"War On Terror" Is A $6 Trillion Racket, w/ $1 Trillion In Interest Alone,Exceeding WW2 Total Cost

[stockholmer]

http://ampedstatus.org/the-war-on-terror-is-a-6-trillion-racket-with-1-trillion-in-interest-alone-exceeding-the-total-cost-of-world-war-ii/

When Obama launched his re-election propaganda campaign http://ampedstatus.org/dont-believe-the-hype-obamas-af-pak-troop-withdrawal-is-a-propaganda-stunt/ to trick the American public into thinking that he intends to end the Af-Pak War, he said that the “War on Terror” has cost $1 trillion over the past decade. While that is a staggering amount of money, he was being deceitful once again. http://ampedstatus.org/dont-believe-the-hype-obamas-af-pak-troop-withdrawal-is-a-propaganda-stunt/

As you may have heard, a newly released study http://costsofwar.org/sites/default/files/Costs%20of%20War%20Executive%20Summary.pdf by the Eisenhower Research Project at Brown University revealed that the cost of the War on Terror is significantly greater than Obama has said. The little passing coverage the study received in the mainstream press cited $3.7 trillion as the total cost, which was the most conservative estimate. The moderate estimate, which the mainstream media ignored, was $4.4 trillion. In addition, interest payments on these costs will most likely exceed $1 trillion, which brings the total cost up to at least $5.4 trillion. The report also states that the following costs are not even included in this total:


“THESE TOTALS DO NOT INCLUDE: Medicare costs for injured veterans after age 65; Expenses for veterans paid for by state and local government budgets; Promised $5.3 billion reconstruction aid for Afghanistan; Additional macroeconomic consequences of war spending including infrastructure and jobs.”

David Callahan, reporting for The Policy Shop http://www.policyshop.net/home/2011/6/29/cost-of-wars-may-exceed-6-trillion.html , summed up the report’s cost estimates:


“… the total direct and indirect costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed $6 trillion…. That figure comes from combining congressional appropriations for the wars over the past decade ($1.3 trillion), additional spending by the Pentagon related to the wars ($326 – $652 billion), interest so far on Pentagon war appropriations, all of which was borrowed ($185 billion), immediate medical costs for veterans ($32 billion), war related foreign aid ($74 billion), homeland security spending ($401 billion), projected medical costs for veterans through 2051 ($589 – $934 billion), social costs to military families ($295 – $400 billion), projected Pentagon war spending and foreign aid as troops wind down in the two war zones ($453 billion); and interest payments on all this spending through 2020 ($1 trillion).”


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This empire abroad and the command-and-control surveillance society police state grid at domestic levels are principal reasons and rationales to kill off Social Security and Medicare in the US, choke off all dissent, as well as further vertically integrate wealth upward to an every narrowing pinnacle of Neo-Pharaohs.

[leveymg]

1. There you go with those inconvenient facts & analysis, again. Will likely end up in the dungeon

like the others linking that first source, Thurs. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x317812#317823

Oh well. Made someone feel empowered to sink it.

[CleanGreenFuture]

2. And to think that they will at some point discontinue pumping those $Trillions

into the pockets of the MIC any time soon is just wishful thinking.

[pretzel4gore]

3. we are an evil culture

ours is the most vicious, dishonest bunch of pigs ever united under an idea (the delectation of lust, and our endless pleasure) in all of history! We lie to survive. We murder like rats feasting on ...baby rats. I hate us. I look foward to armageddon. We all should. I hope mister pig suffers, but moren that DREAM of his piggyness knowing he was the author of his own bloody mis-fortune, by being such a lying rightwing savage- and schemeing against his own kids' future through plain stupidity. I met a child on the street last week who said there's nothing to live for, no hope, no future. Shame on us old geezers (we should have resorted to bloodshed when dimwit reagan was put into the WHouse, nevermind the Whelp or that goddarn O'bama!)

