The Local Costs of War

We promise not to make this blog too political, BUT ...

Brian McGrory wrote a great opinion piece in yesterday's Globe about the lack of local funding for public safety projects in Boston. Crime and homicide are escalating uncontrollably on the streets of Boston, and Governor Deval Patrick can only offer $900,000 to fight the problem. To put that number in perspective, Patrick spent $72,000 of state money to hire a personal aide for his wife for one year. Where is the state's extra money going (aside from funding personal assistants and office redecorations for Patrick)? Abroad. Using the website Costofwar.com, which calculates the cost of the war in Iraq in "real time," McGrory points out that $416 Billion (and counting) has been spent on the war. Of that total, the city of Boston has contributed nearly $857 million. (Use the website to calculate the costs of war to your own city and state, it's fascinating.) Imagine if just a small percentage of that total had been diverted towards public safety. Imagine the poverty and anti-violence programs that could be funded, the after-school and workforce development programs that could be initiated, the community centers that could be built, the number of police officers that could be hired. Diverting state money to protect our soldiers is one thing (it's not their fault we're irreparably immersed in a civil war). Diverting state money to fund a preemptive and unjust war is another. As McGrory says so effectively in his editorial, when did the order and safety of Baghdad become so much more important than that of Boston (and countless other troubled communities in the U.S.)?