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Saturday, June 04, 2011

Getting Their Wish

For years I warned those who complained the war in Iraq was too expensive and believed it distracted us from Afghanistan would regret getting what they want. Cost-wise, supplying a soldier in Afghanistan is far more expensive than in Iraq. So focusing on Afghanistan instead of Iraq would logically cost more money.

Now we are seeing that basic fact come true and the usual suspects now don't want to spend money in Afghanistan:

The U.S. military is on track to spend $113 billion on its operations in Afghanistan this fiscal year, and it is seeking $107 billion for the next. To many of the president’s civilian advisers, that price is too high, given a wide federal budget gap that will require further cuts to domestic programs and increased deficit spending. ...

Military and civilian officials agree that the cost of the Afghan mission is staggering. The amount per deployed service member in Afghanistan, which the administration estimates at $1 million per year, is significantly higher than it was in Iraq because fuel and other supplies must be trucked into the landlocked nation, often through circuitous routes. Bases, meanwhile, have to be built from scratch.

It was always predictable that these people would protest the only war they have to be against.

Of course, they could probably start insisting that Afghanistan is distracting us from winning in Libya.