$1.5 trillion and counting

Ned seems to recall that a historian, Paul Kennedy, wrote a tome years ago called "The Rise and Fall of The Great Powers" in which he described the reasons for the decline of once-mighty world powers including Spain, Britain and by inference, the United States. Ned finds Johnson's thesis to be more and more persuasive in view of the money pissed away on wars by the criminal Bush regime and, sadly, the Obama administration, which, like a grouper repeatedly trying to eat a porcupine fish, are very slow learners. Comes word today from Bloomberg News that the total cost of the misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan is at least $1.26 trillion and counting, and this does not count the cost of maimed soldiers returning with severe mental and physical problems. Adding these, and Ned gets about $1.5 trillion. It makes Ned's blood boil to think of the waste of lives and treasure carried out in the name of "defending freedom" and "protection from terrorism", not to mention, "spreading democracy."
As an exercise, Ned asks his friends to think of how this money could have been spent productively; for example, giving every city in the US a rapid transit system and paying for it for fifty years, or retrofitting every house in the country with the latest in energy-saving devices, or giving every kid with a B average a free college education, or even giving free memberships in the Delta Sky Club to anyone who wanted it--no, scratch that, Ned has to rub shoulders with enough riff-raff as it is.
One day, Ned hopes the criminals in the Bush regime will answer for their crimes with their heads, but by then the damage to the country will no doubt already be done.