Pentagon: Iraq operations cost $560 million so far

[modrepub]

Source: The Associated Press

U.S. military operations in Iraq, including airstrikes and surveillance flights, have cost about $560 million since mid-June, the Pentagon said Friday.

Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said the average daily cost has been $7.5 million. He said it began at a much lower rate in June and escalated after the airstrikes in northern Iraq began this month.

<snip>

Asked why U.S. warplanes are still pounding the Mosul Dam area, long after U.S. officials said local Kurdish and Iraqi forces had regained control from the Islamic State forces, Kirby said, "Because ISIL keeps wanting to take it back," using an acronym for the group.


Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20140829_ap_e226e8658bd94da6b3eaaa3afa49bc36.html

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More good money after bad. We seem to be stuck in the mindset that if we don't confront our enemies in their back yard we'll be confronting them in ours. The never-ending war continues to suck up money and other assorted resources.

[Robbins]

1. Well

They tell us we have to cut government spending like food stamps and other things to poor,and disabled yet we have money to spend on
endless war.We elected Obama to end this crap.

This shows why I am against all this military action In middle east.we need to get out of it.

When citizens who protest are attacked by militazed police and unarmed Black men are executed by police we have no business telling
people what Is right and what they should be doing.

The people behind the attacks on 9/ll are dead.It's time to pull out of middle east and start dealing with problems at home.

[another_liberal]

3. But if we just invest a few hundred billion dollars more . . .

Who knows how much worse we can make life for the surviving Iraqis. I bet we could totally depopulate much of the place.

[another_liberal]

2. We're made of it . . .

Cash, that is. Right?

[Divernan]

4. What friggin', out-of-control insanity!

Stop voluntary enlistments (from the desperately poor kids lied to by recruiters) and put in place a universal draft - no opt outs. Dan Rather called all the profiteering warhawks out:

Dan Rather to Pundits Calling for War: Send Your Own Kids or ‘Don’t Even Talk to Me’
Veteran journalist Dan Rather told Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter that the scores of pundits calling for action in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere were reminiscent of the buildup to the 2003 Iraq War, which Rather called a blunder of “historic proportions,” and that hawks needed to be prepared to send their own kids to battle before they so cavalierly recommend it for others.

“All of these people on television, some of whom I have enormous respect for, it unsettles me to hear them say, listen, we the United States have to ‘do something’ in Ukraine, we have to ‘do something’ in Syria, we have to ‘do something’ in the waters around China, we have to ‘do something’ in Iraq, we have to ‘do something’ about ISIS. What they’re talking about are combat operations.

“My 1st question to anyone on television saying ‘We have to get tough, put boots on the ground, go to war in 1 of these places’ is: I'll hear you out if you tell me you are prepared to send your son, your daughter, your grandson, your granddaughter to that war for which you're beating the drums. If you aren’t, I have no patience with you, and don’t even talk to me.”

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/dan-rather-to-pundits-calling-for-war-send-your-own-kids-or-dont-even-talk-to-me/


But you know what? Some of these MIC assholes are so high on a combination of blood lust and watching their stock prices and dividends soar, that putting their own kids and grandkids at risk probably woudn't slow them down.

[Bragi]

5. That's down from $1 billion per month

If I recall, that was the monthly but during the Bush years. Most of it was stolen one way or another.

[Man from Pickens]

6. For comparison purposes

does anyone know what the military operations in Ferguson cost?

[JackRiddler]

7. That's the point, isn't it?

This is an industry. It requires some level of actual warfare to keep itself going.

Besides, to its constituents it's not just a scam. They've built the goddamn hammer and they want to flatten some nails!

This is why there's always a next war starting before the last one winds down. The excuse is increasingly irrelevant. Last year we were supposed to bomb Syria to stop Assad, this year we will bomb the same country, in some cases the same targets (since ISIS has gained territory), so as to stop anti-Assad extremists. Long as we're bombing Syria, it's all good.

Nowadays it's always several wars at once, each tuned to different levels of media attention and public consciousness. If there's six going overtly, there's no doubt several covert (to be revealed) or fully deniable ones running at the same time.

These actions technically are built to advance the interests of various sponsors: resource-grabbers, debt peddlers, ethnic lobbies, drug profiteers, money launderers, mafias, etc. But not all of the schemes work out, and it doesn't matter. Blowing up a billion in ordnance is its own reward, especially to the contractor that replaces it.

If the wars can be fit into some faction's demented geostrategic "realist" imperialist vision, then it's gold, because, again: the militarists like to believe in themselves. They're not militarists, they're humanitarians. We're redrawing the borders of the Middle East for peace and freedom and prosperity and security and blah blah blah, ka-ching ka-ching.