Get Afghanistan Right

Archive for the ‘Interesting Stories’ Category

The War in Afghanistan has cost U.S. Tax payers $172 billion to date, with a request for roughly $13.4 billion to fund the war through the remainder of Fiscal year 2009 expected in March or April. This brings the total cost through FY 2009 to $185.1 billion.

This figures reflect the budgetary cost alone.  Projected costs over the long term are likely to total more than half a trillion dollars when future occupation and veteran’s benefits are taken into account.  Interest payments could add another $200 billion to that figure.1 All told, this is more than the size of the recent bailout of Wall Street, and rivals the historic economic stimulus bill just passed by Congress.

Countries outside the United States have spent additional billions on the War in Afghanistan, with the UK contributing roughly £4.5billion2 and the cost to Canada totaling $7.7 billion to $10.5 billion in Canadian dollars through 2008.3

Consider that the US spends a mere $100 million per year, or less than one percent of the yearly cost of the Afghanistan war, to assist refu
Iraq War Costs

$656.1 Billion in budgetary costs so far

with another $53.6 expected by the end of FY 2009.

At least $2 trillion in future costs including Veteran’s benefits

Over 4200 US deaths

Hundreds of Thousands of Civilian Iraqi Deaths.

Will Afghanistan be the Next Iraq?

gees and returnees from Afghanistan through the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM).4

Also consider that the cost of building a new school with twelve classrooms, one office, and a store in Kabul, Afghanistan, is roughly $128,000 in US dollars.  [That's 1.4 billion schools]. The cost of one set of science lab equipment is a mere $1500, and for $4000, 100 students can have chairs and desks.5

[An xx bed orthopedic hospital can be constructed and operated for $ per year.  The operating cost of the Malalai Clinic, which serves Afghan refugees, is $  per year.]

The War in Afghanistan has cost U.S. Tax payers $185.1 billion through FY 2009, and the projected costs are likely to total more than half a trillion dollars when future occupation and veteran’s benefits are taken into account.  This does not include interest on that money.  The following table shows the cost to each state of the budgetary costs to date, the number of goods and services that could have been provided with that money, and the number of US soldiers’ lives lost.

*Total number of soldiers killed as part of Operation Enduring Freedom from March 19, 2001, through February 7, 2009.  http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/castop.htm  accessed February 16, 2009. Total includes 16 soldiers from US Territories.

posted at Newshoggers

By Fester:

War is politics by other means.  And Politics is economics by other means.

Two tautologies, where the first is stronger then the second, but useful thoughts as people fight to achieve certain goals, and most goals have substitutes that are available.  Cash, prestige, recognition are often viable substitutes.  The combination of untraceable cash, a recognition of Anbari elite tribal power structures and influence and a dramatic reduction in hostilities underlies the short term success of the Anbar Awakening movement.  The elites were willing to be bought out and bring their followers with them.

The same lesson could be applied in Afghanistan as some Taliban elements are apparantely willing to be bought out, or at least leased at attractive rates.

Via the Telegraph:

Diplomats said they believed officials had “bought” a temporary truce until next month’s presidential election for £20,000.

One senior Western diplomat said he feared it was part of a plot to manipulate the vote in Badghis province in north-west Afghanistan.

20,000 pounds is roughly $40,000.  This bribe will buy the Kabul government a month of quiet in a single district.  The marginal US soldier costs the US government about $100,000 per year, or roughly 2.5 months of peace in the district at the going rate.  Roughly 5 US soldiers marginal costs could fund the pay-offs and comparative peace in this district per year.

The US government is expanding the Army by 22,000 soldiers to partially deal with the higher op-tempo of surging to Afghanistan while reconstituting from the Iraq withdrawal.  That will cost roughly 4,000 local truce buy-outs per year if the US adapts minimal goals.  Bribery and basic goals work.