Slack Economy for US, but Growing War Costs

[Purveyor]

Some U.S. officials are voicing increasing concern about the burgeoning cost of American military involvement in simultaneous wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya.

By various government and private accounts, the U.S. has spent more than $1 trillion over the last decade on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and already more than $700 million in the three-month-old NATO airwar against troops loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

President Barack Obama is preparing to announce U.S. troop withdrawals from the war front in Afghanistan in a televised address Wednesday night, and the U.S. involvement in Iraq is winding down this year. Some Americans, though, weary of a decade of warfare spawned by the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., are saying that with the sluggish national economy, the money spent on the wars instead should be spent on domestic needs.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors this week approved a resolution calling for an early end to the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and requesting the savings be spent at home. In Afghanistan, where 100,000 U.S. troops are stationed, the war tab is expected to reach nearly $120 billion this year.

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http://www.voanews.com/english/news/usa/Slack-Economy-for-US-but-Growing-War-Costs-124350374.html

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[gratuitous]

2. "Requesting the savings be spent at home"

What savings? Dedicated military spending has to be spent on military stuff, or the terrorists win.

It is nice, though, that some people have noticed that all these overseas quagmires cost money. At least for now, they've noticed it. At some point in the future, they'll forget again, and we'll be inveigled into another war-that's-not-really-a-war with the clincher being that it won't cost hardly anything at all.