Skip to main content

Ah, that's where the money goes

Many will lightly dismiss the item below given that the source [as reproduced Information Clearing House] is Press TV, but the stats are truly staggering. The TV station provides the source of its information - principally American.

"American citizens are paying large amounts of money each year for U.S. defense spending, which can be used for domestic spending, Steve Breyman, assistant professor at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute said.

“Each and every citizen in the United States – man, woman and child – pays some $5,000 or so per year for U.S. defense spending much of which is associated now with the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan”, he told Press TV’s U.S. Desk.

If the federal government had not spent some $1 trillion on the wars, that money would have been available for “domestic spending including the balance in the budget,” Breyman said. “You can have healthy public finances or you can have war but you can’t have both,” he added.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, some 200,000 people are employed by subcontractors. Raw Story

By the end of 2008, the U.S. had spent approximately $900 billion in direct costs on Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Some experts estimate indirect costs such as interest on the additional debt will exceed the direct costs. Red Ice Creation

However, prominent economics professor Joseph E. Stiglitz says the true cost of the Iraq war is beyond $3 trillion. Washington Post

According to the Congressional Budget Office, defense spending grew 9% annually on average from fiscal year 2000-2009.

In Iraq, reconstruction efforts have been plagued by poor management, mishandling of reconstruction funds, inadequate coordination with Iraqis and widespread attacks on construction sites and contractors as documented by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR). NYT

A 2005 report stated that nearly $9 billion of reconstruction fund was lost by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). CNN"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...

Palestinian children in irons. UK to investigate

Not for the first time does MPS wonder what sort of country it is when Israel so flagrently allows what can only be described as barbaric and inhuman behaviour to be undertaken by, amongst others, its IDF. No one has seemingly challenged Israel's actions. However, perhaps it's gone a bridge too far - as The Independent reports. The Foreign Office revealed last night that it would be challenging the Israelis over their treatment of Palestinian children after a report by a delegation of senior British lawyers revealed unconscionable practices, such as hooding and the use of leg irons. In the first investigation of its kind, a team of nine senior legal figures examined how Palestinians as young as 12 were treated when arrested. Their shocking report Children in Military Custody details claims that youngsters are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, have their wrists bound behind their backs, and are blindfolded and made to kneel or lie face down in military vehi...

Wow!.....some "visitor" to Ferryland in Newfoundland