What’s the cost of war? Obviously there’s so many ways to measure it in terms of the devastation it wreaks on untold numbers of lives. But, let’s be more crass here: show me the money. The National Priorities Project shows its version of the Cost of War:
Currently, the War in Iraq has cost $341,390,328,877.
Instead, we could have hired 5,916,339 additional public school teachers for one year.
Instead, we could have provided 16,549,869 students four-year scholarships at public universities.
Obviously there’s moral, theological and other important issues involved here. But seriously, those numbers are appalling. The site above also has a way to see the impact of the war on local communities in terms of pure $. For instance, the war has cost Fargo, ND (population: 90,672) $59,636,965. This is ridiculous, even from a purely economic point of view.
Go check out the Cost of War site. It has a counter of the Cost of War, and it’s now up to $341,392,190,394.
4 responses to “The Cost of War”
3 MILLION units of housing!
national priorities indeed.
oh america, what you sow you will reap.
But Matt…don’t you remember? We must protect our freedom and rid the world of evil.
Oh right, I forgot about that high, noble calling. How silly of me.
We shold fight for our freedom and thay is what afganasthan is about, but not sure about Iraq.
there were no weapons of mass destruction and the threat of terroism is no better toady now that the leaders have gone.
So for freedom yes
To show our muscles, no