The REAL Cost of the War

One of the greatest political issues of the day is the war in Iraq. There are many arguments surrounding the war, such as whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, whether Hussein had anything to do with the attacks on the World Trade Center, and various other issues that the Bush administration pulled out of their collective ass. Perhaps one issue we should be looking at more closely is the cost of this war. Many people dismiss these costs as something unimportant, but the fact remains that the cost of this war is a really big problem.

As of 11:57 AM on May 8, 2007, the cost of the war reached a staggering $423,929,450,000, according to costofwar.com. Estimates for the possible total cost of the war by its end range from a rather conservative $500 billion to well over two trillion dollars. many people dismiss the issue of money without giving it much thought, but what we need to do is ask ourselves, "What else could be be doing with this money?" Once you start throwing some numbers together, it becomes obvious that we could do much better things with 424 billion dollars than kill people.

We could provide government housing for 3,817,099 families, according to CostOfWar.com, or medically insure 253,850,000 children. While Bush has been pushing for increased funding for his war in Iraq, he has also been working to cut government-sponsored medical plans. Education is an area we all know is woefully underfunded. This amount of money could employ 7,346,799 teachers for one year or provide 20,551,257 students with a four-year-scholarship to a public university. How many starving children could we feed and clothe with this money? How many African AIDS victims could receive treatment? How many of our senior citizens could live comfortably?

The sad thing is that the tremendous amount of money that is spent on the war doesn't even begin to cover the real cost of the war in Iraq. What is the real cost? To date, 3,378 United States soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq, 80 of them women, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. 24, 314 soldiers have been wounded, as well. That is a huge loss to our country. What about the cost of the war to the rest of the world? The war has claimed the lives of 148 soldiers from the United Kingdom, 33 Italians, 20 Poles, 18 soldiers from Ukraine, 13 Bulgarians, 11 Spaniards, as well as soldiers from Australia, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, and Thailand. A total of 223 soldiers from other countries have died in Iraq fighting Bush's war. Then we get to civilian deaths. Many jounalists and other workers who have gone to Iraq have died, and the number of Iraqi civilian deaths is perhaps one of the most sobering statistics of all. 38,198 Iraqis have died that we know of. This number includes men, women, and a startling number of children. Over 41,799 people have died as a result of this unnecessary, senseless war. The big question we have to ask ourselves is: Is it worth it? Is anything worth this?