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Recent
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April
1, 2003
William
S. Lind
The Pitfalls of War Planning
Jorge
Mariscal
Latinos on the Frontlines, Again
Paul
de Rooij
Arrogant Propaganda
Jo
Wilding
From Baghdad: "I Am His Mother"
Tarif
Abboushi
Operation Embedded Folly
Lee
Sustar
Labor's War at Home
Akiva Eldar
Israeli Dreams of Iraqi Oil
Bernard
Weiner
The Vietnam Connection
Robert
Fisk
The Graveyard at Baghdad's North
Gate
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/01
March
31, 2003
David
Lindorff
Liberating Iraqis from Their Homes
Neve Gordon
A Different Kind of Despair
John
Chuckman
Absurdities and Contradictions
Ron Jacobs
Bernie Sanders Voting Maybe on
War
Wayne
Madsen
The Siege of Washington
Mark Franchetti
Slaughter at the Bridge of Death
Robert
Fisk
Blood and Bandages of the Innocent
Robin Cook
Send Our Soldiers Home
Anthony
Gancarski
Investigate Perle
Uri Avnery
The Devil's Dictionary
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 03/31
March
29, 2003
Kathy and
Bill Christison
"Like Being Autistic with
Power": an Interview with Jeff Halper
Ben
Tripp
"My Empire for a Map!": Geography
American Style
Ann Harrison
The War on Protesters: San Francisco's
Berserk Cops
Kurt
Nimmo
Dead People: Don't Go There
Chris Floyd
Blood on the Tracks: Cheney the
War Profiteer
Ann
Pettifer
Israelis: Victims No Longer?
Jo Wilding
Dispatch from Baghdad: Nowhere
is Safe
Ramzy
Baroud
Horror Chamber: Inside the Al-Amiriya
Shelter
David Krieger
Perle is Gone, But the Looting
Continues
John
Gershman
Dreams of Empire; Eulogies for International
Law
Robert
Fisk
Bombing the Phone System
Brice Abel
War, Bush and the Jesus Torilla
Tom
Stephens
The Chickenhawk Circle of Hell
Alexander
Cockburn
"War Not Going According
to Plan"
March 28,
2003
Robert
Fisk
Bitter Truths About Basra
Daniel
Wolff
A Road Trip in Wartime
Chris
Clarke
We Never Spit on Any Baby Killers
David Lindorff
Saddam, a Hero Made in Washington
Pierre
Tristam
Icarus on Crack: American Hubris
and Iraq
Jason Leopold
Richard Perle: the Enterprising
Hawk
Saul
Landau
Technological Massacre
Carol Norris
The Mother of All Bombs
Riad
Abdelkarim, MD
Iraq War Lingo 101
Adam Engel
Schlock and Awe
Steve
Perry
War Web Log
March 27,
2003
Anthony
Gancarski
Somebody Blew Up Baghdad
Rahul
Mahajan
The New Humanitarianism: Basra as
Military Target
Simon Jones
A Letter from Uzbekistan
William
S. Lind
No Exit
Diane Christian
A Day of Reckoning
The
Black Commentator
Onward
Embedded Soldiers: the Press and the War
Mickey
Z.
Remembering the Real Moynihan:
Genocide in East Timor
Richard
Thieme
The Problem of Empathy
Jason Leopold
Energy Scams: Bilking California
Out of Billions
Tariq
Ali
A Naked Display of Imperial Power
Alexander
Cockburn
Up the Creek
March 26,
2003
Bruce Jackson
A Battlefield from Hell
Pablo
Mukherjee
Watch
Their Lips
David Krieger
Shock But Not Awe
Linda
Heard
Winning
Hearts and Minds Bush-Style
Imad Jadaa
The Beautiful Face of America
Adam
Engel
Buckets
of Blood
Patrick
Cockburn
Kurds Unimpressed
David
Lindorff
POWs,
Torture and Hypocrisy
Robert
Fisk
The Coup That Didn't Happen
April
Hurley, MD
A
Doctor's Outrage in Baghdad
Gloria
Bergen
Chretien's Shame
Reema
Abu Hamdieh
The
Smell of Death Surrounds Me
March 25,
2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Life During Wartime
Gary
Leupp
What
Democracy Looks Like: the Streets of Cairo
Bill and
Kathleen Christison
An Interview with Hanan Ashrawi
Bruce
Jackson
Why
Protest? Why Write?
