Despite the public pledge of President Obama to pull out of Afghanistan, we continue to spend huge amounts of money in the war and the Obama Administration has fought to keep U.S. troops in the country. Now an estimate from the Financial Times and independent researchers put the cost of the war at roughly $1 trillion with a commitment of hundreds of billions more in the coming years. There continues to be no serious debate over our ongoing losses both in personnel and money in this war.
Science, educational, and infrastructure programs are being cut while the government pours billions into Iraq and Afghanistan. I have previously written about the waste of billions of dollars by the government without any significant discipline for government officials. We have become accustomed to reports of unimaginable corruption and waste in Afghanistan from bags of money delivered to officials to constructing huge buildings to be immediately torn down to buying aircraft that cannot be used. Much like our useless campaign against poppy production where we continued to spend billions because no one had the courage to end or change the program, the Afghan war just continues on a mix of weak military commitment by the Afghans and an even weaker political commitment at home to the American people.
It boggles the mind to think what we could have done in education or infrastructure or the environment with $1 trillion. My kids are in public school in McLean where the Fairfax board has ordered classed of between 32-35 kids because of the lack of funds for new teachers. However, the country just gushes hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan without even a note of concern.
One of the most interesting facts is that 80 per cent of this spending on the Afghanistan conflict has taken place during the presidency of Barack Obama.
SOURCE: FT
It’s the 30 Years War of the Middle East. Not our war (even though they are using our weapons). The Saudis and Iranians should just let each other have it and dole it out now.
Tom Nash asked …
I’d be interested in the commentators’ views on the appropriate U.S. response…(to a 9/11 style attack)
Only being a bit facetious, I’d suggest 24/7 Ark Light strikes (focused carpet bombing) for the entire region held by ISIS. Even North Vietnamese Gen Giap said they were terrifying, demoralizing, and effective in the places they were used. You must do more than try to defeat the will, you must deprive an enemy of their resources…of all kinds. An ugly and inconvenient truth.
I have run out of patience with terrorists and those who hide or enable them. I live in a 90% Muslim neighborhood community and don’t find many neighbors who disagree with me. I remember vividly the neighbors, all of whom knew of my US Army affiliation, who met me in my yard on the 9/11 afternoon (when I returned home after the federal building was shut down) with tears in their eyes, some sobbing, and saying that what they fled had followed them here…and they were so sorry.
I saw that, found that strange–and yes, figured the guy had just gone off the deep end. That happens.
Tom Nash, if you have that big of a problem with ISIS, take it up with their handlers–the Saudis.
A weird occurrence yesterday in Australia. A self-proclaimed Iranian Muslim “cleric” takes hostages and demands recognition of ISIS. Why weird? Iran is uniformly Shiite Muslim, while ISIS is uniformly Sunni. ISIS has been killing Shiites and Christians. Either this guy was totally bonkers (likely) or some Iranians are getting in bed with Sunni radicals. He’s dead now, I think, so that’s good.
When the three stooges started this and immediately set the war on the wrong course, they had just finished poo pooing all the generals and elder statesmen who advised them how to proceed. Those with the experience of Vietnam behind them told them to take in 450 thousand to 500 thousand troops and seal the country immediately. Then the advise was to begin as soon as possible the rebuilding of the infrastructure to get the Afgans going. There were a lot of intelligent suggestions.
Instead the three stooges arrogantly went in with insufficient troops, sat on their thumbs, handed over billions that disappeared to Switzerland, and allowed the thugs to slip out. The first eight months of the war was chaos. The stooges ignored all the advice on having a game plan and and exit strategy.
Yes, Obama has not solved the problem but he was given a totally ffkkdd up situation to deal with. The the stooges went and did an even bigger screw up in Iraq. Nope, nobody came out waving the American flags they had been hiding under their beds. Again the stooges sat around for over half a year and waited for chaos before they did anything. Oh yeah, they totally took apart the security structure of Iraq.
Iraq and Afghanistan were started without any competence whatsoever. Iraq was not even necessary. Obama doesn’t seem to have a magic solution other than herding the Afghanis along and helping Iraq with drones etc.
We, both the three stooges and Obama are responsible. However, this is a great opportunity to develop surgical attack and gtfo strategies. The new face of war is drones, special forces, cruise missiles, and bin laden operations.
I got to get over there and get a piece of that shizzle.
Maybe we could ask Karzai for a loan.
I’ll throw this out there as a (hopefully) hypothetical situation: A few years from now, ISIS, having consolidated its hold on large portions of Iraq and Syria, launches/sponsors a 9/11-type attack (or worse) on a major American city.
I’d be interested in the commentators’ views on the appropriate U.S. response, weighing potential costs and likelihood of a protracted U.S. involvement in directly attacking on the Iraq/Syria “headquarters” of ISIS.
Karen, I think if you re-read your post, it will become evident to you that what is going on now has little or nothing to do with national security. Your post makes its own case–the absurdities your point out speak for themselves. People need to think about this.