[stockholmer]

4. I am sure you had a soul mate in Rome back in the 4th century

"History Doesn't Repeat Itself, But It Rhymes"

- Mark Twain

[pretzel4gore]

8. i'm not really that cynical....

just online. One of the problems with the 'go bush' philosophy is that the busheviks really are going, like a house on fire! That's okay theory wise, but....really, back when reagan was 'selected (he had 37 percent of less then 1/2 of electorate- against Carter who had been ruthlessly smeared by the 'liberal' media nonstop while hostage drama unfolded) we anti-fascists should have gone to the mattresses. But, who had any idea the country of John Wayne (Gacy) was so bloody reactionary?

[Ezlivin]

5. Thanks 9/11!

Cui bono, indeed....

[AntiFascist]

6. +1,000,000,000,000

why can't more Democrats see this? If it wasn't for the damn WOT we would probably have plenty of surplus to cover everything!

[Fire Walk With Me]

7. Independent Thought Alert!

:rofl::hi: Recommending

[Kaleko]

9. The phrases "prison planet" and "info wars" spring to mind.

Again and again, they are proven as rather apt descriptions of the overall Program.

But... shhhhh... to even mention this is entering verboten territory on this site.

And no, I don't subscribe to everything Alex Jones puts out, but I also won't be intimidated into seeing things in binary black and white, unable to acknowledge when a man (or woman) is right.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. And, unlike the present "necessary" wars, we won WWII.

[Octafish]

12. That would mean the end of the gravy train.

So the warmongers, warprofiteers and traitors continue in power, supercharged by the vampires of the Reich.

[Octafish]

11. That's what Smedley Butler said.

"War is a racket." -- Gen. Smedley Butler, USMC

[Gabi Hayes]

15. seen "War, Inc.", with John Kusack?

a bit heavy handed in spots, but the premise is right there, and it describes what's happening in a not inaccurate, though hyperbolic, manner

director does a good job of making a $10 million movie look a lot more expensive, too

[azul]

13. Tax war profits 95%.

That's the ticket.

[Pooka Fey]

14. K&R

[malaise]

16. Excellent post

Bring all the troops home

K & R

[JohnyCanuck]

17. The "War on Terror" is expensive, no doubt about it.....

especially when the US funds both sides.

US Recognizes Al-Qaeda War Criminals As Libya's Official Government

Bangkok, Thailand July 15, 2011 - Associated Press reports that, "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the Obama administration has decided to formally recognize Libya’s main opposition group as the country’s legitimate government. The move gives foes of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi a major financial and credibility boost."

In an act of utter desperation as the brutal, though entirely ineffective Libyan rebels flounder in their NATO-backed offensives against Libya's ruling government in Tripoli, the US has now recognized the Libyan rebels as the country's "legitimate government" allowing the US to directly fund, arm, and support with US troops, the Al-Qaeda tied war criminals operating out of Benghazi. The recent farcical move indicates that France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppé has failed in his threats and posturing to get Libya's Qaddafi to stand down, and that the NATO-backed war of aggression is about to reach new heights of brutality most likely including the involvement of US, UK, and French troops on the ground.

Operating out of the Libyan cities of Benghazi, Darna, and Tobruk, Libyan rebels themselves have admitted that many of their members are drawn from Al Qaeda. The London Telegraph has reported that Libyan rebel leader Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi had admitted many of his fighters had just returned from fighting US forces in Iraq. The Telegraph also reported that Hasidi himself had "earlier fought against "the foreign invasion" in Afghanistan, before being captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan. He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008." A United States Army West Point report confirms indeed that fighters drawn from the Libyan cities of Benghazi, Darna, and Tobruk were second only to Saudi Arabia in contributing forces to fight US troops in Iraq.

This illustrates the absurdity of both the "War on Terror" and the current NATO-backed operations unfolding in Libya, where the same known terrorists are used both as an excuse for global intervention and continued foreign occupation while concurrently provided arms, air cover, legitimacy, and now direct funding while participating in global intervention. On full display for the world to see is how the global corporatocracy manipulates and exploits all sides of any given conflict for their own nefarious self-serving ends. One must wonder what races through the minds of US and UK pilots as they provide air support for the very men they strafed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2011/07/us-recognizes-al-qaeda-war-criminals-as.html