The act of war is hardly cheap. In fact, as the years go by and technology progresses, each war becomes increasingly more expensive than the last. There are troops to train, house, and feed, as well as transportation to provide and weapons to manufacture. Many people fail to realize that the spending continues long after the war has ended in the form of stabilizing and reconstructing war-torn countries and care for veterans. A large amount of this money comes from United States taxpayers. While no one is particularly fond of paying taxes, most of us accept it as our duty and contribute without too much complaint. Would we still continue to do so if we knew what was really happening with our tax dollars? Although many people believe the money spent on war is justified, in reality a huge amount of that money ends up being stolen, mismanaged, or simply falls through the cracks and is never seen again.
In March of 2003, President George W. Bush launched an invasion of Iraq, thus beginning the Iraq war, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, our most recent involvement with war. Larry Lindsey, an economist for the Bush administration, estimated that this war would cost the United States between $100 billion and $200 billion; however, those numbers were seriously underestimated (Stiglitz 1). In the article, “A Tabulation of the Human, Financial, and Strategic Costs,” Matthew Duss, Peter Juul, and Brian Katulis report that as of May, 2010, the Iraq war has cost the United States $748.2 billion. In the years to come, it is expected that another $422 billion to $717 billion will be spent on veteran health care and disability. As of early 2010, the relief and reconstruction of Iraq has cost the United States an additional $162.83 billio...
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...0. Web. 18 Jan. 2011.
Gerth, Jeff, and Don Van Natta Jr. “In Tough Times, a Company Finds Profits in Terror War.” The New York Times. 13 July 2002. Web. 2 Feb. 2011.
Glanz, James. “Cost of Taking Fuel to Iraq is Questioned in New Audit.” The New York Times. 7 Nov. 2006. Web. 2 Feb. 2011.
Greene, Stephen G. "Challenges in Aiding Iraq." Chronicle of Philanthropy 15.13 (2003): 22. Religion and Philosophy Collection. EBSCO. Web. 18 Jan. 2011.
Hartnett, Stephen J. "An Ugly and Sickening Business, Or, the Bush Legacy and the Decimation of Iraq." Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 9.6 (2009): 780-86. Web. 22 Jan. 2011.
Stiglitz, Joseph. "The High Cost of the Iraq War." The Economists' Voice 3.3 (2006): 1-3. Web. 18 Jan. 2011.
Stone, Peter H. "Iraq Contractors on Defense." National Journal 39.9 (2007): 76-77. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 25 Jan. 2011.
Dodds, Joana and Ben Wilson. "THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR: UNATTAINABLE OBJECTIVES1." Middle East Review of International Affairs (Online) 13, no. 2 (06, 2009): 72-94. http://search.proquest.com/docview/220899524?accountid=8289.
“The Price of Military Folly.” U.S. News Online. 1996. 10 April 2000 . Robinson, Linda.
Denise Grady’s (2006) article sound a strong wake up call for the American government and for the American public to re-evaluate their guiding principles towards war in Iraq and the continued presence of the American soldiers in the Iraqi soil. Grady delineated the enormous damages the war had costs in not only monetary terms but also the future of thousands of promising young and talented men and women sent in the Iraq War; that had no clear benefits to them or the American people.
Matusek, Matt. “Purpose of Iraq war murky to Americans.” 17 September 2004. The Online Rocket. 1 April 2008.
"The Visible and Invisible Effects of War." The National Interest. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.
The United States is facing a large military budget spending issue with the Department of Defence reporting a cost of around $525.4 billion this past year. Washington Posts announced that, "The United States spent more on its military than the next 13 nations combined in 2011." While military spending is a large part of the government budget, and there is enough room to reduce spending as long as there are a set of precautions of which necessities the government cannot cut.
Schmidt, Michael. “Fatal Bombs in Iraq Seemed Aimed at Militia.” The New York Times. 09 Feb. 2011. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
Carpenter, Ted Galen. "Tangled Web: The Syrian Civil War And Its Implications." Mediterranean Quarterly 24.1 (2013): 1-11. Academic Search Premier. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
Each administration has developed efforts to use force in defending their nation. The outcome of the victory is varied. The job can be achieved through appropriate preparation. The coalition service in the premature phases of military operation was to disarm Iraq. The appropriate echelon of investigation fulfilled of the political spectrum is the state level analysis. The satisfactory motives for understanding why this approach was considered are listed below. The imminent approach was to provide detailed facts about the state level analysis, individual analysis, and system level analysis. All of these perspectives were deliberated through one’s interpretation of their profession.
The United States currently has a national debt of over $19 trillion dollars, with that figure steadily increasing at a rate of about $1 trillion every year since 2012. As a result, the defense spending budget for America has been a widely discussed topic as we seem to have lost control of our spending. For instance, before the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States had spent an average of $280 billion each year on its Defense Budget. Following the attacks, however, that number has soared and the expected budget for the fiscal year 2017 was estimated to be upwards of $850 billion (Otto 2015). That increased spending was justified by many due to America’s level of involvement in conflicts both in Iraq and Afghanistan that have spanned the last decade. However, as wars have slowly come to a halt for the United States, the need to regain control of our spending has become apparent.
"How the Bush Administration Sold the Iraq War." Msnbc.com. NBC News Digital, 14 Oct. 2013. Web. 25 Apr. 2014.
McCutcheon, Richard. "Rethinking the War against Iraq." Anthropologica. No. 1 ed. Vol. 48. Ottawa: Canadian Anthropology Society, 2007. 11-49. Print. War and Peace.
8) ?After the Attack?The War on Terrorism? (2001). Online at: <http://www.monthlyreview.org/1101edit.htm>, consulted on March 29th, 2004.
The amount of corruption within the United States’ violent involvement in the Middle East is almost unreal. Unfortunately, the wars have been too real—half a million deaths in the first year of Iraqi Freedom alone (Rogers). These wars have been labeled--the violence, filtered-- to fit a specific agenda. Whether the deaths are deemed an acceptable loss in the name of national security, or as a devastating injustice, the reality doesn’t change. Lives have been lost. Lives that will never be brought back. The intention of wars is in part due to attacks on the twins towers on September 11th 2001. When the buildings fell, almost three thousand people died, according
On September 11, 2001, the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon changed the mindset and the opinion of nearly every American on the one of the most vital issues in the 21st century: terrorism (Hoffman 2). Before one can begin to analyze how the United States should combat such a perverse method of political change, one must first begin to understand what terrorism is, where it is derived from, and why there is terrorism. These issues are essential in America’s analysis of this phenomenon that has revolutionized its foreign policy and changed America’s stance in the world.