Uri Avnery
Bitter Rice: Thoughts and Warnings
on the War
Jason
Leopold
Blood
Indicator: Casualties and the Stock Market
Ralph Nader
A Pre-emptive War on a Defenseless
Country
March 24,
2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Ominous Signs
David
Lindorff
Peacekeepers
at Ground Zero
Diane Christian
Blood Sacrifice
Kathy
Kelly
The
Morning After Shock and Awe
John Stanton
US Bombs Iran
Wayne
Madsen
How
to Live with a Rogue Superpower
Anthony
Gancarski
Iraq and the Death of the West
David
Vest
Earth vs. Bush
Ahmad Faruqui
The Liberation of Iraq in Perspective
Robert
Fisk
We
Bomb, They Suffer
March 22 / 23, 2003
Edward Said
The Other
America
Saul Landau
The Threats of Empire
Kathleen and Bill Christison
On the Road in the West Bank
Joanne Mariner
Suing Seymour Hersh
Ann Harrison
The Battle of San Francisco
Robert Fisk
A Cauldron of Fire
Hani Shukrallah
The Gates of Hell
Chris Floyd
Memory Lane
Kathy Kelly
Imagine Chicago Under This Kind of Attack
Ramzi Kysia
Bombing Away a Chance for Joy
Linda Heard
Baghdad Burns While Bush Does Lunch
Bradley Burston
Could the US be at War for Years?
Salvador Peralta
Mass Murder as Liberation?
Tom Gorman
Now That's a Coalition!
Jorge Mariscal
Johnny Mack, When Are You Coming Back?
Cindy Milstein
The Grassroots Go Global
Josh Frank
Blocking Portland's Bridges
Elaine Cassel
The Case of Elizabeth Smart: Kidnapping and Insanity
Gordon Solberg
Drowning in Niceness: the Lessons of Elizabeth Smart
Tom Crumpacker
Getting to Know the Real Havana
Poets' Basement
Dobie, Guthrie, Alam, Wechsler
March 21, 2003
Ben Tripp
Blood
for Oil: the Exchange Rate
Cathy Breens
Report from Baghdad: Mothers, Kids and Crash Kits
Scott Handleman
Fourth
Generation Protesting: Shutting Down San Francisco
Vanessa Jones
Paint
Them Red
Brian J. Foley
Patriotic
Protest for Professors
Zoltan Grossman
After Saddam, a War on Iraqi Rebels?
Philip S. Golub
Inventing Demons
Richard Lichtman
On the Current Experience of Terror
Milan Rai
Blitz-Coup
Pepe Escobar
A Cheap Family Farce
Floyd Rudmin
The Nightmare at the Back Door: Nuclear Plant's as Terror Targets
Chris Floyd
See Rome (poem)
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
March 20, 2003
Jo Wilding
From
Waiting to War: a Day and a Night in Baghdad
Stephen Banko
I Was
a Soldier Once
Kevin Alexander Gray
How Did
We Become an Outlaw Nation?
Shane Claiborne
Nomadic
Solidarity: Glimpses of Life in Baghdad on the Eve of War
Kathy Kelly
Waiting on the Baghdad Skies to Crack
Anthony Gancarski
Michelle
Makin's "Liberty Shields"
Rahul Mahajan and Robert
Jensen
Myths
and Facts About the War on Iraq
Jason Leopold
Cheney's
Lies About Halliburton and Iraq
Ron Jacobs
If War is Business as Usual, There Should be No Business as Usual
Chuck O'Connell
Predictions About the Iraq War
Douglas Herman
US Air Force Veteran on the Coming Air Campaign
Ralph Nader
Come
On Democrats, Stand Up for Peace
William Hughes
War is Theft
Sima Saeedi
Dispatch
from Iran
Hammond Guthrie
John Philip Sousa
Website of the Day
Iraq
Body Count
Hot Stories
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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April 3,
2003
War on Iraq
Deaths, Debts
and Deficits
By MICHAEL ROBERTS
As soon as it became clear that the US-UK war
against Iraq was on, stock markets around the world rocketed
upwards by as much as 20% and the price for a barrel of crude
oil fell back sharply. Capitalism was convinced that the overwhelming
firepower of the US military backed up by the more puny forces
of the British army would quickly overwhelm the Iraqi army, which
would melt away or even hand over Saddam in a coup. The war would
be over by Easter at the latest and maybe a lot earlier.
Well, it's a week in and all that bravado
has faded. The stock markets have started to slip back and the
oil price has moved up again. And now the real costs of this
imperialist adventure are beginning to come out. For the Iraqi
people, the cost is measured in death, dismemberment and destitution.
For Americans and Brits, it is going to be measured in debts
and deficits. The monetary costs of this war are going to hit
the living standards of working families across the board significantly.
