1) We basically won. Eventually, that will sink in. Maybe not for years. I suspect it will happen when they figure out a way to give a Democrat the credit. This will take some time, but I know they're working on it.

You can ignore this point, since the only effect on fiscal issues is that the cost of the war will steadily decline. I doubt Afghanistan will become as expensive as Iraq, but that remains to be seen.

2) The Federal government spends a trillion dollars every four months. If the war in Iraq had never happened, we would have bought ourselves four additional months.

3) The cost of the war is dwarfed by the entitlement expenses that are actually going to wreck the economy. Entitlement costs are about $1.2 trillion every year. That's the cost of the entire Iraq war and then some: every single year. This cost is steadily increasing, and we will be spending that amount forever. Every single year. More specifically, every economist you ask about the Federal Budget over the next few decades points to Medicare as the prime culprit. If we essentially put everyone in America on Medicare, this is not going to improve.

4) Anybody who has told you the main problem with our economy is the war in Iraq is operating from ignorance. If you explain the numbers to them, and they persist, you move into the realm of willfull ignorance, and possibly stupidity.