Ever find yourself wondering from time to time just how much it’s costing us, as taxpayers, to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? You hear billions, but did you know that it has now topped the trillion dollar mark? In fact, the costs are ticking by at such a fast rate that you can’t pinpoint an exact amount.

Imagine turning your air conditioner on in your home full blast in the middle of summer and then going out to your electricity meter and looking at the wheel that shows how much electricity you are consuming; notice that it whirs at an incredibly fast pace. That is exactly what the Cost of War Counter found on the website, National Priorities Project website looks like every time you click it on.

The “Notes” page of the National Priorities Project is loaded with facts and figures regarding just how that $1.05 trillion has been spent since 2001 on those two wars. Here are some of the highlights:

• $747.3 billion has been spent so far on the Iraq war
• $299 billion has been spent so far on the war in Afghanistan
• The figure includes both military and non-military spending such as reconstruction
• Only incremental costs are included in that figure, costs associated directly with the war, for example, combat pay for soldiers is included, but not regular military pay
• Future medical and other costs extended to soldiers and veterans of the wars is not included in the $1.05 trillion total

Funding for the wars will be handled differently by the Obama administration than was previously handled by the Bush Administration. According to the report, the majority of war funding during the Bush administration was allocated through emergency supplemental, whereas the Obama administration has stated that beginning with the 2010 budget, funding for these wars would be included in the core budget appropriations process. So far Congress approved $136.8 billion so far this year for funding the wars. Even so, additional supplemental appropriations will be needed to pay for the additional 30,000 troops sent to fight the war in Afghanistan.

Another handy reference tool accessible on the National Priorities Project website allows you to see how much these wars are costing your state. Go to the Cost of War to your Community page and you have some very interesting information at your disposal. Click on your location type, i.e. state, congressional district, and/or city, town or county, which will show you how much is spent on a state level, congressional level, or a more local level. Then click on your state. Not only will you see how much your state has spent since 2001 on these two wars, but you can also compare what programs are taking a hit due to that spending, i.e. health care provisions, educational spending, spending on public safety such as police and fire officers. It is a real eye-opener.

National security comes at a cost, certainly. But when we look at where the money is going and how it is being spent, we all should wonder if these wars were ever really necessary. Some will say that the pre-emptive strike on Iraq was justified due to information that its leader, Saddam Hussein, had weapons of mass destruction, which later proved to be false. The war in Afghanistan is being fought against an insurgence of terrorists who threaten harm to Americans all over the world. But again, we must ask, are we fighting a winnable war, where the money we are spending ultimately solves the problem we are fighting, or is it just throwing good money after bad? If so, at what point do we demand that our government pull the plug on the runaway defense spending?

It might be argued that when you start pulling in over $650 million in government money as a military defense contractor, you can pretty much call the shots (no pun intended). But recently, when ABC News broke a story that Michigan military defense contractor, Trijicon, has been encoding references to certain Biblical verses on the scopes of the rifles used by our US Special Operations Forces, the Marines and the Army for quite some time, the business of fighting our enemies with the power of Jesus on our side took on a whole new meaning.

While many servicemen and women knew that the sights bore the quote references and did nothing to protest the practice, a concerned US military soldier who is also Muslim, obviously felt that the sights created a safety issue for his fellow military and sent his concerns regarding the sights to the US Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a military group that advocates separation of church and state.

Among the reasons given by MRFF for asking Trijicon to stop the encoding practice was the argument that the placement of references to Bible verses was in direct violation of federal laws that demand separation of church and state. However, more importantly, the soldier who reported the encoded sights had a more personal reason. In his e-mail, he stated “everyone is worried that if they were captured in combat that the enemy would use the Bible quotes against them in captivity or some other form of propaganda."

Fortunately, it didn’t take long for this particular debate to hit a brick wall and almost as soon as the firestorm began over the sights, Trijicon issued a statement that they would no longer imprint the verses on the scopes and would provide their military clients with modification kits to remove the existing quotes immediately.

This is good news, but one has to wonder how is it that military personnel on the ground, i.e. infantrymen and women, knew enough about these sights to be concerned for their safety, yet a statement issued by the Pentagon claiming that the Department of Defense applauded the decision by Trijicon to remove the Biblical references that were “clearly inappropriate was issued only after ABC News picked up the story? And, in addition, how is it that CentCom commanding officer, Gen. David Petraeus and other field commanders knew about the sights, had considerable discussions about the sights, yet, only when a Muslim soldier complained to MRFF were the vocal objections heard and acted on by Trijicon?

This is yet another example of the Pentagon being so poorly managed that it cannot accomplish what one indignant US infantryman can when such a blatant disregard for federal law is pushed aside by a Defense Department that appears to lack serious oversight capabilities.