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I Have A Couple of Questions
by James Glaser August 30, 2010 
How much does it cost us to kill somebody in Afghanistan or Iraq, and how much does it cost them to kill one of our troops? I know we have spent over a trillion dollars on these two wars by now. Well, that isn't exactly true, yes, we have spent that money, but actually, we borrowed it. So the cost with interest over the next 30 years will more than double what we have to pay, and then there are the life long medical bills for the million plus veterans who have fought for us. In truth we are talking several trillions of dollars for these two wars so far, and we can't even see an end in sight. Now the guys who are killing our troops don't have nearly as many costs as we do. They don't have to travel half way around the world to get there because they are fighting at home. They don't have the military costs we do because they are not a real army or actual organized force. Mostly they have AK 47 assault rifles that you can buy for a few hundred bucks. They don't have planes, helicopters, tanks, or the night vision goggles we do. They don't set up bases with swimming pools and restaurants. They don't have VA Hospitals. They get maimed, and they stay maimed. They don't even rotate tours of combat for their fighters. They are in it for the long hall, year in and year out. Think of this, Boot Camp is a organized army thing. Their younger fighters start out with on-the-job training, and so by now, everybody that is willing to fight us is trained, so they don't have those costs either. I don't know what the real costs are, but I believe it is costing us about $100 million for each enemy we are killing. I'm not talking innocent civilians who we have killed by the thousands, rather I am talking about real enemies who are trying to kill our troops. So for conversation sake, I feel it is more than safe to say our killing of a Taliban or an Al-Qaeda fighter is running over $10 million each. Their cost to kill an American Soldier or Marine is about $10 dollars each. Remember, a lot of the weapons our enemies use against us were supplied by us in the past. So, I guess I have a third question. With a $1 million to $1 dollar cost difference, who do you think will last longer in this war, us or them? |
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