THE TERRIBLE COST OF
WAR - Editorial
(The
following article is from
the March 16-31,
2008
issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles
can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in
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People's Voice
Editorial, March 16-31, 2008
One
of the authors of "The Three
Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict"
(published
Feb. 29) says this estimate "probably errs on the low side." Joseph
Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning former World Bank chief economist, is
no radical. But he stresses that the $3 trillion figure applies only to
the United States, and does not reflect the enormous cost to the Iraqi
people, or to the rest of the world.
The toll for U.S. taxpayers
includes privatizing the Iraq war and occupation: contractors can make
up to $400,000 a year while soldiers cost a mere $40,000. The biggest
monetary cost is caring for the health and disability needs of
veterans, projected at hundreds of billions of dollars over the next
few decades. Then there's the economic pain caused by the skyrocketing
price of oil, which was just $25/barrel before the 2003 invasion.
For Canadians, the relative cost
is lower, but $4 billion spent to date on our Afghan occupation is
still a very heavy burden. Shamefully, only one-tenth of that amount
has been spent by Canada on civilian needs in Afghanistan, much of it
stolen by corrupt officials.
Beyond these figures, consider
the suffering inflicted by the warmakers on the families of over 4,000
NATO soldiers and one million Iraqi and Afghan citizens who have died,
or by the destruction of homes, jobs and infrastructure in those
countries during this conflict. And as the latest reports from
Afghanistan make clear (see page 6), the claim that Canada is making
war to "liberate women" is an utter lie.
Our world desperately needs
massive investments in clean water, schools, job creation, disease
prevention, and technologies to drastically reduce carbon emissions.
Instead, trillions of dollars which could help save the planet are
being used to destroy our future. The profit-hungry capitalist system
that drives this insanity is a threat to our very existence. The
imperialist "leaders" who use military might to project this system
into every corner of the world must be defeated, before it's too late.
Found
at:
http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/articleprint14/08.%20THE_TERRIBLE_COST_OF_WAR_-_Editorial.html