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15 Sep, 2016

What Did We Buy With the $5 Trillion That the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Have Cost Us? – Juan Cole – Truthdig

A Brown University political scientist estimates that as of 2016, The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have cost the American taxpayers $5 trillion. That number isn’t important when we consider the human cost: Some 7,000 US troops dead, 52,000 wounded in action; hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead who wouldn’t otherwise be, 4 million displaced and made homeless, etc. Just to put that $5 trillion in perspective. Let’s say you chose five individuals. Each of the five will spend $10 million a day. That’s the cost of Heidi Klum’s mansion. They’d be buying the equivalent of five of those each day.They’ll do that every day of their lives. All five of them. And then each of them will be succeeded by one their children, who will spend $10 million dollars a day, and one of their grandchildren, and one of their great-grandchildren, until 270 years have passed and it is the year 2286.

Read the rest: What Did We Buy With the $5 Trillion That the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars Have Cost Us? – Juan Cole – Truthdig