Posted on 09/09/2011 12:57:25 AM PDT by NoLibZone
Beyond the human toll, the financial impact to the nation has been huge. Add up spending on the Iraq and Afghan wars and domestic security, long-term care for veterans and the impact on the deficit, and the total is expected to be staggering.
The U.S. launched a global war on terror after the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the most deadly strikes against domestic targets by foreigners in U.S. history. Beyond the incalculable human cost of nearly 3,000 civilian lives and the subsequent deaths of more than 6,000 soldiers, 2,300 contractors and hundreds of thousands of Afghan and Iraqi soldiers, policemen and civilians, the fateful choices made after the attacks had profound ramifications for the U.S. government and continue to be a major contributor to its fiscal woes.
If you include both the next decade's interest payments on the debt-financed wars and future veterans' benefits, the total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is now estimated to reach more than $5 trillion.
The human and emotional costs of 9/11 can never be measured. What price does one put on the nearly 3,000 innocent lives lost, or the hundreds of thousands of soldiers, contractors and civilians who died or were maimed during a decade of war triggered by the suicidal assaults by 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists, who bore nothing more deadly than box cutters?
Then there are the intangible costs. What monetary value does one put on the erosion of national confidence, the restrictions on civil liberties or the psychic dread of a seemingly endless war on terror? What would you pay for the right to board an airplane in peace?
(Excerpt) Read more at money.msn.com ...
Is defending NYC worth all we have paid?
In light of just how much NYC resents being protected.
Two nukes would have been enough to end wahhabism and the 5th pillar of islam. islam with a small i. we are too politically correct. the nukes would have been much cheaper. Green glass and a skate board foreign policy. When it is smooth enough to skate board across, then the foreign policy is complete.
4 Generation warfare is generally extremely effective, and the only thing that has largely kept the US safe is that it is an island (imagine if the US was the UK, or Russia, surrounded by so many points of ingress ...all the US has to be wary of is Mexico and Canada, and while those are huge points of weakness I doubt they would exchange them with, say, India's position of being adjacent to Pakistan).
So far, most of the terrorist/insurgent actions have been basically linear. Simple (even 9/11 was not that complex ...it merely took advantage of a key set of vulnerabilities). Where the problem lies is if, now or in the future, an actor who is a veritable genius takes control of a sizeable/capable terrorist/insurgent group. Where that person develops a specific set of stratagems geared at exacting maximum damage at minimal cost, basically leveraging of fear and terror. Think for a moment how the DC sniper, a crazed man with his teenage son, spewed a wave of terror across the beltway (and further beyond - at that time I was in Oklahoma, and I remember kinda bobbing and weaving as I filled my car with gas). One man and his silly son. Now imagine, say, ten cells of 3 men each (30 men). Imagine 7 of those cells in 7 large cities (e.g. Dallas, New York, LA, Chicago, etc), and the remaining 3 cells in smaller cities (e.g. Edmond, Oklahoma). Imagine if each cell has a small target ...but a target with HUGE impact. E.g. one hits a kindergarten. Another hits the subway. Another goes to the local Target. Another goes amok in morning traffic. Another strikes at a local football game. You get the drift. Targets of 'every day' use. And 3 cells do that with simple weapons (e.g. AR-15s ...nothing crazy) for a week ...then they let a month pass ....then 4 cells activate ....then a week passes ....then 1 activates ....then 2 months pass ....then the last 2 activate. Extrapolating what happened with the 'DC sniper,' it would appear that such an action would cause fear and panic at a huge scale.
More importantly from a crazy's perspective, it would force a reaction (of fear from the populace, of over-reaction from the government). A movie that tried to capture this well was 'The Siege' (starring Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis), which explored the multi-cell approach, the escalation of fear, and the use of military force within US borders. Would that work - the use of the military? Yes, it probably would create more peace. However, in that very action the goals of the terrorists would be achieved.
The thing to do is to ensure that politicians do not interfere with the brave men and women who do their best to stop the murderers (even if we are 'not seeing results' because chances are the reason we are not is because the bad guys have been stopped, to be always aware of our surroundings, and also to pray. Chances are all three are of equal importance.
we don’t even need to use nukes. Conventional bombs work just fine. What we lack is the courage to use them as they should be used, offensively and non-stop until the enemy is on his knees and completely agreeable to our terms. We are afraid of the world seeing the kind of destruction that we are capable of delivering because they would collectively look at us much differently afterwords. The information age has made it much more difficult for us to wage war effectively.
This is something that people never take into consideration when railing against Bush. 9/11 was a massive immediate blow to our economy, and its aftermath was obviously going to be extended and costly. He really does deserve a lot of credit for maintaining confidence and keeping things moving.
In some ways, perhaps he did almost too well: after a few months, people felt that things were completely back to normal and they were able to forget or ignore that there was a war on simply because it didn’t impact them in any very basic way (the civilian hardship normal for war).
I was thinking mecca and medina. The complete removal of the 5th pillar.
I was thinking the same thing for a while. A group of sniper teams could spread a lot of fear, particularly if they hit targets that could not be covered up.
The US had another terrorist group operating a while back, called the KKK. What finally stopped it was a massive law-enforcement effort, combined with a cultural change that made membership unacceptable. I have a feeling we will have to do this with Islam: make being a Muslim just as unacceptable in American society as being a Klan member.
A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
Over the next decade we will pay at least $800 Billion Dollars in just interest payments on the “War on Terror.”
Thankfully Bernanke is making a McDonald’s Happy Meal cost 8 Billion Dollars, so we’ll be able to pay off the bond investors with a trailer full of freedom fries.
Exactly. IOW, as has been stated before, “Bush was a victim of his own success.” Americans stopped remembering.
The horrific videos weren’t shown anymore. Now, most are back asleep.
(2) It's so easy to convince the gullible (especially those who are bad at math) that defense, instead of entitlements and other welfare payments, is the source of our spiraling debt and weakening economy.
Amen! If that 5 Trillion number is correct then Bin Laden won, we are bankrupting ourselves just as the USSR did.
bump.
I have postulated in other posts that where Bush was misguided was his invasion of Iraq. Were they a pain in the ass for the region, yes. Could they cause us problems, maybe. They were on their heals after the first Gulf war and less a threat than a pest.
By removing them from the equation we took away the only force that countered Iran in the region. The way the domino's have fallen in the region since then leaves Israel surrounded just like 1948.
....and in the news today what are we hearing about, more warnings of terror threats to us.
As Groucho Marx said...Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.”
Ok. Did I say otherwise? Also, that doesn’t take away the fact that he and his sot of a son spread fear at a significant overhang beyond what it should have been. As for the cells - they do not mean to survive. Simply to hit hard with simple weapons (knives for kindergarten, guns for Walmart, grenades for the subway) and then die like the idiotic cowards they are. It would cause panic, and our hope lies in the brave men and women who stand in the gap for our safety, silly politicians staying away from those brave protectors and letting them do their jobs, and prayer. As someone who will be on a flight on the morning of the 10th anniversary of 911, I surely hope and pray all is alright.
The voters of NYC are ungrateful bastards.
And the comments get even more intelligent and Christian as we go.
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