Blood and Treasure and Policy Murder

 

Title notwithstanding, I’m not a fan of the expression “blood and treasure.” It strikes me as coarse and archaic and coldly calculating about matters of life and death. It evokes a barbaric age that should remain forever in our past. Sadly, though, it’s not. I first recall hearing “blood and treasure” spoken of within the context of the Iraq War and the quagmire that so many foresaw it would become. Once the adrenaline rush of the first bombardment and invasion wore off, we began to realize what a long slog the ground war was going to be. The loss of life and exorbitant monetary cost began to become apparent. It took years, but we eventually realized that that war wasn’t worth the blood and treasure it took to fight it, not that any are.

In an earlier post, I recalled some of my earlier antiwar activism. I mentioned attending protests in St. Louis, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. in a failed collective attempt to try to stop the Iraq War. While some may have forgotten and some others perhaps never knew, many of you will recall that the Iraq war was begun on the basis of either flawed or forged “intelligence” that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and that they posed an imminent threat. In fact, no such physical evidence was ever found.

The U.S. Capital behind crime scene tape

 

That war did eventually end, of course, but not before we’d paid an exorbitant price in “blood and treasure.” Sadly, what our letters to politicians and the editors of newspapers couldn’t do, and what our protests and demonstrations couldn’t accomplish, the toll of war achieved. The bodies coming home, hidden from view though they were, and the financial toll, off-budget though it was, finally proved too much for our country to stomach. In other words, the karma of our actions as a nation had to come to full fruition before we could recognize we’d done the wrong thing.

It was during the time of those antiwar protests that I first heard the story (attributed to commentary on the Dhammapada) of how the Buddha tried three times to stop a war from occurring only to realize that it was going to happen regardless. As the story goes, his own Sakya clan perpetrated a humiliating ruse on a stronger kingdom in order to avoid sending a royal woman off to be married to its king. The karma of this act, and others attributed to the Sakya clan, required some time to percolate. Eventually, though, an army was assembled to avenge these actions. On the first three occasions, the Buddha was able to place himself between the avenging king and the clan of his birth, there to rely on his earned respect as a teacher and holy man to keep the army from advancing. By the fourth advance, however, the Buddha recognized that the karma set in motion by the actions of his clan was simply too strong for them to avoid retribution. The Sakya clan was mercilessly slaughtered. The karma they had wrought had come to full fruition.

A different kind of war has been joined here in the United States. Families are being torn apart by traumatic deportations that are causing deep wounds that will never heal. People will die because lifesaving healthcare has been curtailed without warning by the indiscriminate slashing of foreign aid programs. People are being kicked off their healthcare coverage and food assistance.

We’ve found new ways to waste “blood and treasure.” Yes, the destruction of life caused by these policies is just as real as when blood is spilled with bullets, bombs, and blades. And if the only gain we can point to is that tax cuts have been given to billionaires, then treasure has been lost as well, stolen from the general populace for the enrichment of an isolated few.

Some refer to what we’re doing right now as policy murder. When women die as a result of laws that prohibit them from receiving appropriate reproductive healthcare, then policy murder has been perpetrated. When people are stripped of their health insurance and are left to die because they must then choose food over life-saving medicine, then policy murder has been perpetrated. When transgender youth are prohibited by law from receiving gender-affirming treatment and end up dying of suicidal despair, then policy murder has been perpetrated. When funding for health research is slashed and people die needlessly of otherwise preventable disease, then policy murder has been perpetrated.

Each of these policy murders, of course, has an economic cost. Families are impoverished. Communities are impoverished. The country is impoverished. But the “souls” of those who remain are impoverished as well by unnecessary grief and disillusionment. And the “souls” of those who propose, advocate for, campaign for, vote for, and sign into law these policies that murder are impoverished as well by the barbarism of their own actions. And what of the souls of all who cheer on these policy murders out of a spirit of cruelty? It’s difficult to comprehend.

The karma set in motion by these actions is simply too strong for us to avoid retribution. The karma we have wrought will come to full fruition, and it will not be something to celebrate. The only hopeful thing I can say at the moment is that, just as our loss of “blood and treasure” eventually urged us to withdraw from the Iraq War, the mounting loss of “blood and treasure” because of these policy murders will either urge us toward awakening or bring this democratic experiment to an end.

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This post is in the Power, Practice, and Peace series.

Find a running list of all posts in this series by clicking here

 

Images

U.S. Capitol, West Side by Martin Falbisoner via:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_Capitol_west_side.JPG

Crime scene “tape” added by the author. 

 

Copyright 2025 by Mark Robert Frank