The bigger question now is. . . . . WHERE DOES ALL THIS MONEY WE SAVING ON LEAVING AFGHANISTAN GO? Infilstructure? Teachers? The War In Afghanistan Cost America $300 Million Per Day For 20 Years, With Big Bills Yet To Come https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktu...s-with-big-bills-yet-to-come/?sh=19db9e727f8d "In the 20 years since September 11, 2001, the United States has spent more than $2 trillion on the war in Afghanistan. That’s $300 million dollars per day, every day, for two decades. Or $50,000 for each of Afghanistan's 40 million people. In baser terms, Uncle Sam has spent more keeping the Taliban at bay than the net worths of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and the 30 richest billionaires in America, combined. Those headline numbers include $800 billion in direct war-fighting costs and $85 billion to train the vanquished Afghan army, which folded in the weeks since the Pentagon’s sudden early July closure of Bagram Air Force Base eliminated the promise of air support against the advancing Taliban. U.S. taxpayers have been giving Afghan soldiers $750 million a year in payroll. All told, Brown University’s Costs of War Project estimates the total spending at $2.26 trillion. And the costs are even greater in terms of lives lost. There have been 2,500 U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan, and nearly 4,000 more U.S. civilian contractors killed. That pales beside the estimated 69,000 Afghan military police, 47,000 civilians killed, plus 51,000 dead opposition fighters. The cost so far to care for 20,000 U.S. casualties has been $300 billion, with another half-trillion or so expected to come. We’ll keep incurring costs long after President Biden's pullout from Afghanistan is complete. Naturally, the United States has financed the Afghan war with borrowed money. Brown University researchers estimate that more than $500 billion in interest has already been paid (included in the $2.26 trillion total sum), and they figure that by 2050 the cost of interest alone on our Afghan war debt could reach $6.5 trillion. That amounts to $20,000 for each and every U.S. citizen. " Rocket River
I think the military braintrust will want to focus our investments on south and central America. I don't want any military action taken there, but I do think it's a good idea to focus diplomatic, and intelligence assets there. I also think they'll want to build more assets in middle east countries like the UAE and Qatar for the US to operate out of as if we never left. I think we already have two huge bases in Qatar, and I suspect that more will be in the works. Trust me... the money will get spent. It'll just get moved down the road a bit.
It's not like we had $300 million a day sitting around so they chose to spend it in Afghanistan. As the article you posted said, this was financed with borrowing. So let's just stop borrowing that money.
lol I am old enough to remember the virtual panic among on the billionaire elite, especially the conservative wing, that when the Berlin Wall would fall and we might have a peace dividend to spend on other people and their children. Correspondingly there were soon dashed hope about that there could be some money freed up for the welfare of the lower 99%. Expect planted stories about how Russia, China etc are developing new weapon systems. They will tout threats in Africa, South of the Border wherever to feed the military industrial complex.
We operate on a functional deficit of half- to a full trillion, and are running triple that for the second year in a row. There's no money to go anywhere: and even if there were, tax cuts, entitlements and just internally reallocating the same defense dollars are the only things everyone agrees on, while paying interest is the only thing not up for debate.
Afghan central bank's $10 billion stash mostly not within reach of Taliban https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/08/18/afghan-10-billion-stash-mostly-not-within-reach-of-taliban.html
We could have all had a new Corolla for that money, but n0o0o I hope we divert our saved money to a more substantive and important war, like the one on Christmas
After today’s incident of another conservative whack job bringing bombs to the White House and threatening our Republic, I want to change my vote. The only real terrorism threats in this country are from the right wing so let’s reallocate those dollars to counter terrorism and beef up local law enforcement and the FBI to be better equipped to identify and arrest these scumbags.
Our military budget is still nearly $800B a year. That's over $2B per day, $80M per hour. There got to be continuing justifications for that type of spending. So, what's next up?
It’s all preventative. If we don’t spend that much China/North Korea/Russia/Space Aliens will immediately come and invade. That’s seriously the responses I get when I questioned this to Conservatives.
