Happy Anniversary for the War in Iraq
This post was published 2 years 7 months 22 days ago and its content may not be valid anymore.Nothing more is needed in celebration of the War in Iraq:
This week, we celebrate the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq. I still remember the start very well. Time for a calculation.
1. The newspaper today states one minute of war in Iraq costs US$380,000. A calculation made by Joseph Stiglitz, a US Nobelprize winning economist. That is almost double the cost of the war in Vietnam.
2. According to WFP, the UN’s food aid organisation, it costs US$0.19 to feed a child for a day. Nineteen cents. 20,000 children die of hunger every day. The time it took you to read this post, already 15 died.
3. Taking those two figures together, one minute of war in Iraq would feed 2,000,000 children for a day. One day of war in Iraq would feed 20,000,000 children for a year.
Thanks to The Road to the Horizon for breaking down the amount of time and money spent in Iraq into more tangible examples.
Something to think about…
I hate that war too =/
I’m a pessimist so I wonder if we weren’t wasting money on Iraq, what would we be wasting it on?
Gasoline probably.
The world consumes $8.2 trillion dollars of oil per day, give or take, given taxes. That would probably feed everyone in the world at 8200
One day’s worth of oil would (using the $0.19 figure) feed the world’s population for the next 16 years.
I can spout off numbers all day. =)
Typo in second sentence, ignore that.
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/the-awesome-deferred.php
It’s generally wacky, but #6 and #7 are the painful, down to earth ones.
But wasn’t it right thing to do? I mean you had the support of whole world to start a war with faked evidences. I mean, you even selected your president to continue this victorious path of freedom. I mean, you guys aren’t going to wave French flag of surrender on this one? Doesn’t make any sense huh? What about the people who know nothing in UN, you are now going to withdraw and put everything under UN?
And what do you have now…
You have a concentration camp in Guantanamo, where your government does crimes against human rights with using a flaw in law system, it does make it a right thing to do, does it?
You are also one of the most hated nations in the world, mostly thanks to war in Iraq and everything related to this catastrophe. But that doesn’t seem to be enough, maybe Iran can give you a fight you want.
Makes you feel proud to be a American, huh?
There is nothing wrong making mistakes if you learn from them, but this is just hilarious.
Yeah it was the war in Iraq that made people hate the US. That was the only thing.
The possibility of using UN peace keepers in Iraq is about as stupid as entreating the French to do much more than produce wine and lacy women’s undergarments.
And you’re right the war began under false pretense. Bush is a moron, there’s few who would say otherwise.
I’m sure the reasons we’re there make even the slightest difference to the hundreds of Iraqi people I’ve met in my tours there who would be living a life of fear were it not for regime change the US was able to bring about.
Where were the world’s intellectuals and sycophants who jump at any chance to bash the US when the Iraqi government made sport out of slaughtering and otherwise oppressing their own people?
They were probably at a meeting of the UN somewhere.
Yeah, Adam, god knows that the Iraqi’s don’t live in fear NOW… they’re just waiting for the regime change we may bring about… eventually. And yeah, i’ts such a TERRIBLE idea to try to use peace to solve problems, you know, instead of going in and dropping bombs on civ’s. Today 12 people were killed in a bomb outside an embassy, and a nine year old boy was injured. This is due to the fact that WE chose to invade a country that never asked for our help. Yes, Saddam was not a good man, but it was not our place to invade. By this logic, we have to invade North Korea, Iran, and eventually every other country that (we deem) to be unfair. I almost envy your blindness, I suppose they’re right when they say ignorance is bliss… almost, but not really.
Oh and by the way, it was the French who first thought of democracy as we know it. Without the French we would not be a country. This anti-French ranting is the most ridiculous, hypocritical bullshit that’s been caused by our blind nationalism yet.
@JJ
schmuck …. I’m not sure if you understand the complexity of a voting system, or quite possibly war, and politics not to mention hidden agenda or fear.
obviously you aren’t from here so let me fill you in real simple like.
1. BOOM BOOM BOOM planes hit our buildings (those 2 tower things, and that 8 sided one maybe you’ve heard of them)
2. President elected by the “bible belt” (red states, most of us hated him, now pretty much all of us do) says “They blew up our shit, now lets get em”
3. Some guys in cozy offices decided we should blow some stuff up
4. The presidents intern forgot to fax the memo to the US’s entire population outlining Bushes hidden agenda and faked evidence for our signature of approval, with that being a small monday detail they just went ahead and started some wars.
with that being said, I have never dropped a bomb or shot at an Iraqi most of use didn’t support the war from the beginning and still don’t…. the idea of going against the UN and other allies because Haliburton wanted to experience exponential growth is absolutely insane and last but not least …. not sure if you’ve ever been to America but we are fairly competitive … hence us winning your bike race so many years in a row, we will never wave the french flag to get back to your crosiant, failing economy, and burning cars
Good Day Sir.
correction in a fit of pissed of a referred to the pentagon as an 8 sided building… I meant 5 ;)
Amen Chad.
Is a small Monday detail, the same as a mundane detail?
4. The presidents intern forgot to fax the memo to the US’s entire population outlining Bushes hidden agenda and faked evidence for our signature of approval, with that being a small monday detail they just went ahead and started some wars.
So by fake evidence are you referring to the intelligence reports from the CIA, Great Britain’s Intelligence Agency, and the Russian Intelligence reports that were all laid on the desk of the President? Because, with all that evidence who would think they were ALL off?
@Brian
Hind sight is always 20/20 :)
and in regards to calling the evidence fake I only did so in response to this sentence from JJ “I mean you had the support of whole world to start a war with faked evidences.”
I just wonder how many attacks on US soil have been stopped because of our invading Iraq? As far as I am concerned, stay there and keep the douchebag terrorists on their toes and bag them one by one. I would MUCH rather have the bloodshed there than over here.
@Emory
I was responding to a post that seems to have been moderated out. I think you’re missing the point of my comment a bit.
As for the French inventing democracy: Don’t tell the Greeks or Ancient Romans that, they might become offended.
And, God willing someone will eventually topple the murderous regimes in the countries you mentioned. I’ve seen the kind of happiness that can be the result of a people freed from tyranny. The death toll in Iraq is terrible, no one could deny that. But you seem to think that American soldiers are the ones racking up the body counts. That is the biggest misconceptions about the situation. The people doing the killing in that country are terrorists of every variety, from Iraqis to Iranians to any other flavor you can think of. Mostly it’s Iraqis killing other Iraqis. It was that way before we got there, it will continue to be that way for some time.
For instance one of the bases that I was stationed at had mortar holes that looked alot older than some of the fresher ones. I asked some of the Iraqis there if they were from Desert Storm 1. Nope, Americans never hit that base with small arms, it turns out all the old holes are from the mid 90’s. Where Iraqi people were shelling their own military.
I’m not saying going to Iraq was a great idea. I’m just saying that there are worse things in the world than getting rid of the Ba’ath party. That country has problems on top of problems. Some we surely created, but not all, not even close.