As of September, 2009, the Taliban and affiliated warlords and insurgents dominate 80% of the countryside in Afghanistan, as indicated on the map above.
The cost of sending ONE soldier to Afghanistan for one year is $1,000,000 according to estimates used by the White House. The much-debated 40,000-troop escalation would add $40 BILLION per year to the cost of the war, which was already budgeted for $144 billion in Fiscal 2009, on top of the approximately $250 billion already spent (and note that these figures do not include the cost of the war in Iraq). According to this story at The Daily Beast, $40 billion a year would pay for about half of the cost of the health care reform bill being debated in Congress, or could be used to double the Department of Homeland Security’s annual budget.
Not considered in these calculations is the enormous cost incurred through fuel consumption. The per capita consumption of fuel in Afghanistan is 22 gallons PER DAY. And, according to that linked article, the U.S. Navy says the cost per gallon for that fuel is somewhere between $300 and $400, largely due to the expense of transporting the fuel to the battle theater. Based on those figures, the cost of fuel for 40,000 troops would be a staggering $112 billion per year.
Meanwhile, back in this country, a study conducted by researchers at Harvard concluded that 2,266 military veterans died last year due to lack of heath care, compared to 115 troops killed in-theater. Approximately 1.5 million veterans lack any sort of health care coverage, private or VA-provided.
Here’s a recent video essay from Bill Moyers, who considers the troop increase and the absurdity of this war, not just in terms of the billions of dollars being wasted, but also in the futility of the mission itself.
Dear Harvey, Pete, Barry, Kevin, and every other weathermonkey on Boston-area TV: Enough is enough. The fucking blizzard was THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO. It’s time to stop trotting out the same blurry videotape of cars stuck on Rt. 128 that is older than some of the people who are actually on your broadcast, [...]
It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT.
Since you cannot click a [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and [...]
Thanks to Shelley for alerting me that last night’s edition of the local TV newsmagzine “Chronicle” featured Harvard Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein, whom I blogged about recently in conjunction with the various atheist billboard campaigns around the country. I was busy helping Charlotte do her homework, so I didn’t watch the show, but WCVB’s [...]
