Operation Iraqi Freedom A Bargain

Here's a little note to one of our commenters who claimed that the "trillion dollar" war in Iraq is bankrupting the country. Turns out it ain't so.

Turns out the cost to date of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as a percentage of GDP, is on a par with the Mexican War, Spanish-American War, and the 1991 Gulf War - a cumulative total of about 2% of a single year's GDP, or about $250 billion in today's dollars. This is in contrast to the War of 1812, Korea, and Vietnam (~10% of GDP), World War I (~25%), the Revolutionary War (~65%), the Civil War (~105%), or World War II (~130%).

And, of course, World War II needn't have been a global conflict if the aggressors - Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan - had been confronted pre-emptively in the 1930s. A lesson we applied to Iraq that we are, foolishly, failing to apply to Iran.

The cost of that error could cost a helluva lot more than just dollars and cents. But it's a "buck" that you know tinfoil hat-wearers like the aforementioned commentor will always pass no matter how much they own it.