The U.S. Chose to Spend $5 Trillion Destroying Other Countries Rather Than Rebuilding Its Own
by John Lawrence
The US military has wreaked havoc in parts of the world causing widespread death and destruction for no tangible gain in any terms whatsoever. The Daily Beast reported:
The U.S. has spent $5.6 trillion since 2001 on the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Pakistan, according to a new study. That figure, according to The Wall Street Journal, is more than triple the Pentagon’s narrow estimate of $1.5 trillion, which was released by the Defense Department this year. The Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University conducted the study, which aimed to reflect the costs of war not considered by the Pentagon—including the costs that weren’t taken on by the Defense Department in the first place. “War costs are more than what we spend in any one year on what’s called the pointy end of the spear,” the study’s author, Neta Crawford, told the Journal. “There are all these other costs behind the spear, and there are consequences of using it, that we need to include.”
Does this include the cost of destroyed real estate in those countries or the cost in terms of loss of life? I don't think so. It's just the cost to America not the cost imposed on other people in other countries. Let's have a comprehensive study which adds those costs in.
Defense contractors got rich. Middle class wage slaves made a living in the military-industrial-intelligence complex. Soldiers and sailors eked out a living. All for nothing. A bunch of sound and fury, shock and awe signifying nothing. Just think how that money might have been spent bringing US infrastructure up to date and creating tons of middle class jobs in the process. Civil engineers say fixing US infrastructure will take $4.6 trillion. That would leave a trillion left over for high speed rail or expanding programs to help the poor and middle class. It's absolutely sickening how this money has been squandered. The whole Middle East fiasco is far worse than the Vietnam tragedy. George W Bush lied the US into invading Iraq. All the US military efforts have accomplished is the destabilization of the Middle East and the European refugee problem. People would rather chance the hazards of illegal emigration rather than staying in the hellholes in which they were born.
The US power structure would rather play games with the lives and real estate of poor people in other parts of the world than to fix what's wrong here at home. The Bible says: "You hypocrite! First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye." The US has sown death and destruction in the Middle East, but Europe has borne the brunt of terrorist attacks and refugees. The US has gotten off relatively scot free. But the chickens may come home to roost or they may not. The US is allied with one of the biggest human rights violators and terrorist producers in the world - Saudi Arabia. Yet it goes around accusing other countries of being human rights violators. It has created its own enemies which gives it a reason for maintaining a huge military-industrial complex in perpetuity. There will never be peace because peace would cost the defense establishment too much money, and the US economy would collapse.
