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Comment by madengr | Hacker News Reader

Meanwhile, how much money has the USA pumped into Iraq's Mosul Dam?

Repairs are being funded by the World Bank, which means that US contribution is less than 30% of the $300 million allocated for this, under $100 million.

Compare this to the money the USA has pumped into the war against nonexistent WMD in Iraq, and you'll see that the Mosul Dam repairs amount to almost nothing in the US expenses "for Iraq". And nothing compared to the total US yearly budget.

So, what was your point again?

I assume the general point is that the taxpayer will pay for all things that are "too big to fail", because we don't really have capitalism but a corporate welfare system.

The military expenses are a fair point, but just another facet of the same underlying issue.

Thank you. That it's $100M spent on other countries infrastructure while ours rots.

You can't go and trash a country and not take responsibility for it.

  Therefore, send not to know
  For whom the bell tolls,
  It tolls for thee.

Seem to remember someone at the time saying, "You break it, you bought it."

I still remember when this issue of The Atlantic came out with this piece from Fallows.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/11/the-fif...

If the Mosul dam catastrophically fails it's estimated that over a million people will die. $100m is a very good investment to stop that.

It cost the same as running the war in Iraq for a few hours[1]. Since the two expenses are closely related, I suggest we put them on the same tab and call it a day.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09...

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/02/a-bigger-proble...

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