Posted on 12/27/2007 7:27:57 PM PST by canuck_conservative
The latest estimate of the growing costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worldwide battle against terrorism -- nearly $15 billion a month -- came last week from one of the Senate's leading proponents of a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq. "This cost of this war is approaching $15 billion a month, with the Army spending $4.2 billion of that every month," Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska), the ranking Republican on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, said in a little-noticed floor speech Dec. 18. His remarks came in support of adding $70 billion to the omnibus fiscal 2008 spending legislation to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, as well as counterterrorism activities, for the six months from Oct. 1, 2007, through March 31 of next year. While most of the public focus has been on the political fight over troop levels, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported this month that the Bush administration's request for the 2008 fiscal year of $189.3 billion for Defense Department operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and worldwide counterterrorism activities was 20 percent higher than for fiscal 2007 and 60 percent higher than for fiscal 2006. Pentagon spokesmen would not comment last week on Stevens's figure but said their latest estimate for monthly spending for Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terrorism was $11.7 billion as of Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2007.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
;) CC has been exposed for his/her agenda.
And theater renovations.
And to move sunken ships.
(1) I don’t have a strategy for micro-managing the hunt for OBL, and that wasn’t the point of the post, just wanted to make people aware of the money amounts involved.
(2) THIS is the debate I want to see - how effective is the WOT? What yardsticks do you use to measure it? Certainly the failure to get OBL after all that time/money raises questions.
(3) the US Military creates world wealth? Don’t know about that one. Bit hypothetical anyway, isn’t it?
Why you ‘rassling me?
Ask the Administration that wants to leave the southern border wide open.
I think the WOT is being consistently debated, both inside and outside the government. Certainly it should be. I cannot fathom how it could be fought ‘on the cheap’.
Economic surpluses are only generated when accompanied by stability, ie the expectation that the future is somewhat predictable. The biggest factor enforcing that stability on the planet today is the US Military.
The previous statement is a gross simplification of the hows and whys of world economic activity, but nonetheless the US and its accompanying military are the foremost influences on the vibrancy of the current economic regime.
As you can see in the post above, 180 Billion is chicken feed compared to just the "entitlements" in the US budget. It's also only about 1/4 of the total DoD budget, including the special war funding.
Of course Congress only appropriated about $70 B so far this fiscal year, not $180B
The DoD and the WoT budgets are not the problem.
We have a saying down here in the States: "Millions for defense, but not a penny for tribute."
Don't you worry your head about how much it costs for us to kill the most evil scum on the planet, we're quite willing to pay for it.
I would choose the former. Ten grand won't do me any good if I'm dead, or the economy is shot because Chicago got nuked.
Well good. It appears the price of surrender for you is about ten grand. I wonder how much of it you'll get to keep after paying jizyah.
Got a cite for that? I would love to have that available for the Paul threads...like shooting crazy fish in a barrel.
Have you stopped beating your wife yet?
That's actually not a question I can answer fairly, since the list of foreign countries I'd take my family to on vacation is very, very short and probably wouldn't include Iraq if there was no violence. For example, my family could walk the streets safely in Saudi Arabia, but I'm not taking them there.
That said, the antiwar crowd gets proved wrong over and over again in regards to the surge, and they keep moving the goal. Once the streets are 100% safe, you'll come up with some other goal we haven't hit. Meanwhile, most of Iraq is safer than parts of Washington DC.
And so we have the constantly recycled tripe from anti-war "conservatives." It doesn't matter how viciously we have dismantled Al Qaida's networks, how many of them we have killed or captured, how many plots we've broken up, how many lives we've saved, how many of their allies we've cowed, hung or blasted, how many thousands of days have passed without an attack on U.S. soil. No, all that matters is immigration, and for some reason, if you support the war they think they get to assume you're OK with a porous border.
BTW, check out the question in post 57. You might as well respond to out while you’re worrying about how much money it takes to kill terrorists.
BTW, check out the question in post 57. You might as well respond to it while you’re worrying about how much money it takes to kill terrorists.
Not sure what one has to do with the other.
By that standard, we should have already concluded the Iraq War since it has been 4 years already.
I guess there are some people who think that it is impossible for the United States to go bankrupt.
Something the terrorists would love to see happen!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.