Treasure?

What is up with commentators and the more respectable newscasters (NPR, and, I think I've even heard Amy Goodman) using the term "treasure" when talking about war. It's bizarre, really. No, wait, I find it really disrespectful of the people who are actually killing and getting killed that people "above the fray" talk about the war in such euphemistic terms.

"Blood and treasure."

Like it's some kind of game.

It totally obscures the true nature of the war by invoking a knights and dragons scenario.

Why not talk about the fact that the war is doing irreparable harm to actual human beings on both sides of the conflict? Why not talk about the fact that war costs actual dollars, that American tax money is being expended in the pursuit of death and destruction?

This is such a sanitized war. It reminds me of how Americans must have perceived, say, the Spanish-American, or Mexican-American War. Except, now, the methods of sanitization are more sophisticated and the modes of communication give us the illusion of reality.

Granted, I don't watch television, so my news is coming via radio and magazine (Time), but the most powerful and real-seeming account of the current war I've come across is in book form: Dexter Filkins, The Forever War. If I recall correctly, he doesn't use the words Blood or Treasure (well, maybe blood, but certainly not in the capital-B sense of the word, and definitely not treasure, regardless of capitalization) once. But, then again, he actually went to Iraq and Afghanistan and spent time getting shot at and talking to all sorts of people. The war is a war to him, and not merely an abstraction where the US expends Blood and Treasure in the pursuit of Democracy, or Peace, or an End to Terrorism, but never has to face the fact that real human beings are being killed and maimed and scarred using real weapons that we, American taxpayers, using our collective economic strength, are paying for. (Remind me again why we can afford this war, but can't afford healthcare, education, better infrastructure, fighting climate change, etc.?)

A brief note on the economics of death in the war: In reality, the US is involved in both sides of the war. Clearly, American troops are paid and supplied using American tax money. But the insurgency in Iraq/Afghanistan is also supported by the US. Consider - American-made (buy USA!) weapons are finding their way into the hands of the insurgents. Also, because of the bribes that contractors (who receive their money from the US gov't) must pay in order to build infrastructure and basically operate in these countries, the insurgents are being paid by US dollars.