The money seems to be the smallest cost of these wars. We've normalized hideous drone bombing campaigns undertaken on the slightest justifications. On paper dro

The money seems to be the smallest cost of these wars. We've normalized hideous drone bombing campaigns undertaken on the slightest justifications. On paper drone attacks are precise and backed by meticulous research, in reality they are backed by often dubious intelligence and executed without sufficient care for collateral damage, resulting in at least a 50% rate of innocent/civilian casualties. By that measure they are hardly better than car bombs, but they are high tech so somehow they escape (for us in the west anyway) the negative connotation of terrorism. Yet by any rational measure they are terrorism. There are countless children in territories we've terrorized who fear sunny skies because good weather means drones operate. And we've carried that horrid tradition forward in our participation in Saudi Arabia's bombing campaign in Yemen, among others. Meanwhile, we've also normalized the most horrid perversions of our democracy, our values, and the rule of law at home. We've grown comfortable with indefinite detention. We had a hot and heavy flirtation with systematized torture. We've created monsters like ICE and the DHS who are given ridiculous powers in a "border zone" that includes 2/3 of the entire US population. All in all, I don't think history will be kind in its assessment of our reaction to the September 11th attacks.