> but could we stop using "treasure" outside the context of forgetful pirates and sunken ships and such? When talking about Iraq and Afghanistan it's just an overly fancy way to say "money".
No, its an accurate way to say "treasure" -- or, if you have some need to avoid pirate-related associations in your head, "wealth". Money is, of course, one form that treasure takes, and also money values are used for "keeping score" of all forms of treasure, but what is actually at issue is the treasure--wealth, material assets of all kinds--expended, not just money (sure, those assets were generally purchased for money at some time in the past, but often that was before the war started and not specific to it -- what was consumed by the war was the concrete assets, not the money.)
I explicitly stated that as an alternative, so I'm not sure why you would ask that in response.
> I wouldn't call a tank "treasure".
Since treasure refers to a collection of valuable objects, and a tank, as such, is generally a valuable object, that's true -- one wouldn't usually refer to a tank (or a gold coin, etc.) as "treasure", though one might validly refer to a collection of things that included, among other things, one or more tanks that way.
Indeed.
> but could we stop using "treasure" outside the context of forgetful pirates and sunken ships and such? When talking about Iraq and Afghanistan it's just an overly fancy way to say "money".
No, its an accurate way to say "treasure" -- or, if you have some need to avoid pirate-related associations in your head, "wealth". Money is, of course, one form that treasure takes, and also money values are used for "keeping score" of all forms of treasure, but what is actually at issue is the treasure--wealth, material assets of all kinds--expended, not just money (sure, those assets were generally purchased for money at some time in the past, but often that was before the war started and not specific to it -- what was consumed by the war was the concrete assets, not the money.)