The US administration has warded off
any questions about how much the war was going to cost. They
couldn't say, they said, because they didn't know how it was
going to pan out. With the war a week in, President Bush finally
had to ask for some more money, $75bn in sum.
At first sight, this is not much when
measured against an economy that produces nearly $11trn a year
- it's just 0.7% of GDP. And it is not even much compared to
the overall annual budget expenditure of the US government, of
around nearly $4trn. The Second World War cost the American taxpayer
130% of its annual GDP back in the 1940s. The Vietnam War cost
12% of GDP. So maybe this war is just a pinprick on the American
economy.
But that's wishful thinking. First, every
war leader underestimates its cost. Why tell the bad news on
money when you want people to fight and use their resources without
question? Abraham Lincoln forecast that the cost of the Amer
ican civil war would be 7% of GDP in the 1860s. It turned out
to be closer to 100%.
And Bush's request for extra money is
just the start. There have been a lot of estimates on the cost
of the war in Iraq recently. In summary, it seems that the war
will cost at least $50bn in military action. But then the costs
of occupying Iraq with military forces and employing a huge civil
and military service for several years ahead would add another
$500bn. And then there is the so-called reconstruction of the
Iraqi economy post-Saddam. Already the US is handing out contracts
for ports, transport, water and of course oil. This reconstruction
could cost another $100bn.
And it's clear that all this is going
to have to be paid for by Americans. In the last Gulf War most
of the cost was paid for by oil revenues from Iraq and by payments
from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Not this time. No help from the
likes of Germany or France. And it is by no means likely that
a post-Saddam Iraq is going to allow the US to take all its oil
revenues to pay for US occupation as they are supposed to be
improving conditions for the people. And anyway, Iraqi oil production
could be way down if the war keeps the pumps quiet and damages
well-heads and refineries over the next weeks and months.
And that's not the end of the cost for
US working people. Continued US occupation will mean a backlash
in the Middle East. Problems could arise for neighbouring Arab
dictatorships that have backed the US like Saudi Arabia. Any
instability there will drive oil prices higher.
If oil prices stay as high as $30/barrel,
where they have been recently, then US petrol and heating prices
will continue to be at record levels. If American families have
to spend more on fuel, they will cut back on other things. So
the US economy will continue to slow. Indeed, these economic
effects of the war have been calculated to cost up to 15% of
GDP. At the very least, the cost of even a short war (plus a
long occupation) could be worse than the Vietnam War!
And here's the problem. Already the US
economy has been crawling. That has meant tax revenues have not
matched expectations and the federal government has started to
go into deficit to the tune of about 2% of GDP. The same thing
has happened in the 50 states. Compounding this deficit is the
Bush administration headlong desire to boost spending on arms
and the 'defence' forces, as well as cutting taxes for the rich.
As always, it is socialist handouts for the rich and capitalist
efficiency cuts for the poor, under capitalism! Defence spending
was set to rocket whether there was a war in Iraq or not.
The result is that the US budget deficit
is set to reach record levels over the next few years. To pay
for this, the government will have to issue more bonds (debt).
It will have to borrow more and suck up some of the hard-earned
savings of the American public to pay for more tanks, planes
and missiles. That means less money to invest in more productive
sectors like technology, education, health and industry. Imperialist
ambition will mean economic recession.
In a smaller way, British capitalism
mirrors the same process as in the US. The Blair government is
matching the Bush administration in hiding how much it will have
to spend on the war. Gordon Brown has allocated just lbs1bn,
or about 0.1% of GDP. Most analysts reckon it will be at least
3 times more than that at the end. And the government's budget
is also slipping into a significant deficit at a rapid rate,
as the UK economy starts to slow down to a halt.
It may be death and destitution for Iraqis,
but deficits, debts and destruction of wealth and incomes will
be the outcome for Americans and Britons, whatever the outcome
of the war.
Michael Roberts
writes for In
Defence of Marxism, where this essay originally appeared.
Today's
Features
William
S. Lind
The Pitfalls of War Planning
Jorge
Mariscal
Latinos on the Frontlines, Again
Paul
de Rooij
Arrogant Propaganda
Jo
Wilding
From Baghdad: "I Am His Mother"
Tarif
Abboushi
Operation Embedded Folly
Lee
Sustar
Labor's War at Home
Akiva Eldar
Israeli Dreams of Iraqi Oil
Bernard
Weiner
The Vietnam Connection
Robert
Fisk
The Graveyard at Baghdad's North
Gate
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/01
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