There are various estimations of what the war in Iraq has cost the USG so far.
Here is one running calculation ($580 billion), and another ($618 billion).
This report puts the number at $900 billion. Stiglitz said $3 trillion earlier this year.
Let’s take that $900 billion number, just for illustration.
The population of Iraq is 27.5 million.
Divide $900 billion by 27.5 million = $32,000.
That’s $32,000 for each man, woman and child in Iraq. My last estimation was closer to half this amount.
I also outlined there what a family of four Iraqis might do with $16,000 a piece.
For $32,000 each I think we could have moved them all here, housed them, put them through college, and bought them a used car.
Instead they live like this. (Be sure to link through to the Red Cross report and peruse it a bit.)
The ethical implications of this are a no-brainer. Christians ought not to support wars, even for humanitarian purposes. Instead they ought to support open-immigration laws, and then volunteer to pay for refugee and oppressed peoples rescue efforts.
Stop supporting the war. Now.
Comment (1)
Brilliant stuff. I’ve analyzed a lot of government spending in terms of opportunity cost, i.e., “What else could we have done, that would’ve been objectively better for *everyone* involved?” but never thought to look at the cost of war like this.
Thx.
Trackback/Pingback (1)
[...] In Immigration: Open the Borders, I pointed to a Juris Naturalis post about immigration, in which the author was addressing “Christians amenable to liberty” on the benevolence of open immigration. This week, I found myself browsing another post at Juris Naturalis, this time, a very short but to-the-point anti-war plea. [...]