The dangerous times of fiscal instability ahead..

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe--bilmes-war-cost-20110918,0,1598244.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MostEmailed+%28L.A.+Times+-+Most+E-mailed+Stories%29



"Ten years into the war on terror, the U.S. has largely succeeded in its attempts to destabilize Al Qaeda and eliminate its leaders. But the cost has been enormous, and our decisions about how to finance it have profoundly damaged the U.S. economy.

Many of these costs were unnecessary. We chose to fight in
Iraq and Afghanistan with a small, all-volunteer force, and we supplemented the military presence with a heavy reliance on civilian contractors. These decisions not only placed enormous strain on the troops but dramatically pushed up costs. Recent congressional investigations have shown that roughly 1 of every 4 dollars spent on wartime contracting was wasted or misspent.

To date, the United States has spent more than $2.5 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon spending spree that accompanied it and a battery of new homeland security measures instituted after Sept. 11."

My reflection:

With hindsight can we say after all Saddam Hussein was right... the attack on his country without reason would lead to "mother of all battles" --- not the ground based physical one, but in terms of complete disruption of financial stability of the world.

Osama also achieved his object making citizens of the most powerful nation daily live in fear.You can see it visible in airport security. Spending your own money this guy has achieved what he set out to do. It is almost like daily dying with fear.

The oil prices, we all are paying for it too. Our basic incompetence has not allowed to splurge money on securing our nation against terror. May be that is why the economy is still holding. Should we say, our approach is right.

Ultimately the money did go some where. To private contractors. That is why the wealthy in US became richer at the end of all this turmoil.

Hundreds of thousands of young men and women will suffer traumatic life with lost limbs. Those dead, one way, got liberated.

Millions are scraping and living on doles of weekly support, with no jobs.

No fiscal or monetary tools of correction are available to the government. Truly what a state of affairs for a sound and healthy nation!!!

Could any one predict or imagine some thing like this a decade earlier?

But a few wise men did caution. As usual the voice of good men remains weak, like our own conscience telling us gently, when we indulge in those deviations from straight and narrow path in life.

Humans prove themselves to be the stupids of the first order but never learn too from their mistakes.


Only pain and harsh life brings back sense. Will it be too late? The sad part is the rich always escape. The poor and the meek only suffer. The latter are supposed to inherit the earth.

May be the 6 ft of it.

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