Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

[Thailandnotes]

Ezra Klein in the Washington Post

Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

“Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz estimates that the price tag on the Iraq War alone will surpass $3 trillion. Afghanistan likely amounts to another trillion or two. Add in the build-up in homeland security spending since 9/11 and you’re looking at yet another trillion. And don’t forget the indirect costs of all this turmoil: The Federal Reserve, worried about a fear-induced recession, slashed interest rates after the attack on the World Trade Center, and then kept them low to combat skyrocketing oil prices, a byproduct of the war in Iraq. That decade of loose monetary policy may well have contributed to the credit bubble that crashed the economy in 2007 and 2008.

“Then there’s the post-9/11 slowdown in the economy, the time wasted in airports, the foregone returns on investments we didn’t make, the rise in oil prices as a result of the Iraq War, the cost of rebuilding Ground Zero, health care for the first responders and much, much more.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...html#pagebreak

[lektrode]

Re: Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

kinda hard to refute all this...
why methinks the only strategy going forward is to close most of the overseas bases, bring the troops home and put em to work rebuilding OUR infrastructure

at least WE will get a return on all that interest that WE will be forced to pay, with the BONUS that the roads,dams,rails and other REAL investments in OUR future will be 'cast in stone' as it were -
that is to say: 'they' cant foreclose on it.

Ezra Klein in the Washington Post

Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

“Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz estimates that the price tag on the Iraq War alone will surpass $3 trillion. Afghanistan likely amounts to another trillion or two. Add in the build-up in homeland security spending since 9/11 and you’re looking at yet another trillion. And don’t forget the indirect costs of all this turmoil: The Federal Reserve, worried about a fear-induced recession, slashed interest rates after the attack on the World Trade Center, and then kept them low to combat skyrocketing oil prices, a byproduct of the war in Iraq. That decade of loose monetary policy may well have contributed to the credit bubble that crashed the economy in 2007 and 2008.

“Then there’s the post-9/11 slowdown in the economy, the time wasted in airports, the foregone returns on investments we didn’t make, the rise in oil prices as a result of the Iraq War, the cost of rebuilding Ground Zero, health care for the first responders and much, much more.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...html#pagebreak

[*T*]

Re: Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

I don't think we can blame bin Laden for Iraq. We didn't even attempt that pretext on the uk.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

I don't think we can blame bin Laden for Iraq. We didn't even attempt that pretext on the uk.

Hard to imagine the invasion of Iraq without the twin towers and bin Laden. But who knows?

[Slimprofits]

Re: Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

Hard to imagine the invasion of Iraq without the twin towers and bin Laden. But who knows?

Impossible to imagine.

Only Jon McCain was insane enough to demand that ground troops be sent into Serbia.

Remember, some Americans were still talking about a "peace quotient" in the 90s and before 9/11.

Immediately after 9/11, friends of the neocons (such as Laurie Mylroie) hit the U.S. airwaves and print media with the sole mission in mind of connecting (for Americans) Saddam to the attack.

I'm surprised there is even a debate about this.

[flintlock]

Re: Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

McCain has never met a war he didn't love. Hard to believe this is the same guy who lived in a POW camp for years. You'd think that would have beat some sense into him.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

McCain has never met a war he didn't love. Hard to believe this is the same guy who lived in a POW camp for years. You'd think that would have beat some sense into him.

I think the special interests were the ones that beat him into submission.

[*T*]

Re: Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

Hard to imagine the invasion of Iraq without the twin towers and bin Laden. But who knows?

Perhaps - I meant bin Laden was an excuse, not the cause, and a poor excuse at that.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

Ezra Klien's point is a good one - that Bin Laden's clear stated goal was to inflict huge economic costs to the US, damaging the US economy and financial standing in the world. Much like we boast that we used the arms race to spend the old USSR into oblivion, OBL' s goal was to panic America into spending itself into oblivion.

We seem to have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, and worked to ensure losses and costs measured in trillions for wars and security. Plus we lost the moral high ground we formerly occupied by officially sanctioning both torture and first-strike invasions.

