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Iraq War cost every American Family $16,500!!!

Red

Legendary Member
Joined
25 August 2005
Messages
2,102
Location
Toronto
Is it worth it?

Discuss!

(I'd like to ask this question again next year!)
 
IraqWarExplain.jpg
 
I'd gladly pay the 16.5k+ for bin Laden's head on a platter. I consider Hussein mere garnishment.
 
Red, I really like you. You're a very smart, intelligent guy, you know cars and are fun to party with, but I hope when we come to visit in May you're not going to verbally smack around the U.S.A. every time we sit down.:biggrin::biggrin:
 
We've wasted money on more irrational things. I honestly thought it was much more thank 16k. And it's not really fair to say 'every american family', the average american family probably paid closer to 2-3 grand, the very rich paid for the majority of it if you want to be accurate. If you don't even pay taxes, which are millions of people, they probably didn't spend 16k on it either. Given the current economy, war isn't such a bad thing economically [that's what we are talking about right?]. The majority of those soldiers would have tough times finding decent jobs right now given where the average one is from [Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia] and their educational back ground [vast majority high school].

I'm more irritated by the war on drugs than the war, again economically not politically if you can separate them.
 
I had heard we are sending the bil to Canada so it really doesn't matter to me what the bill is. :wink: :biggrin:
 
I'd much rather spend it on Bin Laden as well... If there was no war in Iraq we probably would've caught the guy by now.

We should have left Saddam alone to rot like Castro is rotting right now. He had nothing to do with anything and going after him because of Dub's personal, family vendetta cost us the war on terror. Al-Quaida is now stronger, growing and organizing. Face it, we didn't belong in Iraq for no other reason than the oil. We don't really give a crap what he did to his own people. Same or worse happens in our ally countires all over the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia. Same things happen in Israel and in Palestine. Same things happen in Burma, China, Tibet... They all treat their people like cattle but since they provide us with what we want, we did not bomb them back to the stone age.

And here comes Iran, knowing that we can't do anything because we are stretched too thin and they are taunting us. We can't make a move. We are affraid that they might gain control over the Middle East which of course, with the way the world sees America today, it's not going to be very hard for Iran to do. They will find sympathy with the islamic world faster that we could imagine.

Only a full blown world war will clean up this mess.
 
Bin Laden is not in Iraq

Ick gad.:rolleyes: You miss the point. Even if bin Laden or al Qaida was never in Iraq, I'd be happy to have spent 16.5k on taking Hussein's regime down. And I'd do another 16.5k for more forces in Afganistan if possible.
 
where does that figure come from? because we are not even close to any sort of end. Are you saying 16K ... SO FAR?
 
Someone's gotta do it. And you're very welcome and I'm sure every Vet and current military here appreciates it. Especially prime member Sarge, who gave up 2 perfect good working legs so that people can whine to their heart's content.

Well, now that you mention it...

Infantry officer in the 101st Airborne and 11th Special Forces Group. Viet Namn. Still, thank you for your contribution. "De Oppresso Libre."
 
Ick gad.:rolleyes: You miss the point. Even if bin Laden or al Qaida was never in Iraq, I'd be happy to have spent 16.5k on taking Hussein's regime down. And I'd do another 16.5k for more forces in Afganistan if possible.

That's all fine and good; however, there are many families that cannot afford to pay 16.5k for a war that seemingly has no end in sight any time soon. A war that will go down as a foreign relations disaster.

My main concern are the over 4000 lives lost. But I'm not gonna get into it. I already know that the majority of prime members are Republican, Pro Iraq war, Pro Senator McCain, yadda yadda yadda, and frighteningly, still Pro Bush.
 
i don't really care about the money.... i care about people losing lives.
i guess i just don't really understand the whole situation well enough, because i have no idea why we need to be there. wanting to be there is a different story :rolleyes:

i just wish the whole world would grow up and stop friggen cutting each others' throats.
 
i don't really care about the money.... i care about people losing lives.
i guess i just don't really understand the whole situation well enough, because i have no idea why we need to be there. wanting to be there is a different story :rolleyes:

i just wish the whole world would grow up and stop friggen cutting each others' throats.

You failed to mention the 11,000 IRAQ lives lost.
 
My main concern are the over 4000 lives lost.


Mine too. Although a very close second would be the extraordinarily high number of severely wounded soldiers -- a number that rarely gets reported. People like (for lack of a better term) to compare 4,000 soldiers to the ~50,000 lost in Vietnam and think "Iraq is not that bad, less than a 1/10 of the casualties." But due to body armor and medical technologies the numbers aren't really comparable. Sad fact.

Red, does Prime really need to start another thread like this though? :frown:

Bahrain Grand Prix starts in 10 mins guys!
 
Red, I really like you. You're a very smart, intelligent guy, you know cars and are fun to party with, but I hope when we come to visit in May you're not going to verbally smack around the U.S.A. every time we sit down.:biggrin::biggrin:

No worries! Just smacking online - you Americans are to big and scary to bait in person!:tongue:

I'm more irritated by the war on drugs than the war, again economically not politically if you can separate them.

