Impact of Iraq and Afghanistan War?

This is pretty broad – I’ll cite to this as a good resource.

It depends on how you measure “cost.” Does cost include just military expenses, or does it also include things like medical costs to veterans? Or lost opportunity costs?

The Washington Post pegs Iraq at at least $3 trillion.

That’s just money, of course. The most horrible cost of the war, for Americans, is the ~4,500 soldiers who died in Iraq, and the ~30,000 soldiers who were wounded, many permanently disabled. A huge proportion of veterans are also now homeless.

And even though you didn’t ask about them, the Iraqi people have paid the highest price for this war. More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the war started.

In Afghanistan about 1,500 US soldiers have died. At least 10,000 Afghan civilians have died. The official cost of the war so far is about $345 billion, but again, it depends on what else you count as “costs.”

I would say that the costs for those unnecessary wars in unfathomable. There is the direct cost of the military adventures, deaths and hospitalizations on both (or all three sides). The destruction of the lives for military and their family, the loss of jobs for the reservists, and the loss of credibility for our country and its citizens. Not to mention the cost for prison camps hidden all over the world and the damage the CIA does in the name of our country.

It will be more than a 100 years before we ever know the cost caused by the war criminals in the previous administration and the policies still carried out by the current one. I expect, in money alone the cost will be in the tens of trillions of dollars and millions of lives in many countries including our own. In absolute costs, these wars are far more expensive than WW2 and Korea combined and who knows how great this country could have become before we began our decline into empire building.

At last, i thought this was swept under the carpet, Kudos. What with Egypt and all

Iraq in particular is a spectacle of American weakness. Good or bad, that’s not going to help the USA in future military interventions.

Unnecessary? Then why did so many vote for war with Iraq and so many vote for President Obama who said he would win the war in Afghanistan. There are always so many sun shine troops who leave at the first difficulty or cold weather and will never forgive those who did not give up with them. Losers, I would say. Many did not want to fight at any time. That is a rational position. But they were not the majority.

How has it affected the USA. It has been a division and got a President elected. But now we know that when it gets tough, many of us will give it up.

But their habits came home. They can not even win elections now. They buzz about “General Betray US.” They think that is intelligent discussion of the issues. Code Pink blathers on.

The result is that Republicans win elections and have no good way to serve the USA. They just serve the rich. They get a free pass when the left has divided the nation.

It will be a tough patch for us to ride out.