Newshoggers Archive: The costs of Iraq

Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.

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Thursday, July 16, 2009

The costs of Iraq

By Fester:

Fabius Maximus asks the question that I and many others have been asking --- what has been the value of 'winning' in Iraq:

This article does not even discuss in what sense �we won.� Let alone justifying the cost in blood (theirs and ours) and money. The monetary costs is probably over a trillion dollars, including future pay/benefits and replacement of equipment. We borrowed it from Asian and OPEC nations, and have no idea how to repay. They will demand repayment, eventually. Our children probably consider us to have been insane.

(1) There is little, almost no, evidence that Saddam was a threat to the US.

(a) Did we find those WMD�s? ....

(b) Saddam the terrorist threat to America....

(2) The insurgency was a result of our occupation, so defeating it brings no net benefit to the US.

(3) Will the Iraq � or Iraq and Kurdistan � be allies of the US? Too soon to say. Kurdistan has so far not allowed US bases in their territory; most of their oil leases have gone to non-US companies. The Shiites running the Iraq government have long-standing ties to Iran.

(4) No, we have not gotten any oil. Nothing to date indicates that we � or US oil companies � will have ownership or preferred access to Iraq, Kurdish, or Sunni Arab Iraq oil.

Summary: As an expert in 4GW theory said (personal communication):

So we won in Iraq. How many more such victories can we stand? The words of the immortal Pyrrhus echo through the ages: �One more such victory will undo me!� And the Red King had a legitimate claim to having won his battles.

Tim Lambert is doing yeoman work in inflicting reputational costs on the warbloggers and supporters so that future dumb ideas can be stopped before implementation:

With US combat troops withdrawing from Iraq's cities it is time to compare the 4639 coalition casualties with the predictions made by warbloggers before the war:

John Hawkins: "Probably 300 or less"
Charles Johnson:"Very few"
Henry Hanks: "Less than 200"
Laurence Simon: "A Few hundred"
Rachael Lucas: "Less than three thousand"
Scott Ott: "Dozens"
Glenn Reynolds: "Fewer than 100"
Tim Blair: "Below 50"
Ken Layne: "a few hundred"
Steven Den Beste: "50-150"

So where will Pyrrus meet Cassandra?

Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

The costs of Iraq

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