I can not calculate it clearly. But i can image it will not be a small number.

I am finding it physically painful that you will no longer be on PBS but am glad to find this blog spot.

As to the cost of the wars, I lost my husband in the hideous Viet Nam fiasco. And for what? In the sober light of day, what in the world are we doing over there in the Middle East but ruining at least two countries, making enemies, losing many of our youth by death or injury, and of course, squandering the national treasure. I am not saying anything at all new but something that is so blatantly obvious ought easily to be stopped. But it goes on and on, meanwhile the arm suppliers and the Blackwater ilk continue to get rich. Are armaments and mercenaries the only products the US manufactures?

Too much!

Stop waging war! It's cheaper!

Congratulations to Mayor Ryan. Cities are not only the targets of nuclear weapons but of the ongoing global military spending of 1.5 trillion dollars a year.

Connecticut, with the highest per capita income in the USA, includes 4 of the poorest cities in this country. Coincidence? Not likely.

A small state of 3.5 million people, one quarter of our population could have had their health insurance paid for 10 years for the amount of money our current and future taxes pay to war on and militarily control Afghanistan and Iraq.

Every material thing this society requires, and those two victims of our aggression require, can be funded if we convert from military to human needs.

To climb out of this morass, resignation and belt tightening must transform into outrage and political muscle flexing.

I think that we should pull back are troops from the war in Afganistan.

I will miss you Bill Moyers. Who else will keep me so intelligently informed?
My community in Rochester, NY has spent almost $639 million dollars on the war. I'm in the teachers union and the calls are getting louder and louder for union employees to give up contract wages to balance the budget in NY. My taxes will not go down however. I am an inner city school teacher who makes under $50,000 a year. My husband is retired and we have one child in high school and one in college. There is not much money to spare. We are fighting over crumbs. Money is spent and lives are lost for what?

PS: The decision to war is not up to the government to decide, its up to the people who fight or won't fight it, it's up to you and me.

=
MJA

Until we teach our children never to war,
the war will never end.

=
MJA

So when we know how much the wars are costing us how is that going to stop the wars, waste/fraud?
People have to vote intelligently; not for the political whores.

I think that we should pull back are troops from the war in Afganistan. America sould have the itell to keep are country safe from here. I dont see a point of trying to change a country that doesn't want to change. I don't get it we first went in for a reason, with a purpose, to find one person and his group to now trying to change the way people live there lives people who don't want to change people that don't like us. Its pointless and there is no reason to be there anymore.

For centuries the world haa been mesmerized by the shallow belief that the more the fewer has the more prosperous we all become since for centuries the wealth of nations has been entrusted to -if when not anufactured by the fewest of persons. The fewer the treasury staff the greater their control over the lives of others and the more lavish their assumed profits. It takes no genius to devise ways to ensure against such vast losses to continue their survival when well armed nations depend upon them for their wherewithal! When such nations realized they've been hoodwinked into sorcerous warmongering dependency andact to free themselves and their respectve citizesn from such a fallacious bondage we'll likely know what actual freedom really consist of and ensures!

I will only quibble with one statement by Mr. Basewich.

Japan and Germany are still occupied by US.
how many years is that.
After US left Vietnam, there was economic devastation via World Bank. Guess who was the president of World Bank at that time.
What about Cuba.

So this notion that Afghanistan is the longest War is ridiculous. I can't believe it can even be said in public with straight face.

Binghamton has been declining all my life and yet many of us are making a stand against wasteful military spending on a local level. Our independent media center lets our citizens "become the media." We elected Matt Ryan twice and even in this economically challenged and conservative area we can stand for peace.