This is a false argument though, that's assuming you have the political will power to spend that money on such things. While it certainly had many factors the biggest one was certainly the housing bubble bursting and Wall Street derivatives, the war wasn't really one of them. That's not just my opinion that's the majority opinion of economists.
I'm just going to pull a quote from that Paul Krugman blog post.
Sure, and then people need to start questioning a political system that spends money based on hearsay or personal preference of people in power as opposed to according to what data suggests it should be spent on, assuming that expenditure on employment and SME's would reap a greater benefit than war - in the long run.
I concur that the housing bubble and financial services sectors had far greater effects, but it would be remiss to ignore that the war was negative. That quote is a little too convenient coming from a conventional economist that probably still believes in concepts like the invisible hand or most other theoretical economic constructs that assume a lack of intervention (and collusion) from various institutions, so I'm not going to take it at face value.
Economists at the moment are enablers of a toxic form of capitalism, and their justifications or explanations for most phenomenon refer to concepts popularized like 100-150 years ago, it's time to move on and admit how markets really function, something a lot of economists and politicians ignore out of hand because it doesn't suit their narrative that capitalism is some kind of benevolent absolute.
Also, jump start the economy three times over? The Iraq War cost about 2 trillion dollars. We had a trillion dollar stimulus to try to counter money lost in the recession. Not sure, you would have gotten much more.
The thing is though (and this is counter intuitive), 1 trillion dollars =/= 1 trillion dollars - it depends on where you spend it. Defense spending is a short term stimulus that doesn't really do anything to create new jobs or spenders in the economy. Defense contractors are all established and operate in a market with obscene barriers to entry. If 1 trillion dollars is spent on SME's though it'll generate new jobs, populating them with people who may have been economically inactive, which will create a cycle of spending on goods and services that has a more stimulating effect than just shoving hundreds of millions of dollars back into the accounts of Lockheed where they probably don't see the "real economy" that every Tom, Dick and Harry are participating in.
The plain truth is American tax dollars are going into very few bank accounts, and are being invested in a financial circle-jerk that keeps ownership and entrepreneurial agency in the hands of a very small number of people. The concentrated ownership of economic means in the USA serves to choke just how quickly growth can expand, and it means that the powers that be can dictate more easily where money goes. An 80/20 split makes much more sense for the status quo than a 10/10/10/10/10/10/10/10/10/10 split does.
t:
That includes people I tend to agree with.
Maybe they can ask him about the great, great service he did to society by "forcing" Obama to produce his birth certificate (which may not be real 