[c1ue]

Re: Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

Ezra Klien's point is a good one - that Bin Laden's clear stated goal was to inflict huge economic costs to the US, damaging the US economy and financial standing in the world. Much like we boast that we used the arms race to spend the old USSR into oblivion, OBL' s goal was to panic America into spending itself into oblivion.

I don't think OBL was trying for a US economic own goal so much as to push the US into such repression that the tyrannical and insufficiently Islamic regimes in the Middle East would be overthrown by their enraged populace.

However, I think it is safe to say that OBL succeeded in both of the above counts - whatever his actual goals were.

[touchring]

Re: Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

Hard to imagine the invasion of Iraq without the twin towers and bin Laden. But who knows?

I would blame it on poor American judgment. Never vote in the son of a previous President or Prime minister. There's too much baggage. lol

[flintlock]

Re: Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

Ezra Klien's point is a good one - that Bin Laden's clear stated goal was to inflict huge economic costs to the US, damaging the US economy and financial standing in the world. Much like we boast that we used the arms race to spend the old USSR into oblivion, OBL' s goal was to panic America into spending itself into oblivion.

We seem to have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, and worked to ensure losses and costs measured in trillions for wars and security. Plus we lost the moral high ground we formerly occupied by officially sanctioning both torture and first-strike invasions.

I've always felt the same way. We gave one small organization the ability to inflict damage on us way out of proportion to their ability otherwise. I'm convinced this war on terror was necessary but could have been fought more efficiently. We are swatting at flies with a sledgehammer. Of course, there's no money to be made fighting a SMART war.

[flintlock]

Re: Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

I don't think OBL was trying for a US economic own goal so much as to push the US into such repression that the tyrannical and insufficiently Islamic regimes in the Middle East would be overthrown by their enraged populace.

However, I think it is safe to say that OBL succeeded in both of the above counts - whatever his actual goals were.

I think it was economic as much or more than any desire to encourage repression. No coincidence they repeatedly struck at the World Trade Center, center of US finance. Not many other targets could have had such a significant economic blow to the West. Blow up the White House and Pentagon? Those were certainly symbolic blows as much as anything. But they could have killed many more Americans somewhere else and I don't think it would have tipped us into a recession like the attack on the WTC did. Nor provoked the response it did. Just killing US citizens never provoked an expensive war. Attacking the home base of the FIRE economy is what did.

Of course the WTC attack was symbolic too. UBL and his people understood full well that the world of finance and corporations is why we were so heavily invested in that region to begin with. Oil? Sure its about oil. But its also about the never ending need of corporations to grow and expand into new markets. Our presence in the Middle East is also to prop up and defend corporate investments in the region. These are huge untapped markets compared to the otherwise saturated Western world.

[c1ue]

Re: Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

I think it was economic as much or more than any desire to encourage repression. No coincidence they repeatedly struck at the World Trade Center, center of US finance. Not many other targets could have had such a significant economic blow to the West.

That may be, though I'd note the WTC buildings themselves constitute a gigantic symbol.

Attacking a purely financial target - Cushing, the NYSE, the CME are all far better targets. For that matter nailing a couple of port facilities would do just as much damage.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Bin Laden’s War Against the US Economy

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...taxpayers.html

Even in death, Osama bin Laden will be taking revenge on American taxpayers for years to come.

The U.S. government spent $2 trillion combating bin Laden over the past decade, more than 20 percent of the nation’s $9.68 trillion public debt. That money paid for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as additional military, intelligence and homeland security spending above pre-Sept. 11 trends, according to a Bloomberg analysis.

This year alone, taxpayers are spending more than $45 billion in interest on the money borrowed to battle al-Qaeda, the analysis shows.
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"It is unimaginable that the United States would have to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars and highly unlikely that we would have to contribute even tens of billions of dollars."

Kenneth Pollack
former director for Persian Gulf affairs

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Perhaps this is one of those unknown unknowns.

“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know. ”

Donald Rumsfeld