By appropriation, military personnel accounts are $142.8 billion of the base budget. Operations and maintenance is $204.4 billion, procurement is $113 billion and research and development is $75.3 billion."
Taken as a safe assumption that this relationship represents the average expenditure ratio between military support and direct spending on the Middle East War effort, the math is quite simple. $117.8 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan divided by the entire budget of $671 Billion means that 18% of the Defense Budget is devoted directly to the Wars.
Taking this a step further; if one calculates the total spent on the War of $1.28 Trillion (based on the 18% average of total defense budget), then the amount of money that has gone to defense since 9/11 totals $1.28 trillion/ 18%= $7.12 trillion dollars. Of course, now that bin Laden's death has reinvigorated the engines of the military machine, we can expect another ten years of this insanity and with the inflation rate figured in, it would be safe to say another $10 trillion will be spent on this ongoing American Holy War while Americans continue to lose their piece of the American Pie at home.
Of course, the reality is much deeper than the numbers given to us from the government. If it weren't for the war effort, the support would be much less needed so one may as well assign half of the current budget to the cause and is also does not account for the monies gone to "rebuilding" Iraq and Afghanistan which comes from funds allocated as foreign aid. This means that the realistic number spent on the War effort is more accurately; twice what they tell us.
The recent victory of our military engine only serves to condone the expenditure at at time when America is facing a fiscal catastrophe. Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), recently told The New York Times "We can't pay our bills here, yet we're spending $8 billion a month in Afghanistan. I don't know what our country is trying to accomplish. History says Afghanistan will never be a nation. It will be a country of tribes. We're wearing out the troops and spending money we don't have." It is refreshing to finally hear that some of our representatives are concerned for our future here in America .
This monetary expenditure is astoundingly devastating to our economic state but it means little in the face of the number of human lives lost to the machine. According to Unknown News , " about 303 times as many people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq than in the ghastly attacks of September 11, 2001. More than 130 times as many people have been killed in these wars and occupations than in all terrorist attacks in the world from 1993-2004 ". Have we gotten our revenge yet or have Americans become so obsessed with killing Muslims regardless of their innocence that we need more to sate the demons of death that have taken residence in our culture? When will the numbers come to mean something to us Americans?
In his article, " Where Have All the Graveyards Gone? ", Adam Rothschild has asked the poignant question;
"What if, from the beginning, everyone killed in the Iraq and Afghan wars had been buried in a single large cemetery easily accessible to the American public? Would it bring the fighting to a halt more quickly if we could see hundreds of thousands of tombstones, military and civilian, spreading hill after hill, field after field, across our landscape?" Also, "Where are the public places for mourning the mounting toll of today's wars? Where is that feeling of never again?"
Also, Phil Rockstroh in his piece, The Politics Of Revenge And Submission , on the subject of the Wars and the associated policies of the Patriot Act states;
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