As our seemingly endless primary process reaches the homestretch and the focus shifts to the general election, we need to pull the plug on the media's disturbing habit of acting as if foreign policy and domestic policy are completely separate entities -- a pair of high stakes board games that can only be taken off the shelf and played one at a time. To hear the media tell it, combining the two would make about as much sense as using your Monopoly pieces to play Risk.
But while there is almost nothing about the Iraq war that can be labeled a success, we can declare that it has been exceedingly successful in showing how intertwined foreign and domestic policy actually are. In the book The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, along with co-author Linda Bilmes, argue that, even using "conservative assumptions," the Iraq war will cost at least $3,000,000,000,000, and likely as much as $5,000,000,000,000.
Stiglitz also argues that the war has played a major role in the current subprime credit crisis and our long, hard slog toward recession. Because of the cost of the war, the Fed flooded the system with credit. "The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," Stiglitz told The Australian's Peter Wilson.
The book (excerpted here by the Times of London, and here's an interview with the authors at Democracy Now) notes that the cost is 60 times the $50 - 60 billion we were told the war would cost by Don Rumsfeld. The Iraq war is already the second costliest war in American history, trailing only World War II.
Stiglitz makes the case that no country can fight a protracted war without deep and long-lasting effects on domestic policy. Particularly a protracted war paired with tax cuts. Now this doesn't mean a war shouldn't be fought (see World War II), but it does mean that our leaders should be honest about what the real costs will be. And not just in terms of dollars and cents but also in opportunity costs.
The single defining constant of the war over its disastrous, almost-five-years has been the complete and total lack of honesty from those who got us into it and have championed its continued prosecution -- including head war cheerleader John McCain. And although the driver of the 100 Year War Express is fond of offering frequent, empty, and clichéd nods to "sacrifice," he somehow thinks that's all the discussion that's needed about the costs of the war. Note to McCain: your protestations about "out of control" government spending would carry more weight if they weren't accompanied by calls for making permanent the tax cuts you once opposed as "not appropriate" in a time of war.
Maybe Saddam Hussein's head was worth $3,000,000,000,000 -- $5,000,000,000,000, maybe it wasn't (like most of the country, I believe the latter), but if McCain wants us to be there for 100, or 1,000, or a million years, he should be forced to make the case that the benefits outweigh the costs -- foreign and domestic.
As Crooked Timber's Daniel Davies notes, "the cost of the Iraq War could have underwritten Social Security for fifty years."
Or, as Aida Edemariam puts it in the Guardian, it would have paid for "8 million housing units, or 15 million public school teachers, or healthcare for 530 million children for a year, or scholarships to university for 43 million students." Of course, as John McCain himself has told us, he "doesn't really understand economics." But foreign policy does not exist in an economics vacuum.
Yet does anybody doubt that the general election is going to feature article after newscast after editorial extolling McCain's "foreign policy expertise?" Even if he's asked about the cost of remaining in Iraq, McCain will likely respond with some version of the Bush spin. "People like Joe Stiglitz," said the White House "lack the courage to consider the cost of doing nothing and the cost of failure. One can't even begin to put a price tag on the cost to this nation of the attacks of 9/11."
Ah, the well-worn 9/11 trump card -- up to now, always an effective debate-ender. Will it still work come this fall? To a large extent that will depend on whether the media are as cowed by it as they have been since the run-up to the Iraq invasion.
If the coverage of the "surge" is any indication, the odds aren't great there will be more truth telling this time. The media seem to have decided that the surge is already a notch on McCain's foreign policy belt. It's a notch the candidate will be able to finger long past November since, the way things have shaken out, the surge has only served to deepen our foothold in Iraq. In fact, many believe that was the point all along.
As Sam Brannen of CSIS notes, "The United States is now the thread that binds Iraq, and it is clear that a serious unraveling of the situation would occur were this thread suddenly to be pulled away." Which led Judah Grunstein to conclude: "In other words, instead of making it easier for us to leave Iraq, the Surge has made it more difficult. And if that doesn't qualify a military tactic as a failure, I don't know what does."
This, in turn, led Andrew Sullivan to say: "I'm not sure that the surge wasn't in retrospect a deliberate attempt to make it all but impossible for the US to leave Iraq any time soon. And less out of a genuine security worry, than in order to save face for Bush and Cheney."
So will John McCain be called to account for the surge, and the rising costs of the continuing occupation the surge has enabled? Not likely. Getting the media to avoid a full accounting of the costs of the war -- both in terms of dollars spent and lives lost or ruined -- was one of the primary goals of the surge. And, in that respect, it has been sadly successful.
The thing about $3,000,000,000,000 is that, at a certain point, it becomes hard to ignore. As the red ink from the approaching recession continues to spill, you can bet the media will be all over the story -- the economy headlined as America's top domestic worry. The question is, will the media connect the dots between the war John McCain loves so much and the economic devastation it's helped cause? The answer could determine who is the next president of the United States.
