[vundercind]

Iraq was pretty easy to call. I got it largely right as a high schooler at the time it started. One thing that threw me was that we stayed so damn long, which put my “cross-border islamist group destabilizes Syria” prediction off by years. I underestimated our stomach for throwing money and lives away I guess.

[lenkite]

The "cross-border islamist group destabilizing Syria" were spawned from Obama's "moderate rebels" who were extensively sponsored with weaponry to fight against Assad. They carried those American weapons into the invasion of Mosul because they kept failing against the battle-hardened Syrian armed forces and Iraq was a far softer target at the time.

Not sure this could have been predicted from the Iraq war though unless you are talking about the general prediction that any rebel group that the U.S. sponsors turns into a terrorist group that the U.S. bombs within a decade. Its kinda of funny when you compare news articles across years.

[foobarian]

> throwing money away

When thinking about this it's very important to recognize what this means exactly. The money is not put on a pile and set on fire. It goes somewhere where it has very significant impact, most likely flowing into military-industrial complex which is a huge chunk of domestic economy.

[vundercind]

A bunch was deficit spending straight into corporate profits, so, inflationary hand-outs to the rich (and a bit to 401ks probably). Also, though far from a majority of the spending, we did ship whole pallets of cash and those just kinda vanished to wherever but I’m pretty sure if they made it back state-side it was a similar deal, deficit spending going more or less directly to someone already rich in return for very little. A quick google yeah about $12B of cash with awful accounting, and that’s just Iraq, same thing happened in Afghanistan.

[vharuck]

> The money is not put on a pile and set on fire.

In a small way, it kind of was. We used the money to produce weapons and ammunition. The producers took the cash and provided the arms. In an ideal economy, both sides would have a net gain: the producers reap profits, and the military uses the goods for a goal it (supposedly) believes is more valuable than the money spent.

But we shot the ammo, used the rifles, and detonated the bombs. And the USA didn't achieve the valuable goals it promised. So, while the arms manufacturers came out ahead, the military was left with little value. If they had put that money into research or upgrading bases overseas, then there'd be civilian profits and nice things the military could use for years.