This is the forty-fifth in a periodic series of reflections on Brian D. McLaren's everything must change. Quotations used by kind permission of the author, with page citations from the edition featured on the Emerging Church Reading List to your right.
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Here’s footnote 5 on page 324:
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“The total cost of the [Iraq] war was predicted to reach $1.2 trillion before the troop surge was instituted. Jim Wallis (sojo.net, January 2007) quotes a column in the New York Times by David Leonhardt on what this amount means:
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“The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like millions or billions.
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“For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign — a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children’s lives.
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“Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn’t use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.
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“The final big chunk of the money could go to national security. The recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that have not been put in place — better baggage and cargo screening, stronger measures against nuclear proliferation — could be enacted. Financing for the war in Afghanistan could be increased to beat back the Taliban’s recent gains, and a peacekeeping force could put a stop to the genocide in Darfur.
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“All that would be one way to spend $1.2 trillion. Here would be another:
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“The war in Iraq.”
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I’m wordless.
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