by their very conservative estimate just things like veterans health care and the wars themselves directly cost about $1.3 trillion since 9/11. and $1.4 trillion if the president's budget for next year is approved. i say that's conservative because nobel prize writing economist wrote a book about just the iraq war that was titled "the $3 trillion war." again, just for iraq not even talking about afghanistan. and not even talking about everything else we have spent so much on as a country because 9/11 happened. because of what al qaeda did. money that we would not have necessarily spent otherwise. last year "the washington post" published a remarkable information called "top secret america" chronicling how much money we have poured into defense and security over the last decade. i've gone back to this series again and again since they first push lished it. the pentagon's intelligence agency has gone from 7500