We are in the 6th year of the Iraq War. The cost is unfathonable. According to the giant clock in NYC, we have spent over $495 Billion Dollars as of this fleeting moment, that cost is growing at $341 Million each day. The current predictions are that this war will cost the US $3Trillion dollars yet I don't think the public by and large understands the staggering scale of these expenditures and what it will mean longterm for America. How it will impact their lives, their childrens lives, their grandchildrens lives.


By the end of 2008, the federal government will have spent more than $800 billion on combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (government accounts make it hard to separate the two). On top of that comes a mountain of future costs: caring for war veterans (to date, more than 1.6 million troops have been deployed), replacing the military hardware that is being used and worn out in Iraq and paying interest on the enormous sums of money we've borrowed to finance the war (WashingtonPost)
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"The cost is going up every month," says Linda Bilmes, an expert at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. She estimates the short-term, "running cost" has reached $12.5 billion a month. That's up from $4.4 billion a month in 2003. Add in long-term factors, such as the care of veterans and interest on federal debt incurred as a result of the war, and the cost piles up to $25 billion a month nowadays."

We were in Santa Barbara for the 4th of July weekend, on the beach is a memorial/protest erected by the Veterans Against the Iraq War in honor of our fallen troops in Iraq. I took these last two pictures there. Space only permitted the placement of just over 3000 crosses, which represent, to date, the 4118 American lives lost to this debacle. Again, if you click and enlarge the pictures you'll "see" much more.