A True Accounting

So how much has the "War on Terror" and its components, Iraq and Afghanistan, truly cost the American people? Paul Wolfowitz low-balled and obfuscated with his argument that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for reconstruction. The Bush Administration consistently downplayed the cost of the wars (it would be laughable, were it not so depressing, to read George Bush's words in 2003 that "this economy cannot afford to stand an attack" from Iraq or any terrorist group--as if our economy can withstand the hundreds of billions spent so far).
And yet, as we see more clearly with each passing day, the true costs are not so hidden after all. Consider this laundry list: longterm healthcare expenses for combat wounded veterans (and we all appreciate what those costs can be when we consider our own health expenses); the record price of oil due, in large part, to instability in the region worsened by our actions; interests payments on money borrowed from, among others, China. And the huge rise in oil prices not only costs us more, it pours money into the pockets of oil-rich nations such as Iran and Venezuela, regimes hardly sympathetic to the United States.
And it gets worse. The congressional Joint Economic Committee estimates the total at more than $1.5 trillion. While Republicans disputed the numbers, others have put the price tag at $2 trillion.
Does anyone need to be reminded that Republicans promote themselves as fiscally responsible? Indeed, George Bush is playing that angle even now. After vetoing a domestic funding bill, he observed that "this year alone, the leadership in Congress has proposed to spend $22 billion more than my budget provides. Now, some of them claim that's not really much of a difference -- the scary part is, they seem to mean it."
That's the "scary part," is it? That $22 billion frightens him, does it? No wonder the rest of us are horrified, even if he isn't, at the more than $1 trillion thus far spent on the worst blunder in American history.