How America is making you poorer.

The Iraq war hurts everyone.

The Iraq war has cost America trillions of dollars and has cost the rest of the world additional trillions of dollars.

A Guardian article on the cost of the Iraq War (Aida Edemariam talks to author Joseph Stiglitz about the true cost ...) makes the following points:

Why has the rest of the world lost trillions?

1. The rising price of oil has meant that the cost to oil-importing industrial countries in Europe and the Far East is now about $1.1 trillion.

2. The rising price of oil is devastating Third World countries.

A study by the International Energy Agency that looked at a sample of 13 African countries found that rising oil prices have "had the effect of lowering the average income by 3% - more than offsetting all of the increase in foreign aid that they had received in recent years, and setting the stage for another crisis in these countries".

3. The weak economic position of the USA, resulting from the Iraq war, is hurting the global economy.

4. The Iraqi economy has been smashed.

5. There are tens of thousands of dead. (Probably over a million dead as a result of US policies in Iraq)

6. There is a high cost, to neighbouring countries, of absorbing thousands of refugees.

7. There is the cost of the coalition military. Before the war, Britain's Gordon Brown set aside £1bn; by late 2007, direct operating costs in Iraq and Afghanistan were £7bn and rising.

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