Steve,
There's an 'ol saying: When something is too difficult (maybe here we should include 'and too costly' ), that means there's something wrong in what we're doing.

Wise people stop, assess, and look for a different approach.

Why, isn't this money well spent? Just look at all the wondrous democracy that America has shock and awed on Iraq. Of course this is money well spent. Bush has the keys to the national treasury and he can simply print more and more money any time he feels the need. One could get the impression from all the negativity, that Bush doesn't know what in the hell he is doing. Bush must know what he's doing, he keeps telling America he knows what he's doing. Wait, that brings up a serious question. Does anyone in Washington know what they are doing? I mean besides the war stuff and the illegal detention stuff and the torture stuff. Well then, there is that spying stuff and the denials by Berty Gonzales stuff. Hmmm, maybe we Americans are just screwed after all.

Another way to look at $300 Billion is that its $1000 for every man, woman, child, and babe-in-arms in the US. I wonder if anyone thainks they have gotten $1000 worth of benefit out of this expenditure.

I understand though, that this is not the real expenditure, which I belive has been variously estimated at $1 to $2 Trillion, when future veterans benefits, interest expenses, and weapons replacements are calculated. And as the article says, it does not include the soft doillar cost of lost US prestige and power around the world.

Steve:

The problems w/ the role of the military-industrial-POLITICAL (DDE’s original terminology) are at the heart of what is wrong with America today. The $300 billion figure is PURE fiction, with some of the excluded costs mentioned. Coming from NM, you must realize that much of our nuclear deterrent is in the Energy department, not DOE The Joe Stiglitz-Linda Bilmes well reported study concluding costs of $US 1-2 Trillion is much more accurate. This translates into $40,000-80,000/ capita, or a cool quarter million US$ / Iraqi family.

I am heartened by Sen. Specter's willingness to take on the administration's usurpation of Congressional oversight in Military expenditures, and only hope it is not a diversion for discussing and usurping what are even more important issues

What none is willing to acknowledge is the role of Congress in using fear, covert military actions, and military expenditure to enhance incumbency. Even NM DEM Sen. Bingaman --for whom you once worked- opposed the closure of the Clovis Military Base, insisting on finding a military mission under the auspices of preserving jobs, rather than looking out for LR interests of SOCIALLY USEFUL jobs, and converting infrastructure and labor to socially useful endeavors. The building of military aircraft now is outsourced to ALL 50 states, ensuring that ALL Congressmen have an incentive to grow the military budget. As you also must know, the issue of jobs-community
impact is also a major deterrent to addressing the role of the National Labs such as Los Alamos.

Rumsfeld's focus on "capability" is reminiscient of the USFS use of sustained yield to mask more explicit intent to create missions were none previously existed.

Until we address the issue of SECRECY in general, and do an honest cost-benefit analysis of what is involved in Military secrecy, we are doomed to creating Wars, funding a military military budget to "fight" those wars, and creating as a byproduct a political process that no longer sees the government as a vehicle for implementing what "we the people" which to see enacted as government policy. We have yet to discuss the extent to which the US created the jihadist movement, and more specifically the extent to which the secret component of the military/security??? branch was directly responsible. Until we explicitly confront the issue of whether secrecy enhances or detracts security, we are merely pissing in the wind, and going through a charade of addressing the proper role of the military.

A preliminary step to this would be for Kansas GOP Sen. Roberts to hold those Phase II public hearings regarding the administrations behavior regarding whether intelligence was gathered and used to enhance the security of the US citizenry, or whether the purpose of "intelligence" was to achieve a long held political agenda. While some folks are willing to address this, the fact of the matter is, just like with the Germans of the Third Reich, for most the truth is too painful and frightening.

Don't forget the rise of Hamas in Palestine and the rise in socialism in South America.

As Howard Dean's ably puts it "I think the press in general is a failed institution in this country. For two reasons...the biggest problem with the media is first that 90 percent of Americans get their news from eleven corporations so that the loyalty in the editorial staff and higher up is principally to the shareholders rather than to the public. And the second problem is that entertainment has supplanted news value."

Have you had enough of the Republican outrage?

Join the revolution http://www.boycott-republicans.com

In the 12/5/2002!! issue of the NYRB, William Nordhaus, Sterling Prof. of Economics at Yale, included a table which estimated the costs of a then potential war in Iraq. Low ball figure for a favorable war with a quick resolution: $121 billion; high ball figure for a protracted struggle in the decade following invasion (i.e. 2003-2012) which now seems the likely scenario: 1.595 Trillion (with a "T"). Now, THAT is a lot of money.

