Five Years of the Iraq War: When Will It Ever End????

The Iraq War: Five Years Later – by Catherine Morgan -(cross-posted at Care2 Election Blog)

Personally, I have always been against war and violence of any kind. I didn’t even let my children play with toy guns when they were young (not even water guns). Now I find myself worried that my son or daughter could actually be drafted someday. [Over a year ago I did a post addressing my concerns over a possible draft or mandatory military, it still seems very relevant today.] So yes, I am one of the people that are against this war in Iraq, and I have been since day one. And I really hate that we are now talking about the fifth anniversary of this horrific war. What I find myself wondering the most about today is, there seems to be no end in sight and five years from now we might be talking about the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war. How many people have to die? When will ‘man’ realize that war is not the answer?

People have been saying that we aren’t talking much about the Iraq war anymore, and I suspect it is because of the attention our tumbling economy is getting. I wonder? Has it occurred to anyone that $275 million a day spent in Iraq could be adding to the trouble we find our economy in? The National Priorities Project has a running tab of the cost of the Iraq war…

Let’s take a look at how this five year anniversary of the war in Iraq is being reported by the news and on the blogs.

Associated Press: Iraq War Disappears as TV Story.

Remember the war in Iraq?

The question isn’t entirely facetious. The war has nearly vanished from TV screens over the past few months, replaced by stories about the fascinating presidential campaign and faltering economy.

Yet Americans continue to fight and die there, five years after the war started in March 2003.

“It’s no big secret that this is a war that everyone has grown tired of,” said CNN correspondent Arwa Damon, whose documentary “On Deadly Ground: The Women of Iraq” is airing several times this month. “Iraqis are aware of it. They think it’s a story that people are tired of hearing about. That’s what makes our job more crucial.”

ABC News will draw attention to the war this week with the fifth edition of its “Where Things Stand” series, polling and interviewing Iraqis about what is happening in their country.

The War In Iraq – Five Years of Cultural Fallout

Since U.S. forces began bombarding Iraq in 2003, the impact of the war has been felt far beyond the battlefields.

From AFP – Iraq: A Three Trillion Dollar War?

The war in Iraq has already cost the United States more than 400 billion dollars by the most conservative tally, but the total bill could surpass three trillion dollars, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

By the Pentagon’s count, 527 billion dollars were allocated from September 2001 through December 2007 to finance the war against terrorism, including 406 billion dollars for Iraq.

The Congressional Budget Office reported in October 2007 that Iraq accounts for 421 billion, or 70 percent, of the 602 billion dollars that the Congress has authorized for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The CBO estimates that the total cost of the two wars could reach 2.4 trillion dollars by 2017 including interest on the debt, with Iraq accounting for 70 percent of the spending, or 1.68 trillion dollars.

But even that pales by comparison with estimates put forward by Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, a Harvard professor, in a book called “The Three Trillion Dollar War: the True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.”

This is from a post by Connie at Connie Talk. She has done a post on the Fifth Anniversary of the Iraq War.

Yesterday, March 15th, 2008, marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War. To be honest, I don’t really understand why so many people call it an “anniversary”: a word that most often indicates something to celebrate. But, regardless, we have been occupying the Middle East in wartime for exactly five years now. There were thousands of people who showed up in Los Angeles, California, yesterday to march the length of Hollywood Boulevard.

Thanks to hard-working YouTuber’s, you can get a peek at the protests from many corners of the Earth without leaving your computer chair.

Check out Connie at Connie Talk, where she has videos of protests that took place all over the world.

What the bloggers are saying…

Wash Park Prophet: The Iraq War Five Years Later

The Political Inquire: The Iraq Debate Must Continue

PoliJam Blog: Clinton Memo Slams Obama on Iraq War’s 5th Anniversary

The Kicker: The Psychological Damage to Soldiers Caused by the Iraq War

Iraq War: Five Years of Protest

A Plan To End The Iraq War

So, what do you think? Did you originally support the war? Or were you against it? How are you feeling about it now? Do you see a light at the end of the tunnel? Has the Iraq war reduced the chances of terrorism in America? Do you feel safer because of the Iraq war? Do you want our next president to get us out of Iraq? Do you think it is possible to get out of Iraq? Do you think the $275 million being spent each day on the Iraq war, is contributing to the serious economic problems we are facing today?

These are just a few of the questions I wonder about, let me know how you feel in comments.