What could the US have done with the money it has spent on the war in Iraq?

There is an article from last year that states the war in Iraq could surpass $1 trillion by the time we pull out an article from the NY times puts the total at $1.2 trillion.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11880954/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/b...tml?ex=1326690000&en=7f221bfce7a6408c&ei=5090

What could the US have done with that money instead? What would 1 trillion dollars buy? How many US citizens could have gone to college with that money? What sort of alternative energy technologies could have been developed?

I don't think the US has benefited from the war. I don't the average American's life has improved because of the war. The only clear winner so far seems to be Haliburton.

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/

 

They could have used that to stop the dollar currency fall lol

 

So we should stop funding Halliburton and start thinking about ourselves

 

That would be a nice first step

 

It certainly seems fishy that the government is using tax dollars to pay for no-bid contracts with a company that the vice president used to be CEO of.

Now if that is a coincidence, I mighty convenient coincidence.

 

I am sure it is just a coincidence, none of those in power or those behind them have made a dime off this war

 

Iraq war could cost US over $2 trillion, says Nobel prize-winning economist

Iraq war could cost $2.6 trillion

I also read an article about what could be done with this money somewhere, I'll try finding and post if i get.

 

Do you mean to use the money to build schools, provide health care for the poor, housing for homeless, sending more people to college or find cures for disease like cancer, instead of spending it on the war?

You must a socialist or even worse a communist, an Anti-American and pro-terrorist. How can you be against capitalism and throw away the tax dollars on such things? We will fight against all you communists and spend our money on wars, this is the AMERICAN way.

 

Another coincident is that Bush and Cheney always find WMD or a few terrorists in oil-rich countries

 

well look at the bright side, very few are left that don't see what a mistake invading iraq was

there is a few vocal holdouts but at this point most of the country has come around.

I find very ironic that often the same conservatives who squeal about social programs etc, have no problem with billions just disappearing in Iraq

they are like "OMG some tax money funded a museum, which has art I can understand, it must stop" but like a billion just straight disappears in Iraq, no biggie

 

And isn't that about what it comes down to? Imagine the wonderful advances that could have been made in America and around the world with 2+ trillion dollars. College? How about ending world poverty? 50 million people in the US have no health insurance, countless millions go hungry, terrorist groups train and breed on their very own soil, and Bush and friends spend the cash on fighting a group of insane men who live in caves thousands of miles away. Brilliant, and so typically American.

 

Have you met the Americans who post here?

 

It's not really like we had a trillion dollars sitting around anyway, so we could have just never spent it and would have had less debt. But I guess we could have built up our security in America. We could have funded programs that would help to prevent terrorist acts inside US and beef up the border patrol I guess. That would have probably been a more effective reaction to 911.

 

They could have used to money to make a new Rambo movie, "Rambo first blood : part 4 The American dream."

Or spent it on that other stuff mentioned....

 

That would have been a more effective and long-lasting reaction to 9/11 by so many leaps and bounds it's astounding. Why is it that I, an ordinary Canadian citizen, realized that at about 9 PM on September 11th, 2001, and the American administration still can't figure it out?

 

?don't know

 

Colonized Mars?

 

Most Americans do 'now' think it was a mistake, most want out at this point. The few who post here struggle to even believe in it themselves IMHO.

Just because a few hold outs still try to rant and rave on one end for the war with imaginary headlines and scare tactics does not make it the voice of the land.

 

Definitely true, but there are still so many who do, and their voices are very loud at times. And the truth is that there was no way to justify the war at its inception either. Clarity is obviously coming to many Americans now that their sons and daughters are being slaughtered on a regular basis, but they should have figured that out after they wiped out the first few thousand Iraqi civilians. It's a selfish war, like any war.

Ironically that was you 6,666 post Good thing this isn't a religious discussion!

 

BTW I was against the war from the get go.

Americans were swayed by the terror and fear speaches, hook line and sinker. Most of my family backed the war as all they had time for was to watch a few news programs. Programs show casing Bush and Cheney talking about Saddam ready to attack the US, sending over unmanned planes to hit us at this very moment, nukes, missiles, terrorism.

The administration played on fear, the few that actually watch the news on more than a one sided view had a better picture of reality. At this point you had those who simply sided with the Bush / Cheney side, most of those still remain as they will support Bush and Cheney even if they start eating small children.

The other side is the extreme liberals who will never see Bush / Cheney doing anything right.

You then had a few in the middle...

Most however were simply clueless and 'thought' their administration was doing what it had to do in order to protect them.

Dumb ass lines such as 'we fight them there so we don't fight them here' come to mind...

I debated for some time until it became apparent that no matter how many times proven wrong the extreme right and extreme left for that matter wouldn't change their mind.

Look at the dumb religious threads, the righties attack Muslims even when it's not a muslim religious issue, but totally change tune on the Catholic equivalent. Same on the other side as well.

Guess just no point, thankfully people finally awoke to the truth..