Back in 2007, Democrats on Congress' Joint Economic Committee issued a report on the two wars estimating their cost from 2002 to 2008 at $1.6 trillion. They put the cost to an American family of four at $20,900. That's a whopping sum---but given all the indirect ways the wars have crippled the U.S. economy, probably a gross undercount.
President Obama's expansion of the Afghan war into Pakistan has engulfed much of the Middle East in bloodshed that is, sad to say, of America's making. And pouring more U.S. treasure into Pakistan will only further weaken the U.S. economy. This writer believes the American people---who want only what President Eisenhower's slogan, "Peace and Prosperity," once promised them---are going to pay dearly for a widening war the majority of them reject. And it may also bring economic catastrophe our way, courtesy of the "military-industrial complex" of which Eisenhower warned.
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(Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based public relations counselor who formerly worked for major dailies and wire services)
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