Gary T–very well written up there at 11:17. I think of that all the time. I frequently think of those “dollars” in the form of “work and effort.” When you think of it in those terms, it is especially painful. Also, I do believe the Chinese will eventually own us. They make no effort to hide that, yet most folks–even on this blog–fear terrorism as some sort of threat to our ultimate demise. I also think Paul has a good point, it really does appear our government works in the “a billion here, and a billion there” mode.
There are those who will eventually show up here who feel that cost is not to be a consideration in the ongoing foreign policy in South Asia and the Middle East, and that thinking is very unfortunate as well.
Yes, it seems the vicious and divisive nature of Patriot’s comments are to be visible as to be referenced later. That would be very unfortunate for this blog.
When fiscal conservatives try to fight increasing national debt, what happens?
Although, why do we care about the cost of the War in Afghanistan?
Hasn’t Obama and his cronies been telling us the debt doesn’t really matter? We can owe more and more and more every year and nothing bad will ever happen? The debt is far higher now than when Obama bemoaned it as irresponsible when he was a junior senator. And yet, whenever we fiscal conservatives bring up the spiraling debt, don’t Liberals post partisan articles that debt doesn’t matter?
Nation building does not work.
The US is unique in which when it goes to war, it refuses to lay claim to the loser’s resources to recoup its losses. Oh, no. Instead, we build roads, and bridges, and big sturdy buildings for Al Qaeda to use when we withdraw. In Kuwait, we put their oil on the market where we had to compete with the rest of the world to buy the oil that Saddam Hussein set on fire and tried to destroy. We invest vast sums of treasure to make the losing country come out ahead of when they started. That’ll teach them. If they bomb us they’ll get the best infrastructure in the ME.
Sorry, but when terrorists kill thousands of us in an attack against the Western world, they should foot the bill for our having to teach them that attacking the US is detrimental.
The problem with the War in Afghanistan is that I cannot perceive any clearly defined goals. I wish we had kept the goal to wiping out Al Qaeda. You can’t destroy all terrorism. Any suicidal angry man or woman with a vehicle, or a knife, or some fertilizer, can become a terrorist. But identify an organization with key people, and infrastructure, and remove it from the face of the earth.
We have invested so much money in countries that still despise us, while taking our money and our food at the same time.
Democracy has to come from within. It cannot be created from the outside. We can assist people fighting for Democracy and freedom, as France came (belatedly) to our aid in the Revolution. True, it was because the French and English kings were also at war, but it was timely. But we cannot impose Democracy on a culture that does not clamor for it. For example, interviews with Iraqi soldiers have revealed that if faced with ISIS, many would just throw down their weapons and run away.
Karen, The US not only did very successful nation building, we did it for a whole continent plus Japan after WWII. It depends on who is in charge of the government. It was Gen.Marshall, FDR and Truman who did that.
randyjet – FDR was dead for the nation building. He allowed the Mafia back into Sicily if that is any help.
Do Glover:
Can’t you see, “patriot” is just throwing stuff at the wall?
However much you love it, it is still crap.
Truth Coming Out About Pathological Liar Obama
Obama is not the President of the United States, he never was
Everything Obama and his criminal administration have done / signed is ILLEGAL, NULL and VOID
1.) The Birth Certificate Obama supplied after years of hiding it at great legal cost (millions), is officially determined to be a poor amateur forgery.
2.) The Draft Card Obama has released is also a poor amateur forgery. It was forged from a 2008 postal stamp to fake a 1980 stamp.
3.) According to the Federal Government, Obama’s Social Security number is a fake.
4.) Obama used that same Fake Social Security number on his taxes and for the Selective Service database.
5.) As Sheriff Arpaio (AZ) has said, anyone else would be arrested for using forged documents in this case, but Obama has not.
6.) Almost all news companies in America are censoring this evidence from the American people.
http://www.birtherreport.com/2014/10/shock-report-well-known-attorney.html
Patriot-
While your analysis may be accurate, some of the regular posters here tend to attack any viewpoint that doesn’t mirror their own. Just ignore them.
How Opium is Keeping U.S. in Afghanistan: CIA’s Shady History of Drug Trafficking
http://www.mediaroots.org/opium-what-afghanistan-is-really-about
Olly, LOL! Ignoring and only making indirect snide comments about trolls like this is the best way to deal w/ them.
I think we are witness to the side-effects of anal rehydration.
U.S. Leaders Aid and Abet Israeli War Crimes, Genocide & Crimes against Humanity
“By sending vast amounts of military aid to Israel, members of the US Congress, President George W. Bush, President Barack Obama and
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel have aided and abetted the commission of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity by Israeli officials and
commanders in Gaza. An individual can be convicted of a war crime, genocide or a crime against humanity in the International Criminal Court (ICC)
if he or she “aids, abets or otherwise assists” in the commission or attempted commission of the crime, “including providing the means for its commission.”
“Both Israeli and US leaders must be criminally prosecuted for committing and aiding and abetting these crimes.”
http://jurist.org/forum/2014/08/marjorie-cohn-israel-crimes.php