Follow Arianna Huffington on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ariannahuff
We need a strong Commander in Chief who can see our real problems and where we are most susceptible to attack. John McCain is not that man. Those torturous, lonely years in the hole—the repeated beatings and torture threw John Sidney McCain off kilter, mentally. That is where he developed the pathological tenacity that drives him and his inner rage. Presently he is in a controlled life environment. He has all sorts of things and people restraining him—his wife, friends and backers. Then there are those senior moments that he struggles with to maintain his self control on that razor-like wire he has to walk to keep his political balance. About now, he is getting flashes and flushes of excitement as he considers the Glorious Robe of Power that could be bestowed upon him.
There is no earth moving vehicle on the planet that could budge him once he has that power and sets his course. It will be more of the same—war after war—battle after battle—death after death—our resources will be drained to the near empty mark.
It killed The Roman Empire.
It could kill us.
Give John Sidney McCain the Presidency. Give him the legacy of unlimited power that GWB has bequeathed to the Whitehouse, and he will be utterly unrestrained—ready to release his suppressed rage onto the world.
It could be his, and our, final scene.
No thanks John.
So don't accuse ME of wishing Saddam were back in power. Hey, Mugabe and Putin are pretty brutal as well. Bashir in Sudan, etc. And our buddy Mubarak is no George Washington. The list of despots is endless and that's why it would not have popular support.
epu
She is the only GOTV tool the GOP has. Let's try not to hand it to them on a silver platter.
Also, Moodys has downgraded US treasuries and will give them junk bond status over the next 10-12 years based on the debt ratio that US currently holds - is this responsible government. Bush got his revenge on Saddam Hussein - the democrats were unable to question or challenge any of the decisions that were made by them.
Americans need to wake up and start participating actively in everything that is going on and all the decisions that are being made.
IN RON PAUL. HE IS EVERYTHING THAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS. WITHOUT
A GUIDING PHILOSOPHY, GOVERNMENT GOES HAYWIRE... EMOTION RATHER
THAN REASON. AYN RAND SHOULD BE REQUIRED READING FOR EVERY
AMERICAN. I'M SO DISGUSTED WITH THE WAY THINGS ARE GOING. I THINK
I'M GONNA EAT SOME WORMS!!! I WANT RON PAUL TO RUN ON THE L.P. TICKET.
HE SAYS HE WON'T... THAT HE IS A REPUBLICAN... A LIBERTARIAN WHO SAYS
HIS PARTY .... RIGHT OR WRONG???? UGH!!!! WISH WE HAD HARRY BROWNE
BACK. HE WAS A BETTER LIBERTARIAN CANDIDATE. THE 2 PARTIES HAVE A
MONOPOLY ON OUR SYSTEM. HOW DOES THIS COMPLY WITH OUR ANTI-TRUST
LAWS??? THE DEMS AND REPUBS MAKE OUR BALLOT ACCESS LAWS TO FAVOR
THE ESTABLISHMENT CANDIDATES. WE NO LONGER HAVE THE HIGH GROUND
IN OUR "DEMOCRACY".... SAD... I HOPE OUR FOUNDING FATHERS ARE NOT
WATCHING THIS. WE HAVE THROWN THEIR LEGACY BACK IN THEIR FACES.
RON PAUL WRITE-IN.... DEFEND OUR CONSTITUTION AND BILL OF RIGHTS!!!!
AND WE NEED TO GET RID OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE.
They need to continually drive home the arithmetic. How many roads, bridges, schools, windmills etc would 1 year's supplemental purchase? If the population of Iraq is 20 million and we spend $120 billion per year, we're spending $6000 per capita per year. Why not just pay them to be good? That is in fact what we have started doing with the Awakening and what has succeeded in reducing US casualties -- for now. But if our troops weren't there, we wouldn't have to pay them not to kill Americans.
At least deficit spending on social welfare produces dividends (a more educated, healthier population). When will the tired neo-con economic ideology finally be laid to rest.
I agree with you. If the Iraqi's were the ones to actually run the gas and oil
companies, get contracts for rebuilding water, sewer and electric. If they could
at least work with other contractors to rebuild schools and hospitals.
But Bush gave Exxon, Hunt and BP no bid contracts for oil. He had Bectel do
water and sewer, but they are notorious for taking the money and leaving
town, which they did again. And lest we forget, there was also Halliburton,
which has since moved to Saudi Arabia, but without completing one job.
Small wonder there is still violence in Iraq! If we turned it all over to them,
my guess they would sort it out in whatever way they decide. But then Bush
and Chaney and all those big oil people would be outta luck.
town, which they did again."
We'll be saying the same about Dubya in the near future.
Hey, the other day I mentioned a book I read and liked about Iraq (The Mesopotamia Mess) and the morass the Brits found themselves in after their invasion in 1914. Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic Monthly had a good comment about it too.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/02/blast-from-the.html
Isn't a Republic GREAT?
In short-who uses stories from HP?
Isn't a Republic GREAT?
Dear Ms. Huffington,
The only claim to fame McCain has is that he was captured by the enemy back in time! I still don’t know why he was made into a hero. It must’ve been one hell of a PR.
My question is how can he run for the presidency of the US if he was born in Panama? He was born on August 29, 1936 in Panama Canal Zone.
Jorge Larco
The professor thinks and I agree with his assestment that it will take several decades to pay assuming the Chinese don't decide to start collecting sooner than later, in which case this nation will suffer a catastrophic financial crisis.
Isn't a Republic GREAT?