War on Drugs cost more and yielded less results! it costs $30k a year to keep an inmate in prison in California - California's budget for schooling is $7,000 per student. You'd think if you spent more money educating people better, keeping them from dropping out etc. you wouldn't have to arrest as many? Also, if you made Pot legal and got rid of mandatory minimums (which only result in locking up more people - they're not a deterrent) you'd have less people in prison, so fewer $30ks!

I had heard we are sending the bil to Canada so it really doesn't matter to me what the bill is. :wink: :biggrin:

Talk about a Cheque thats gonna bounce!:tongue:

Ick gad.:rolleyes: You miss the point. Even if bin Laden or al Qaida was never in Iraq, I'd be happy to have spent 16.5k on taking Hussein's regime down. And I'd do another 16.5k for more forces in Afganistan if possible.

Why? Iraq was a sovereign country that had a better standard of living than MANY other countries run by dictators. Why should American Citizens' $$$ go to messing with other countries when people are starving, New Orleans isn't rebuilt, we haven't cured Cancer, Aids, etc. Shouldn't we fix our own mess before we get into others?

where does that figure come from? because we are not even close to any sort of end. Are you saying 16K ... SO FAR?

So far = Expenditure on Iraq to date (traceable, I'm sure there's more under the table) divided by number of households in USA

You failed to mention the 11,000 IRAQ lives lost.

You're kidding, right? 11,000? More like hundreds of thousands! USA doesn't count the killings of Iraqis by Iraqis, they have no idea about the "random violence" there is no census or method of tracking people who are killed by bombs or stray fire, etc. I think its safe to say more people have died under the USA's occupation than were ever killed by Sadam.

Mine too. Although a very close second would be the extraordinarily high number of severely wounded soldiers -- a number that rarely gets reported. People like (for lack of a better term) to compare 4,000 soldiers to the ~50,000 lost in Vietnam and think "Iraq is not that bad, less than a 1/10 of the casualties." But due to body armor and medical technologies the numbers aren't really comparable. Sad fact.

27,000+ and counting severely injured soldiers in Iraq - limbs missing, brain injuries, etc. I know many US Servicemen and women, they do not deserve this fate.

Red, does Prime really need to start another thread like this though? :frown:

Aren't you "The Guy" who starts threads like this?

You're just jealous you didn't start this one!:tongue:
 
You failed to mention the 11,000 IRAQ lives lost.

I don't know where you get 11,000 but I have seen most numbers range from a low of 60,000 to some claiming it is in actuality closer to 1 million as a total result of the war (including the violence from car bombs). Numbers reported by some of the Iraqi studies say it is closer to 700,000 now.

Reality is that no one knows and I am not trying to get caught up in a numbers game but I would say that 11,000 is the lowest figure I have ever heard.
 
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You failed to mention the 11,000 IRAQ lives lost.

I didn't "fail" to mention it :biggrin:. I purposely omitted speaking about it. Whenever I've gotten into discussions like this with *cough* pro Republican/pro Bush types, they always react callously when I cite the number of Iraq's people who have died as a direct result of this war.:frown:

Btw, from what I understand and have heard, the number of Iraq friendly soldier casualties and civilian casualties are close to a million as Turbo2Go cited.

I don't believe we spend more on the war on drugs. If I remember correctly, due to the Iraq war, our national debt has tripled under Bush's administration.

BTW, did anyone ever find out what happened to the BILLIONS of DOLLARS lost while traveling to Iraq on a US Military Cargo Jet for the purpose of War reconstruction? Boy, that money sure could have come in handy after Katrina:rolleyes: Or perhaps we could build a far better medical facility than the farce that soldiers are facing now.
 
Well, now that you mention it...

Infantry officer in the 101st Airborne and 11th Special Forces Group. Viet Namn. Still, thank you for your contribution. "De Oppresso Libre."

Now that, was the end of truely hardcore badass soldiers, Vietnam. Just the thought of POSSIBLY going over there would make me sh!t myself if that was in my time era.
 
Or perhaps we could build a far better medical facility than the farce that soldiers are facing now.

First off, it's funny that some people feel that they're speaking for the troops and relating troops directly to the president. However, no matter who the commander in chief is (hillary, obama, god, bush), as troops and former troops, we'd still do our jobs.

It is unfortunate that the medical facilities can't keep up with the needs of the injured troops and people will use that as fuel against the president. The truth of the matter is, if Bush authorized the hundreds of millions of dollars required to build the facilities required now and it was built, almost everyone would be happy..... for a short while. Then when the troops get pulled out of iraq, there will be an empty world class medical facility with no usage at all because Walter Reed will return to normal operations. Of course, years from now anti-bush people will whine again "I told you he was wasteful! Spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a building that got used for only a year or two."

Political whiners will NEVER be happy. Apparently in politics, no matter who is president, the world will be shit because of that president. It's funny because those people whine about it for the rest of their lives, but taking turns every 4 or 8 years.
 
$16,500.00?? Certainly it's cost a lot more than this when you take into account the real matters at hand - i.e. economy and the depreciation of the USD on the world markets (aside from the mortgage fiasco). 16.5K is a drop in the bucket for what it's really cost US citizens.
 
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