More plaster, please

The Bush administration intends to seek about $70 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan early next year, pushing total war costs close to $225 billion since the invasion of Iraq early last year, Pentagon and congressional officials said yesterday.
....
On top of paying the wages of the all-volunteer force (What kind of wages does an all-volunteer force receive?) and the contractors, the military has paid for building dozens of bases and keeping a high-tech force equipped with computers, communications gear and expensive modern weaponry.
....
Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus estimated that in inflation-adjusted terms, World War I cost just under $200 billion for the United States. The Vietnam War cost about $500 billion from 1964 to 1972, Nordhaus said. The cost of the Iraq war could reach nearly half that number by next fall, 2 1/2 years after it began.

They have to be taking the piss. This will most likely be kept subdued until after the elections, I wonder why it isn't plastered about by Kerry's campaign. Isn't this in itself an admittance of the quagmire they're in? Living in oblivion must be fun. But as Secretary Albright said last night on Jon Stewart, I prefer this universe to the parallel one the administration is trying to create. Did Stewart really recommend that she try a bong and a Grateful Dead album?

Found this Washington Post article on Anselpixel's site.