the Muslim World will have
cost each American man, woman and child $2,300.
The $690 billion poured into the bottomless hole of the faux war on
terrorism does not include the estimated $100 billion direct cost of
the 9/11 attacks, the urgent need to replace $66 billion of US
military equipment worn out or destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan,
billions in lifetime care for seriously injured soldiers, $125 billion
in backlogged veteran’s claims, and untold billions spent in secret
CIA programs in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ironically, half of the money spent on these wars is being borrowed
from former American enemies, Communist China and Japan.
Half the current American deficit is being tied directly to the war on
terrorism.
After six years, the Bush/Cheney Administration cannot even define
what it means by victory in its wars in the Muslim World.
Defeat looms large in Iraq; Afghanistan is headed that way;
and the US National intelligence Estimate just reported that al-Qaida
is actually stronger than ever.
The still elusive Osama bin Laden, who said the only way to expel US
influence from the Muslim World was to bleed the US financially, must
be beaming over the success of his grand strategy.
As all kings have found since the dawn of time, in war, money is as
important as armies.
Wars always cost far more than originally projected. A primary
architect of the 2003 Iraq War, former US Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz, assured Americans the Iraq war would only cost $40
billion.
The cost of occupying Iraq would be fully covered, he claimed, by
plundering its oil. Wolfowitz now heads the World Bank.
Speaking of epic idiocy, enter the man selected by Wolfowitz to become
proconsul of US-occupied Iraq, a bumbling conservative Republican hack
named Paul Bremer.
During the 14 months he ran Iraq, Bremer committed two enormous
follies.
He dissolved Iraq’s army and police, then fired all government
employees who were members of Saddam’s Ba’athist Party. Iraq was left
without security forces or functioning government.
The first lesson in Imperialism 101 is that when you invade a country,
the first thing to do is buy the loyalty of its army, police and
bureaucracy.
Chaos ensured in Iraq.
Banks and museums were looted. Banditry was endemic.
For a few hundred million dollars, the US could have hired much of
Saddam’s army, security forces and bureaucrats.
Instead, the Bush/Cheney Administration declared them outlaws and
began using Shia militias and death squads – called the `Iraqi Army’
by the US media - to fight the Sunni resistance, so helping to trigger
today’s ghastly Sunni-Shia civil war.
Anarchy in US-occupied Iraq, and the collapse of its banking system
and Ba’ath Party-run social programs, forced Washington to rush 363
tons of US $100 dollar bills to Baghdad.
This money, which belonged to Iraq, came from the UN-run `Oil for
Food’ program.
Bremer’s people dished out $12 billion by the truckloads and bagfuls.
Another $800 million was stolen by US-appointed officials of Iraq’s
Defense Ministry.
But Bremer’s missing $12.8 billion was just the tip of the corruption
iceberg. US corporations in bed with the Republican Party’s rightwing,
like Halliburton, and mercenary-supplier, Blackwater, made billions
out of Iraq.
Halliburton, whose former CEO was VP Cheney, was awarded $16 billion
in questionable Iraq contracts.
Last week, House Democrats opened hearings that finally began to
expose the tsunami of corruption that accompanied the occupation and
plundering of Iraq.
Billions more of fraud and thievery concealed by the Administration
will likely be uncovered.
The whole sordid story of the 100,000 `private contractors’ employed
by the US in Iraq has only begun to emerge.
According to the US Government Accountability Office, at least 48,000
of these – let’s use the correct term, mercenaries - are private
gunmen working for hundreds of shadowy US military corporations like
Blackwater and Vinnell.
These heavily-armed desperados are a law unto themselves and under no
supervision.
Some of these mercenaries make US $1,000 daily in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
While the US locks up Muslims it brands `illegal combatants’ in
Guantanamo, it has deployed an army of armed thugs in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Even interrogation and torture of Iraqis and Afghans has been farmed
out to US private enterprise.
Blackwater reputedly has the world’s biggest private military base and
a fleet of aircraft.
Such huge numbers of uncontrolled mercenaries are a menace.
They could also pose a serious internal danger to America.
Under the Bush/Cheney Administration, we saw the neoconservatives
create their own private intelligence organizations within the
Pentagon and a top secret military outfit to spy on Americans.
It is hardly a great leap of imagination to picture the same neocons
creating their own corporate-run army in the heart of the United
States.
The White House wants to help pay for its foreign wars by slashing
spending on health and seniors.
While the Washington DC police no longer dare patrol crime-infested
southern parts of America’s capitol, President Bush and VP Cheney are
sending the 82nd Airborne Division to try to pacify Baghdad.
If this isn’t the extreme theater of the absurd, I don’t know what is.
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Republican-created chaos. Almost seems as if someone is paying them to
destroy our nation.
Harry
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