To those who have been placing some hope on those Republican Senators (esp.Sens. Hagal and Specter) expressing concern over the admistrations claim of essentially unfettered executive powers in time of war may be interested in Carl Rove's attempt to undermine this effort.

http://tinyurl.com/b9act

You guys are all full of it. 300 Billion? My a**. Where in any of the last few budgets have we seen this kind of scratch devoted to Iraq? Huh? It's not there! I don't see any of this kind of moolah in the 2006 budget! Therefore, we really aren't paying a dime for Iraq...

Wait....hold on...whoops. Bush NEVER puts these expenditures in the budget. It's therefore like a free war! Hooray! Anyone else suspect Iran will be "free" as well?

Yikes.

300 Billion that could have gone to help fix New Orleans, Improve Transportation Infrastructure, Renovate Energy Policy and Provide Tax Incentives for Research.

Listen, Im conservative and a Republican, but this whole Iraq thing doesnt make any sense, not in the whole "breeze of democracy" and "national security" standpoint even disregarding the cost.

300 Billion.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03281051.htm

Insufficient $-help from US govenment to New Orleans, Nagin is asking for international assistance.

Lindsay failed to factor in the mind-numbing incompetence and ineptitude of the Bush administration.

With great ideas come huge responsibilities. When I visited Washington it weren't the enormous memorials of Lincoln or Washington or Roosevelt that struck me most. It was the relatively humble Jefferson memorial that showed me that the United States was built on an idea rather than tradition. Still the US has some odd traditions, for example voting. Can anyone here explain me why voters have to register instead of receiving their 'invitation' to take part in an election through the mail such as most democratic countries do? Would't that be the hallmark of democracy, to, at least invite all of the citizins to vote? Might sound a tad radical these days but doesn't democracy start with opening institutions to the people?

You are right. We could have bought the country for less than it cost us to invade.

One more way to look at it: Assume there are 50,000 individuals in the WORLD ready to martyr themselves in conflict with the US. We are spending, considering both DOD and Homeland Security, AT LEAST $100 Billion annually to confront them - $TWO MILLION PER TERRORIST PER YEAR - plus the deaths and maimings. Very clearly this is not sustainable, forget justifiable.

It is simply insane.

The next tragedy will be failure of the 2-party system to produce rational (meaning at very least pols who can divide 100,000,000,000 by 50,000) leadership in 2006 and 2008.

I too am a conservative Republican.

Why don't you do something about the advertising spam that finds its way into every comment section?

Dear Ohiodem1:

On advertising spam, please know that I am 'doing something' to deal with it. It's just that what I am doing is unsatisfactory and only partially effective.

I probably need to go to a system where commenters register and go through some log-on system, but this requires time to set up and will kill off some of the general, immediate posting commenters would like to make. Thus, I have tipped the balance towards keeping comment posts easy rather than monitoring all comments or spam.

I do several things to preempt much of the spamming.

First, I cut off and "close" the comments on a section after a few days -- as most of the 'bots' that post this spam -- try and do so on "old" rather than "new" blog posts.

Second, I monitor the ISP addresses of the spammers and block each and everyone. I've choked off most of the most outrageous fixed ISP addresses involved in this.

Third,I try and monitor this on a daily basis -- and just individually delete unwanted spam when I see it or when it's flagged for me by a TWN reader....just like i did with the spam that preceded your post.

I could get rid of all of this if I compelled you and other posters to register with my site, get a password and go through the cumbersome process of signing on to comment. I hate doing that for newspapers -- and thus I've resisted doing it here.

In the medium term, I may have no choice but to go this direction -- but I wanted to share this with readers and you because I think it's a legitimate gripe.

You just need to know that any public blog with comments -- that are not filtered -- wrestles with this problem.

Thanks for your note -- and I'll keep you posted if we either have to go to a "no comments" policy or a filtered comments policy.

This blog is my hobby -- not avocation -- so I don't have the time to monitor each comment that goes up as it goes up. I read everything in segments of time that I set aside.

Will keep working on it.

best regards,

Steve Clemons
The Washington Note

Steve,

Conyers blog lost many good posters when they went to a login system. I like the freedom you have here, and applaud your efforts. My gut feeling is your blog is good the way it is.

I appreciate your response. Your articles and insight are top notch.

Amen Steve.

I think the spam problem, may be one thing we have to deal with.

Sort of like democracy in Rumsfeld's head. Its not always tidy.

Is Steve Clemons saying that Iraqi lives are worth only about $2,000 apiece because that's what per capita income in Iraq is?

Well, according to the IRS Im only worth as much taxes as the government can suck out my paycheck every two weeks.