Iraq war ends with a $4 trillion IOU

Imagine a kid in your neighborhood stole his dad's credit cards and became popular for his great parties and generosity. You know what you'd tell the kid: You can't keep this up. The kid responds with, "Why do you hate me? What's wrong with a good time?"

And you reply, "Because you can't keep this up."

Someone needs to tell DC that:

The nine-year-old Iraq war came to an official end on Thursday, but paying for it will continue for decades until U.S. taxpayers have shelled out an estimated $4 trillion.

Over a 50-year period, that comes to $80 billion annually.

Although that only represents about 1% of nation’s gross domestic product, it’s more than half of the national budget deficit. It’s also roughly equal to what the U.S. spends on the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency combined each year.

Near the start of the war, the U.S. Defense Department estimated it would cost $50 billion to $80 billion. White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey was dismissed in 2002 after suggesting the price of invading and occupying Iraq could reach $200 billion.

Greed and the illusion of infallibility make ALL empires overreach and eventually crash and burn. Can we convince enough people of what's happening so we can perhaps arrange a soft landing? Because we must land - the DC Empire cannot keep on like this much longer.

However, I'm becoming more convinced that folks will go on babbling about "American exceptionalism" and other such nonsense, and race even faster toward the brick wall that's looming just ahead.