Via Brad Plumer, a new report which indicates "Projected total US spending on the Iraq war could cover all of the global investments in renewable power generation that are needed between now and 2030 in order to halt current warming trends."
It's worth noting, however, that we obviously have a great deal of control over forward-looking spending. If you believe that General Petraeus is succeeding in Iraq, then you owe it to yourself and to the country to understand General Petraeus' vision of success "Northern Ireland, I think, taught you that very well. My counterparts in your [British] forces really understand this kind of operation... It took a long time, decades." That would obviously be a costly undertaking.
From the point of view of U.S. and global interest, one has to ask oneself if decades -- or according to a more optimistic later Petraeus quote, as few as one decade -- of further war, with future costsly likely exceeding the sums already spent, is really the best use of American resources. I don't think the claim that it is stands up to any kind of cursory scrutiny. There's a time-honored principle of budget politics which holds that defense spending isn't really spending, but in fact it really is spending and there's no prospect of getting a reasonable return on an open-ended commitment to Iraq.
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Heads in the Sand
And this is a critical area where our press is failing us. Because I read blogs, I know the GOP's Iraq plan is to spend decades, trillions more dollars, and thousands more American lives there.
Most Americans have no clue of this. They assume that even in the GOP's mind, victory is not that far away - maybe a few more years.
I'd be surprised if as much as 1/4 of the electorate would favor staying in Iraq if they knew it was an additional 10-year commitment, at a minimum.
If the Dems can succeed in getting this message across to the American people - and they should be harvesting every quote by Petraeus and our other generals, not to mention McCain, to this effect - then we can beat them over the head with this in the fall. Because few are interested in spending another 10 years in Iraq.
Posted by low-tech cyclist | March 22, 2008 10:29 AM