Libya vs Iraq! Republican Wars vs Democrat Wars

Libya vs Iraq and the cost of one foreign policy vs another foreign policy. Never mind the cost in lives. Never mind the cost in equipment. Never mind the cost in disabled soldiers. Let's just measure the cost in good old U.S. green backs.

$3 to 5 trillion. Total economic cost of the Iraq war, according to economist Joseph E. Stiglitz. http://t.co/QH7qXOzo

 

8 years, 260 days since Secretary of State Colin Powell presented evidence of Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons program
8 years, 215 days since the March 20, 2003 invasion of Iraq
8 years, 175 days since President George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln
4,479 U.S. military fatalities
30,182 U.S. military injuries
468 contractor fatalities
103,142 – 112,708 documented civilian deaths
2.8 million internally displaced Iraqis
$806 billion in federal funding for the Iraq War through FY2011
$3 – $5 trillion in total economic cost to the United States of the Iraq war according to economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Blimes
$60 billion in U.S. expenditures lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001
0 weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq​

 

Thats like comparing apples to oranges. You could just as easily compare WWII to, say, any other war.

 

Isn't apples to oranges Herman Cain's line? It's an apt comparison because they are both Muslim countries, they both had dictators we wanted gone, both had large stock piles of weapons, both killed large numbers of their own citizens, both threatened the U.S. either through terrorism or destabilizing the region, both have large amounts of oil, .... I mean the similarities are too many to actually list. The fact that Obama spent about 2 billion on Libya, lost no American lives, and in the end got rid of a brutal dictator which is all that we accomplished in Iraq anyway, says me that it was a vastly better investment than the pointless war we fought over the last 9 years.

 

Got to disagree with you Moen. the dictator in Lybia was sixty eight years old or something like that. He wanted his pro=western son to take over. He toned down his act big time over the years so his kid can position himself to take over without threat from the west. What happened. The Saudi connection happened. They did not want Lybia to be pro west and pro africa. they wanted lybia to be a religiuos vessel naton beholden to the Saudi Royal Family who are the guardians of Mecca and leaders of the fundamentist sunni movement that I have been posting about. We lost in both wars. Could have made a difference in the first one as a nation builder but it was more of a money grab. Never cared about the second, just did what the Saudi governement wanted us to do .

 

First off, I think the comparison between the two is absolutely justifiable!

Now as to the costs, these figures are going to continue to rise, even if we left Iraq completely today. The 30,000+ wounded are going to (rightly) receive substantial benefits for the rest of their lives. The beenfits to the soldier's children will continue through college. The expenses in Libya were minute in comparison.

 

I've tended to take all this Saudi stuff with a small grain of salt. It's kind of neat and convenient. But I'm thinking more and more that you're on to something

 

I firmly believe that there is a heavy Saudi influence in our foreign policy in that region.

 

I've never disputed that. But the nature and degree of that influence is perhaps more destructive than I'd thought.