War costing $5.8 billion a month?????

[quaoar]

That's nearly $70 billion a year. I wonder what we could have done with all that money if we hadn't pissed it down a rat hole in Iraq.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_cost_111804,00.html?ESRC=eb.nl

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is spending more than $5.8 billion a month on the war in Iraq, according to the military's top generals.

That is nearly a 50 percent increase above the $4 billion-a-month benchmark the Pentagon has used to estimate the cost of the war so far.

The Army alone is spending $4.7 million a month while the Air Force is spending $800 million a month transporting soldiers and flying combat missions. The Marine Corps is spending $300 million a month, the four service chiefs told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday.

Since 2003, the Pentagon has received some $160 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in supplemental funding -- that is, in addition to its annual budget. It will be requesting another multibillion-dollar supplement early next year to cover the continuing cost of the war.

[St. Jarvitude]

1. $20 per American per month

$232 per year.

Imagine if every American donated $232 to the ACLU, or Amnesty International, or UNICEF, or to AIDS research, or breast cancer research, or Alzheimer's research, or to the Red Cross, or to buy food for a homeless Vet screwed over by the very same government he served, or to the NAACP, or to NOW, or to DFA, or to Livestrong, or to their local public libraries, or to a friend going through hard times, or to the UNCF, or to the United Way, or to ASCPA, or

SOMETHING OTHER THAN THIS GOD DAMNED WAR WHICH IS KILLING TENS OF THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE EVERY YEAR?

[TrustingDog]

4. so what's the math re: taxpayer cost of dead Iraqi's per person...

compared to MAKING A POSITIVE DIFFERENCE with that cash, to how many more in so many ways.

there's not much profit in peace, tho. lots of dollars in rivers of blood. old school. we are sick. this is what makes 'the world' go round.... blood and suffering and death. we are in hell.

[Amich]

2. at the iraq body count web site

It shows how much we spend and what it could have gone for. it is very enlightening.
Here is just one example:

The War In Iraq Cost the United States


$146,326,464,448


Instead, we could have paid for
19,380,988
children to attend a year of Head Start.
See the cost in your community:

www.iraqbodycount.com

[JohnnyRingo]

3. Most of which is being siphoned into the coffers of private companies.

Along with 2 mil bbls of oil that is "evaporating" from Iraq every day.

They'll stop when someone locks the door to the US treasury.

[TrustingDog]

5. I believe the agenda is to kill off the middle class...

starve 'em, poor 'em. us useless eaters (but now it's come to a theatre Near You, not in some brown skinned country like Rayguns Nicaragua). that elite base that has no allegiance but to power and dollar and profit will always be safe, tho. always have.

be afraid.

buy beans and rice. bicycles. learn how to distill water. find seeds that don't have a patent.

[LaPera]

6. BushCo, Halliburton, Carlyle Group, etc...making the lions share of

our tax dollars being wasted in Iraq. It sure as fuck isn't going to protect our troops!

[leftofthedial]

7. Why didn't we just pay each and every Iraqi family

$40 grand to be our friend?