Bare Naked Ladies sang their way into American hearts and minds with the 1990s diddy “If I had a million dollars.” Excess being what it is, today young Americans pine along with Travis McCoy as he sings: “I wanna be a billionaire so f—ing bad”.[1] Not to be out done by mere pop mortals, we, the American people, threw a party and blew through a trillion dollars. Now that’s worthy of hit song status.
What? You don’t recall such lavish expenditures? You’re confident you’d remember a party of that magnitude? Or maybe, you think I’m talking about recent legislative action on bailouts and health care. Well, those are bad guesses because I’m referring to the price tag on the elective Iraq war. And less you be fooled into thinking that we got good value for the party that never was, it bears counting the costs of GWB’s desert debutante ball.
The first and most serious cost is human lives lost. I choose to view all innocent life equal and valuable regardless of what part of the Earth God chose to put particular souls. Using this measuring stick requires a reputable accountant to count American lives lost equally with Iraqi lives caught in the crossfire. Iraq Body Count estimates 97,000 and 107,000 Iraqi civilians died in the elective Iraq war. Add to that 4,736 Iraq coalition force casualties and you get a glimpse of the human tragedy inflicted on people who either simply responded to what their government demanded or woke up to find their country had become another’s party piñata.
Let’s not forget to include the damage done to people who still live with war reminders such as lost limbs and other serious debilitating injuries.
[1] Pop radio tastefully edits him to say “freaking”. And, as you can see, my discretion edits me. But I’m confident your mind easily and correctly filled in the blanks.