A new report from Brown University is aiming to provide a close estimate of the cost of the overall cost to the US government of its myriad post-9/11 wars and assorted global wars on terror. The estimate is that $5.933 trillion has been spent through fiscal year 2019.
This is, of course, vastly higher than official figures, owing to the Pentagon trying to oversimplify the costs into simply overseas contingency operations. It is only when one considers the cost of medical and disability care for soldiers, and future such costs, along with things like the interest on the extra money borrowed for the wars, that the true cost becomes clear.
That sort of vast expenditure is only the costs and obligations of the wars so far, and with little sign of them ending, they are only going to grow. In particular, a generation of wars is going to further add to the medical costs for veterans’ being consistently deployed abroad.
Starting in late 2001, the US has engaged in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere around the world. Many of those wars have become more or less permanent operations, with no consideration of ending them under any circumstances.
Those wishing to read the report can find it here.
I think this figure was accurately nailed by “alternative” media, including this website, around fifteen years ago, when the Pentagon was estimating costs to be a magnitude lower, or more, to no-one’s surprise.
$5.9 trillion. And that’s just what the government has admitted to.
But, from a Trumpatismo [ie, military-industrial complex/petro-financial web/techno-infotainment matrix/guns-n-drugs cartel/surveillance-secrecy-security panopticon that is America’s true Deep State] perspective: All is Good.
95% of that $5.9 trillion is going in to some American workers’, managers’, executives’, board members’, and/or shareholders’ pockets. The other 5% is going in to some American lackeys’ pockets.
What’s really cool about it, tho, is that it’s not coming out of anybody’s pockets. At least not right now. That $5.9 trillion is just a small part of that $21.7 trilllion National Debt America has piled up, with no sign of ever slowing down.
So…. yeah….; it’s a Credit Card War. Nobody’s taxes are going to paying for that War today; but somebody’s taxes WILL be paying for it tomorrow.
Perhaps our “commander in bankruptcy” is the answer ?
But no money for SS or Medicare, or any form of national health care, let alone a border wall,,,and what of the 27 $trillion that is unaccounted for? Man are we CHUMPS!!!! Dump D.C.
Social Security and Medicare are NOT gifts from the USG, Jay, workers pay into them as a savings for retirement. What the $5-9 Trillion spent on illegal wars of aggression should’ve been spent on repairing our crumbling infrastructure and mitigating poverty nationwide.
There’s more than enough money for Social Security and Medicare, unless the USG stole it, which is a felony. These programs were set up for retirees, widows and orphans, and disabled people and cannot be used for any other purposes. Doing so is grand theft, a felony, and must be returned to the coffers of these two programs.
Actually, the Supreme Court ruled in 1960 (Flemming v. Nestor) that Social Security is nothing more than a particular welfare program that happens to be linked to a particular tax, and that Congress is free to do anything it likes with it — raise benefits, cut benefits, end benefits.
It’s amazing that the old “Social Security is retirement savings/insurance” con has continued to survive for nearly 60 years since it was exposed.
“We can’t go to Mars!!! That would cost 1T$ !!!”
So we went to Iraq instead
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” — General Smedley Butler, USMC, double recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor
Does that include the 2.3 trillion the Pentagon said they couldn’t find on 09/10/01….. One day before something flew into their accounting Dept., explored and killed almost all of the staff…???
*Facepalm
Well, at least we got our money’s worth….LOL.
We the people demand that the government Immediatley cease and desist from borrowing from our social security trust fund unless a majority of us vote to authorize it. We also demand that the borrowed funds be Immediatley repaid with interest to the fund without raising taxes. How about we start by rescinding those tax cuts for the super rich. Maybe take some from the insane military budget or better yet let’s take a percentage of congress members salary. Once that is done we can make the filthy rich pay FICA on 100% of their income to increase benefits so seniors can live with dignity above the poverty line. Look at it this way- it would give them another tax deduction!
https://theseniors.center/people-are-talking-about-t zzzhe-social-security-trust-fund/