Get Afghanistan Right

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.

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